Dragon Hill, Sta. Cruz Island

It was eight o’clock in the morning and we started our exploration with a Zodiac ride through the inside of the very narrow passages of Venice Islets. We were astonished with the perfect daylight for our groups of photographers and by the beauty of this place. As we spotted blue-footed boobies, brown pelicans, an amazing great blue heron was discovered eating a yellow tail damselfish. We went very far into the water channels and enjoyed magnificent scenery.

Right after disembarking from the Zodiac, we decided to go snorkeling to Guy Fawk islet; before we even got there, we encountered an animal, a devil’s manta ray which jumped out of the water. Already in the place of our first animal was a small Galápagos shark, soon two more sharks appeared, but in this case they were white-tipped reef sharks. Around the islet corner we encountered a beautiful sea turtle which had a sea snail on its carapace. The wall was spectacular; sea lions came for a moment, and lots of tropical fish.

In the afternoon as soon as we set foot on the island, we went on a search for land iguanas. We went walking through an incense-family tree forest, and some Darwin finches and mockingbirds showed up to greet the visitors. Sunlight was absolutely perfect and our photography group took wonderful shots of this site. As we returned, our stupendous day closed with a magnificent sunset.