Blogs from Galápagos, Ecuador, South America - page 5

Another early-ish start today, leaving the luxury of the hotel at 4:30 to fly to Isla Baltra, the first of our Galápagos Islands. We have a stop off in Quayaquil along the way and I discover the Young Sheldon tv series - the precursor to The Big Bang - so snort with laughter rather than snore on the 3 hour trip. Everyone is obviously very excited to arrive and after the friendly customs people relieve us of USD100 we head off on a bus, then a ferry then another bus ending up after about an hour at Porto Ayora on Isla Santa Cruz. We transfer across to the Queen Beatrix, our home along with 14 others, for the next 5 days. The cabins are spacious and the meals are rather good. The crew are friendly. The ... read more

I woke up to the sounds of the overhead PA system making flight announcements in English and Spanish. Bev was still sleeping across several seats in the row across. We had met up the night before, she coming from Montreal and me coming from Cusco, and had spent the night in Jorge Chavez International Airport trying to get a few hours of sleep. I seemed to be recovering from my recent bout of traveler's diarrhea and even had some appetite after not having eaten much of anything for the past 24 hours. Only a few weeks prior, Bev and I had come up with a crazy plan to reach the Galapagos Islands. This was a destination that both of us longed to see, considering our love of unique biodiversity. Bev often says I have "the cockamamie" ... read more

The yacht stopped for sightseeing at two spots on Santiago Island during the day - Egas Port on the west coast and Sullivan Bay in the southeast. Caroline and Max again saw black sandy beaches, uneven areas of volcanic rock, and various wildlife on land and in the water. We stayed on board the yacht to rest through the sabbath day until sundown. We relaxed and read, and chatted to any other passengers who were around. In truth we did not feel we were missing much Galapagos viewing. We had come to feel that while the islands certainly hosted some unique evolutionary creatures and plants, there was in fact little bio-diversity here. The extreme saltiness of the environment caused nature to breed species which could survive here but not very many different ones. After visiting ... read more

Day 9 - Isabella and Fernandina Island 3 May 2018 + edits Isabella 5,000 population -> Isabela 2,000 At 3:30 am we crossed the equator again to the northern hemisphere. No we didn’t notice any difference. Then at 5:30 am we again crossed back to the southern hemisphere - but we were still asleep and the motion of the rocking of the yacht didn’t change at all! We slept late this morning - until 7 am and again awoke to the magnificent rock formations of Isabela Island. Four of the islands are inhabited by humans and Isabela is one of them. The human population of approximately 2,000 lives in the south of the island. During the trip with the exception of the beginning and the end we avoided all the populated parts of the archipelago. After ... read more

This morning we were anchored off the coast of Jervis Island or Rabida in Spanish. This island lies at the very heart of the archipelago’s volcanic activity. The beach is deep red surrounded by cliffs and steep slopes of volcanic cinder cones. The morning activity involved a 'wet landing' so I declined and enjoyed a wonderful hour reading and relaxing on board the yacht. Don and Caroline went out on the Zodiac for a sightseeing ride around some of the Rabida Island coast. They saw a wide variety of birds including Pelicans, Herons, and Galapagos Brown Noddy Terns. There were also Sea Lions sitting or lounging on rock ledges by the slope to the shore. They eventually arrived at a beach on Rabida and set out with the guide to see some of the local ... read more