We continued exploring Isabela Island today. Urbina Bay, our visitors’ site in the morning, is a place of great geological interest because a fantastic event took place there. As recent as 1954 a huge area adjacent to the coastline was suddenly uplifted, leaving many marine creatures high and dry. It is still possible to see, as relics of this event, pieces of coral and other marine organisms embedded in the lava!
In this area there is a healthy and thriving population of Galapagos land iguanas. We saw several of them along the trail. Many beautiful native and endemic flowers were seen everywhere, including the beautiful Galapagos cotton flower and the yellow cordia. At the end of the walk we had the chance to cool off on the black lava landing beach and we had Zodiac driving lessons for the kids.
Once all aboard the ship, we had a presentation on the Human History of the Galapagos Islands while the ship was repositioned to the south to Tagus Cove, where we will spend the afternoon. After lunch we had a kayaking outing followed by deep water snorkeling. Even though the water was relatively cool we were fortunate to have great sightings. Sea turtles, Galapagos sea lions and even a couple of flightless cormorants were seen.
In the late afternoon we had several choices. Two groups disembarked at Tagus Cove for an invigorating fast-paced hike along the rim of a volcanic tuff cone. After ascending to a lookout point, the hikers had a beautiful view that was described by some of our guests as spectacular.
Some guests opted to go for a second round of kayaking instead of the hike. We had a Zodiac ride for non-hikers as well. The latter outings were very successful, for our explorers had the chance to cover a long distance to admire the striking volcanic landscape and to look for wildlife. Many blue footed boobies, brown pelicans, Sally light foot crabs, flightless cormorants, Galapagos sea lions, and penguins were seen along the coastline.
As the day was coming to an end we returned to the ship with the satisfaction of having spent a wonderful day in these remote realms of this magical archipelago, the Galapagos.
