Dragon Hill & Chinese Hat
We left civilization behind us and navigated to the northern side of Santa Cruz Island; while at the same island as the day before we saw completely different scenery. Our destination was Dragon Hill. This area was named after finding some of the last land iguanas on the archipelago. The Galápagos National Park, together with the Charles Darwin Research Station, has been working on breeding programs in order to repopulate areas like Dragon Hill. At the same time we need to continue working on eradication programs of introduced animals in situ. After some walking we started finding them: under a bush, behind the cactus, inside their holes… they were all around the area, when they are usually hard to be seen!!! Dragon Hill is a great place for finding other animals as well: Finches, mockingbirds, lava lizards, and marine iguanas joined us in our search for the last dragons on the islands.
Coming back after that very hot walk we were ready for our water activities. Some of us took our Zodiacs for deep water snorkeling at Guy Fawkes Islets. Some others stayed on the ship to jump from our platform.
The afternoon was all around a little islet next to Santiago Island, this parasitic cone has the particularity of looking just like a Chinese hat. There is a beautiful white beach at the base of the hat where some of our guests spent the afternoon. Separated from Santiago Island by a channel, Chinese Hat offered us a calm and nice area for kayaking and snorkeling as well. Probably one of the best snorkeling outings as we could swim with penguins, see blue-footed bobbies diving in front of us, dive to find white-tipped reef sharks under the rocks, and I have to mention there were thousands of colorful fish schooling around us.
After so many activities we went back to the National Geographic Polaris, we were ready for our cocktail and briefing, and even more than ready for our BBQ dinner!
We left civilization behind us and navigated to the northern side of Santa Cruz Island; while at the same island as the day before we saw completely different scenery. Our destination was Dragon Hill. This area was named after finding some of the last land iguanas on the archipelago. The Galápagos National Park, together with the Charles Darwin Research Station, has been working on breeding programs in order to repopulate areas like Dragon Hill. At the same time we need to continue working on eradication programs of introduced animals in situ. After some walking we started finding them: under a bush, behind the cactus, inside their holes… they were all around the area, when they are usually hard to be seen!!! Dragon Hill is a great place for finding other animals as well: Finches, mockingbirds, lava lizards, and marine iguanas joined us in our search for the last dragons on the islands.
Coming back after that very hot walk we were ready for our water activities. Some of us took our Zodiacs for deep water snorkeling at Guy Fawkes Islets. Some others stayed on the ship to jump from our platform.
The afternoon was all around a little islet next to Santiago Island, this parasitic cone has the particularity of looking just like a Chinese hat. There is a beautiful white beach at the base of the hat where some of our guests spent the afternoon. Separated from Santiago Island by a channel, Chinese Hat offered us a calm and nice area for kayaking and snorkeling as well. Probably one of the best snorkeling outings as we could swim with penguins, see blue-footed bobbies diving in front of us, dive to find white-tipped reef sharks under the rocks, and I have to mention there were thousands of colorful fish schooling around us.
After so many activities we went back to the National Geographic Polaris, we were ready for our cocktail and briefing, and even more than ready for our BBQ dinner!
