We navigated all through the night on a calm and peaceful ocean, and Captain Garces had us drop the anchor of the National Geographic Islander just before dawn off the coast of the central island of Santiago, also known as James Island and officially as San Salvador. I gave an early wake up call to anyone who had their PA on channel one and after coffee and snacks in the lounge I sent out three groups of guests to explore. We had a full group of kayakers who paddled along the impressive cliffs of Buccaneer Cove with naturalist Benjamin. They spotted sea turtles and boobies and there were a few fur seals hidden among the rocks on the coast. Naturalist Salvador had a small group of hikers who followed a trail first along the edge of a drying lagoon and then up and inland through a palo santo forest. They had a lovely view from above and behind the beach and, like the rest of us who went out early this morning, were ready and deserving of a hearty breakfast when they returned contentedly to the ship.
Our photo Instructor/naturalist Jason and his group of guests walked the wide brown beach at Espumilla and they photographed sea turtle tracks (several females had nested during the night!), ghost crabs, a Galapagos hawk and they thoroughly enjoyed their relaxing outing.
The second round of morning activities were Zodiac cruises along the coast or deep water snorkeling. We explored a cave, found nesting Nazca boobies, and observed several fur seals from the Zodiacs. The deep water snorkelers had wonderful conditions and found many schooling fish.
After siesta I showed some pictures and gave a presentation about the problems of invasive goats and pigs and discussed my PhD research on feral donkeys and giant tortoises. The donkeys were trampling tortoise nests on Volcan Alcedo in the 1980’s. The National Park with help of Kiwi pilots and hunters have eradicated many of the larger introduced mammals that for decades have been problematic in these fragile Galapagos Islands.
Our afternoon walk at Puerto Egas was spectacular! We disembarked on a black sand beach and hiked along the shore where marine iguanas were feeding and sunning, sea lions nursed their pups, and several species of shore birds and herons were poking among the lava pools. We also had a close encounter with a golden juvenile Galapagos hawk and there were several fur seals near the lava grottos. As the sun set we made our way along an inland loop of the trail and returned to the landing beach. The Zodiacs shuttled us back to the ship and once again we had a magical day in las Islas Encantadas!
