Early this morning before breakfast we arrived at Espumilla Bay in Santiago Island. It was warm, but we knew that this would be a rewarding visit, so we were ready to go for the wet landing at 7:00 in the morning. As we walked higher in elevation we viewed a beautiful landscape and saw a different trail toward a vivid green forest. The National Geographic Islander was anchored nearly a mile and a half away from us.
There is an incredibly tall incense tree forest here, something hard to find on the other islands, and as we walked we had a great opportunity to talk about the eradication of exotic animals in Galápagos. The island of Santiago was saved from introduced organisms long ago and Lindblad Expeditions was a great supporter of this project, so our explorers feel very proud after they are told how much we care about conservation here.
Once aboard we had breakfast and a short navigation while we observed the unique geology of Buccaneers Cove. It is interesting to imagine people like Charles Darwin disembarking on this place in 1835 with nothing more than his own good intentions of exploration.
After lunch we had some time for a short siesta before our afternoon expedition. This time we had a wet landing at Puerto Egas where a coastal walk offered great chances to identify a good number of shorebirds as well as some Galápagos fur seals. It was windy and a challenge to disembark, but the walk was worthwhile not only for the birds and sea lions, but also an incredible number of Sally Lightfoot crabs and iguanas. After a fantastic walk we headed back toward the ship and we are looking forward to another great adventure tomorrow.
