Day Thirty Seven - Galapagos

Thankfully breakfast was at a nice normal time of 7am this morning! We headed out for a dry landing onto Punta Moreno on a very rocky trail underfoot. The island (like many in the Galapagos) was created by molten lava hitting the sea and creating land. The lava is called 'AA' Pahoehoe Lava. On this island however, the lava is what you walk directly onto, without sand or grass covering it. It was a dark grey in colour and rippled, due to the way it hardened as soon as it hit liquid. It was very hot today, and walking on dark terrain made it even warmer!! We immediately came to a large lagoon where, amongst other things, we saw three large reef sharks circling the pool. We continued exploring this island, due to the heat and the terrain, we didn't see many land animals, but caught a lot of bobbing heads of sea turtles in the sea surrounding. When waiting for the dinghy to return, we dropped my GoPro into the water on a long wire, hoping to catch footage of the huge fish swimming in the lagoon as well as the sea turtle.

Back on the boat, we changed into our snorkelling gear and got onto the dinghy. The snorkelling today was awesome, we were in a big of a bay surrounded by beach and rocks. We saw tonnes of turtles swimming around. This was the first time I'd seen a sea turtle in the flesh and it was incredible. The first one we saw was missing one of his fins, and we swam with him for ten minutes, it was so relaxed and unfazed!!

We were getting quite cold when Rachel suddenly screeched out. We swam over and found them playing with a sealion pup. This was one of the most awe inspiring things I have ever done. We stayed in the water for another twenty minutes while this sealion dove and twirled and swam around us. It kept swimming right towards me and then veering off at the last minute and doing a loop of all of us. I can't even describe how incredible it was to swim and play with a wild sealion! This is experience will not be forgotten for some time!!

We finally peeled ourselves away from the pup and got out of the water to get lunch - again fantastic!! The weather was beautiful so after lunch I went up to the top deck and fell asleep in the sun for an hour!

We had a wet landing this afternoon onto a beach called Urbino Bay. We had a walk around the island and spotted some huge wild giant tortoises and some large bright yellow land iguanas. It was a lovely afternoon and we even managed to get up very close to some mockingbirds.

Back on the boat, we attempted to do some whale watching, having been told that the route we were travelling this evening was a popular one with whales! Some of the group saw a few blow holes spraying water in the far distance, but otherwise we were unsuccessful!

We travelled for two hours before dinner, then moored for the night. Our briefing tonight was on sealions which was really interesting, and when we had dinner, Steve and I were thrilled to see we had chocolate cake for dessert!! One step closer to this elusive mousse!!

As the boat wasn't travelling tonight, it was super still and we slept so well, ready for the next jam packed day of activities!