Galapagos - Day Two

A civilised start saw the 13 members of my trip suit down for breakfast on the Beluga. Then an hour later the pangas took us on our first excursion - to Sombrero Chino.  We were going to be undertaking our first wet landing from the panga, but it was going to be easy as we were landing on a coral beach - soft white sand.  With calm sunny conditions and a fairly still sea the conditions were perfect.

On the way to the landing we stopped at some rocks to sea the Galapagos Penguins, the only penguins on the equator.  The pair that our guid spotted were just next to a Blue Footed Booby - two of the birds that I had been hoping to see, but at that stage my camera was safely in my Drybag, so I made do with a snapshot on the phone.

Landing, we explored the trail with out guide, there is so much to see - Marine Iguanas, Lava Lizards, Seals with young, Pelicans, Herons, various small Finches and the Sally Lightfoot Crab. Our two hours ashore flew by.  The Lava Heron in the extras was perching on a rock at the edge of the shore looking for fish.

Then back to the yacht, to change into our snorkelling gear for our first snorkelling trip, during which I saw my first white tipped reef shark.

Back on board, we were treated to a lovely lunch before being allowed an hour’s downtime while we sailed to our next destination Rábida.  While sitting on the top deck enjoying the quiet, I was surprised by an Orca breaching.  Talk about packing in the wildlife, it is just like being in the middle of a David Attenborough program.

Here there was another wet landing, but this time we needed footwear as the red beach was pebbly and quite steeply sloping. On Rábida we followed two trails spotting so much that was new to me that it is hard to list it all.  Our first trail took us past a lagoon with Flamingos and Pintailed Ducks and back on to the beach where the Tattler that is in the extras can be seen.  The second trail saw us heading up into the cactus looking for the elusive and rather shy cactus finch - which I am pleased to say I was responsible for spotting, and once again this is in the extras.

We returned to the boat by Panga, just as the sun was setting, which brought down the curtains on another amazing day of Natural History and stunning vistas.