Today we continue exploring, for the second consecutive day, the stunning beyond belief western realms of the Galapagos archipelago. Urbina Bay, our visitors’ site this morning, is a place of great geological importance, for an unusual and very recent event took place there in 1954. In scientific literature it’s stated that a strong earthquake of 6.5 on the Richter scale happened around this area on June 4, 1954, provoking a huge area adjacent to the coastline to uplift, leaving many marine creatures high and dry. Nowadays it is still possible to see, as noiseless relics of this event, pieces of coral and other marine organisms many feet inland here and there.
A healthy population of Galapagos land iguanas live around this area well. We saw several along the trails. We spotted a few Galapagos giant tortoises in the wild as well! At the end of the walks we had the chance to cool off at a black beach landing.
Once all aboard, the ship repositioned south to Tagus Cove, where we spent the afternoon. While we were navigating, naturalist Jonathan Aguas had a presentation on the human history of the Galapagos Islands. After lunch we had a kayaking outing followed by a deep water snorkeling session. We put on our gear to explore the underwater world by doing deep-water snorkeling in an exotic location that today was at its best, for it was sunny and the waters were not as cool as expected. Visibility was not the best but we were fortunate for we had great sea turtle and Galapagos penguin sightings.
In the late afternoon we disembarked at Tagus Cove for a fast-paced hike along the rim of a nearby volcanic tuff cone. We saw an inner lake, aptly named Darwin in honor of the great naturalist who was in fact around Tagus Cove when he visited the Galapagos in 1835. Some guests opted to go for a Zodiac ride instead of the walk. The Zodiac ride was successful as well for we had the chance to cover a relatively long distance admiring the outstanding volcanic landscape and looking for wildlife.
As the day was coming to an end all of us returned to the ship with the company of the last sunrays of the day. We had the otherworldly satisfaction of having spent a great day in one of the ultimate paradises on Earth, the Galapagos Islands.
