As we traveled south we had Fernandina Island on the west and Isabela Island on the east and our destination is the foot of Alcedo Volcano. This island is the largest in the Galápagos. It is larger than the rest of the islands put together! The morning program happened here in the dry forest among the Galapagos land iguanas.
We had a wet landing at Urbina Bay on a black, sandy beach. This cold sea of the western Galapagos is home to thousands of Pacific green sea turtles and this little beach is one of their main nesting sites. The breeding season is long gone, but we see turtles everywhere! Some of these turtles spend their lives foraging in these nutrient rich waters on this side of the Galápagos. Others make long journeys to South America, Central America, and as far north as Mexico.
Moments after we landed we had our first sightings, the world famous Giant tortoise and flocks of Darwin finches feeding off grass seeds and others feeding off the berries from the Cordia bushes. The foot of Volcán Alcedo is home to a large colony of land iguanas. We spotted 8 iguanas- 7 males and 1 female basking in the sun close to the trail. Some of them were a little lazy and they were still resting inside burrows.
Soon after, we offered water activates such as swimming at the beach or jumping from the National Geographic Islander. We followed this fun with lunch and then we started to sail.
Upon return we moved to a different location. It has an amazing scenic view of volcanoes and the dry Paleo Santo forest. This place is called Tagus Cove after the HMS Tagus. High cliffs with layers of volcanic ash are the result of many volcanic eruptions which make up this amazing landscape. Here we celebrated our long gone sailors, buccaneers, whalers and even pirates. Here some of us went kayaking, paddle boarding, and there was also an opportunity to explore this location with snorkeling gear. As we explored we spotted sea turtles, flightless cormorants, great blue herons and many Galapagos penguins swimming among snorkelers.
This place is very hard to describe and our guests are now reaching the peak of our expedition. We are now headed to our next destination and feel very fortunate for what we’ve already experienced.
