A beautiful sunny morning welcomed us to San Cristobal, one of the oldest islands of the archipelago, with an estimated age of over 2 million years. The name of our visitor site is Pitt Point, located at the northeastern point of the island.
This morning found us ready to look for the third species of booby that occurs in the Galapagos—the red footed booby. We started the day with a short Zodiac ride along the coastal area, where we saw different species of seabirds resting, nesting, and flying overhead, among them swallow-tailed gulls, blue-footed boobies, frigatebirds, Nazca boobies and tropicbirds. We landed at an olivine sandy beach greenish and changed into our shoes to start a hike that took us to the area where the red-footed boobies are nesting. Most of them are in the juvenile stage and we were fortunate to have some of them quite close, allowing us to observe and take pictures. On the way back, we also had the opportunity to observe the nesting of the blue-footed boobies, right in the middle of our trail! We finished our hike at the same landing beach, where everybody found a way to enjoy some beach time. Some of the kids had fun playing with the sand, while other guests went swimming from the beach or went snorkeling with sea lions. The visibility was not at its best, but the water temperature was considerably higher than normal average at this time of the year(77 F).
In the afternoon, the National Geographic Endeavour moved to one of my favorite places in the planet, Kicker Rock, an impressive geological formation that comes out from the water in the central west side of San Cristobal. This rock is also well known as “Leon Dormido” and it is the remains of an old tuff cone that now congregates an amazing variety of creatures along its underwater walls, which were the focus of our snorkeling exploration. Our deep water snorkeler encountered sharks, turtles, sea lions, huge schools of creole fish and bonitos. Even with less than optimal visibility, we were able to see a lot and enjoy the incredible colors and wildlife at the underwater walls of Kicker Rock.
After this full afternoon, we met at the foredeck of the National Geographic Endeavour to enjoy the beautiful views as we circumnavigate Kicker Rock at sunset. There were happy faces all around as we enjoyed some wine and took lots of pictures of the colors of the sunset, saying goodbye Galapagos style.
