Today we woke up to the beautiful view of Isabela Island, we disembarked after breakfast on the base of Alcedo Volcano; this is one of the five active volcanoes that form Isabela Island. Isabela is the largest island of the Galapagos Archipelago; if you were to combine all the rest of the islands together you will still not make the total size of Isabela Island which is 58% of the total land mass of the Galapagos Islands. Our first visit site today was Urbina Bay, which was uplifted 5m up and 6km long by seismic activity in 1954. As we walked along Urbina Bay, we encountered beautiful vegetation, carpenter bees, curious Galapagos flycatchers and Darwin finches, Galapagos yellow land iguanas and a giant tortoise! Our first giant tortoise and probably from Alcedo volcano, which had concluded its downward migration from the volcano towards the arid zone to lay its eggs.
After Urbina Bay we raised anchored and navigated towards famous Tagus Cove, this cove is a protected area that was frequented by sailors, who visited this Archipelago, as a place to anchor and rest. A famous vessel that anchored in this cove was the HMS Beagle in 1835 with Charles Darwin aboard. At Tagus Cove some of us went snorkeling with sea lions, penguins, flightless cormorants and lots of fish and others went for some bird watching while exercising on kayaks and paddle boards.
In the late afternoon, concluded another beautiful day at the Galapagos with a hike on top of Darwin Lake. The Galapagos Island are truly a unique place, each island and even each part of an island is different and beautiful in its own unique way.
