Santiago
We had terrific snorkeling along the Coast of Santiago Island with all sorts of marine life, from sea turtles to marine iguanas feeding underwater, Galapagos penguins swimming with us and many white tip reef sharks. The ocean was certainly showing us it wonders. We also had a Zodiac ride along the young lava fields from 1897 with some shore birds like lava herons fishing along the coast. A young Galapagos hawk was also seen sitting on a piece of driftwood.
After lunch we had a dry landing at Sullivan Bay to explore and learn about geology and how new areas get successfully established by species in the enchanted archipelago. We saw cones and volcanoes of all kinds, different colors and different shapes on the lava flows. It was like walking on the moon with many different explanations about our surroundings.
What I found mostly fascinating by the Galapagos Islands was the fact that one can travel in time from island to island and get to experience different stages of erosion and ecosystems just being created over the process of succession.
Today we certainly did travel in time from the morning to the afternoon, with plenty of marine life from the clear waters of Chinese Hat to the area with the most rusty and barren young lava basaltic fields known as an open book to geology on Sullivan Bay, to Santiago Island, an island with many geological sites where Darwin spent nine days on land during his visit to the Galapagos.
