Back on June 4th 1954 an earthquake of 6.5 magnitude occurred near Urbina Bay, our visitors’ site this morning.  This strong event provoked an uplifting in a huge area adjacent to the bay’s coastline leaving many marine creatures high and dry. In a period of just a few days the whole scenery changed. It is still possible to see, as relics of this event, pieces of brain coral and shells embedded in the lava!

In this area there is a healthy population of Galapagos land iguanas as well. We saw many of them along the trails. Many native and endemic flowers were seen everywhere, including the beautiful Galapagos cotton flower. We even saw a juvenile Galapagos giant tortoise! At the end of the walks we had the chance to cool off on the black lava landing beach.

Once all were back aboard, the ship was repositioned southward to Tagus Cove, the place where we spent the afternoon. After lunch we had a kayaking outing followed by snorkeling. We put on our gear to explore the underwater world by doing deep-water snorkeling in an exotic location, which today was at its most for visibility was good and we were fortunate to have great sightings.

In the late afternoon we disembarked at Tagus Cove for and took an invigorating, fast-paced hike along the rim of a volcanic tuff cone. We saw an inner lake, aptly named Darwin in honor of the great naturalist who was around this area when he visited the Galapagos back in 1835.

Some guests opted to go for a second round of kayaking instead of the walk. This latter outing was very successful, for our kayakers had the chance to cover a long distance, admiring the striking volcanic landscape and looking for wildlife. Some guests opted to go for a Zodiac ride. Several blue footed boobies, brown pelicans, flightless cormorants, Galapagos sea lions, lava herons and a couple of Galapagos penguins were seen along the coastline bathed by a fascinating late afternoon golden light.

As the day was coming to an end we all returned from our different excursions.  We went back to the ship with the satisfaction of having spent a delightful day in this paradise.