Today after a beautiful sunrise we found ourselves anchored next to the southern coast of Santiago Island close to Sombrero Chino Islet. Our morning adventure started at 06:30 am with a panga (Zodiac) ride to check out the geology and wildlife of this area. Our guests were impressed by the interesting small volcanic cones that covered the landscape. At this point our guests had the chance to learn about the interesting geological formations of the Galapagos Islands. We also encountered a few Galapagos sea lion pups that were playing next to the shore and lava herons that were fishing next to the coast. After our early morning costal exploration everybody returned to the National Geographic Islander for a delightful breakfast.
By 10:00 am our guests got ready to snorkel. The snorkeling adventure was very fun since we encountered a Galapagos penguin standing on a rock by the water. We also appreciated a great diversity of fish including blue chin parrotfish, Pacific creole fish, scissor-tailed damselfish, black striped salemas, and a couple of white tipped reef sharks. It was time for lunch so we headed back on board.
Right after lunch the guests of the National Geographic Islander had the chance to ask questions about photography as they had a session with one of our photo instructors. There was also a talk given by one of the members of our exploration team on Charles Darwin and his visit to the Galapagos Islands.
The action began again at 16:00 with tree groups of nature hikers that went ashore to explore a remarkable lava flow a little more than a hundred years old, an extensive area on Santiago Island known as Sullivan Bay. At this site everybody had the chance to hike over patches of smooth “pahoehoe” or ropy lava and avoiding the sharp and cracked patches of “aa” lava. At the end of the hike our guests got really close to cinder and spatter cones and of course learned about their interesting formation process. It was already 6:00 pm and we returned to the National Geographic Islander after a very full day of exploration.
