Island Hopping

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We took an 8 day cruise through the Galapagos Islands aboard the yacht Angelito I. If we were slightly disappointed from the lack of wildlife we saw in the Peruvian Amazon, the Galapagos islands more than made up for it. Animals were practically walking up to us and tapping us on the shoulder. I had heard about how tame the wildlife would be, but I still wasn´t truly prepared for it.
We started the cruise on a Sunday morning, after flying to Quito to Baltra. We boarded the boat with 14 other passengers, our guide Diego and the crew of the Angelito. Prior to boarding the boat we saw some sea lions on the dock and the beautiful red Sally Lightfoot crabs on the rocks.
Our first stop was off the coast of North Seymour Island. Several galapagos sharks (probably 8 feet long?) were swimming around our boat! We also saw several pods of dolphins swim by! It was amazing. The islands were all different and have different vegetation and species on them. We visited North Seymour, Chinese Hat, Bartholome, Genovesa, Santiago, Rabida, Santa Cruz, Espanola, Santa Fe, and the South Plazas during the 8 days. We saw tons of birds, including the infamous blue and red footed boobies, red frigate birds, pelicans, hawks, herons, albatross, tropic birds, mockingbirds, and tons of finches. It was nesting season for many of the birds so we got to see lots of babies too.
There were sea lions everywhere, which always provided entertainment. Preetham was fascinated by the marine and land iguanas which hung out in big groups on rocks in the sun. Almost everyday, we went snorkeling and saw an amazing variety of fish and swam with sea turtles, penguins (!), sea lions, and even an encounter with 2 white tipped reef sharks that were about 5 feet long! They would swim pretty close to us but would thankfully swim away rather quickly.
On the final day, while we were cruising to our final destination, we were, as always, scanning the water for a whale sighting. Just when we had given up hope, one of the other passengers spotted something in the distance. The guide told the captain to change the course of the boat and soon we could see the spouts of water from whales. As we got closer we realized that they were Orcas (killer whales like Shamu)!!! It was really amazing. We stopped the boat and watched them for awhile. It was a great way to end the cruise.
We are now back in Quito and are very lazy about sightseeing! We´ll be back to SF on August 14 and then we will head down to SD to find an apartment. I think this may be our last blog entry!!! Thanks for reading! Premi and Preetham

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Photos

Red footed boobie
Our favorite of all the boobies

Comments

[George]

no more blog?
The sea lions are so cute and the marine iguanas are so scary! Have really enjoyed the blog - am looking forward to your coffee table book.

[Gretchen]

we loved it!
My husband and I also went on a cruise to the Galapagos. The animals were amazing, weren't they? We went on the Galapagos Explorere II. We are very conservated and chose this boat because it is very stable, but we also have mobility issues and this is the only boat that has an elevator. Can you believe that! I was sold when my travel agent explained that to me. We went through www.galapagos-inc.com. They prepared everything for us and we didn't have to worry about a thing.