Our boat, the Guantanamara, was fantastic and we were jammy enough to get a double bed even though we had only booked the tour four days before the start. The crew were really friendly and all-in-all we were glad we'd spent the extra $300 each and got the nicer boat.
Some of the islands were quite beautiful
We started the first day traveling down Santa Cruz to the middle of the island and had a tour around a small island learning about seal lions and their mating and eating habits. The baby seals were amazingly cute and you had to really try to keep your distance and not touch them as if you do the mother may smell something wrong and not feed the baby. The dominant males would never shut up patrolling their harem of sexy females, while all the unlucky males were in another part of the island in the bachelor's pad, awaiting their turn at mating heaven.
The harsh side of nature
Next was Santa Fe island, we had a daily routine of a land tour and a snorkel tour every morning and afternoon and this first snorkel was one of the highlights as we saw plenty of big turtles and even saw a young seal "play" with a white tip shark by grabbing his tail and then chasing it off... sharks have never seemed so vulnerable before and I almost felt sorry for it...almost.
Day Two - Monday
Espanola - land iguanas were interesting on this island as the only source of water was the cactus trees which they had to wait until a fruit or leaf falls down in the wind as they can not reach it for themselves, the males guard a patch of trees to capture the females as they come to feed. Also we saw blue-footed boobies (the famous birds of the Galapagos), they are very pretty bird and of course very tame being on the islands. They have a very amusing love dance that entails them showing off their lovely blue feet, the whole group kept on doing the dance to each other long after we saw them.
MMM cactus
Day Three Tuesday
Santa Maria - one of the worst night's sailing and everyone got very seasick, the English couple Clair and Chris who are hoping to settle in New Zealand did not come out of their room nearly all day. One of the best snorkeling on this island: very strong currents but good sunlight and great visibility made it one of the best on the trip. We saw a school of 22 golden rays, plus a couple of eagle rays next to them which was very nice to see for both of us. Eleanor got a bit worried when I could not be found anywhere as I was too busy chasing a seal to get his picture to notice that the group had gone back to the boat..whoops. She didn't let them leave without him though.
We sailed in the day for once to Santa Cruz and this was our chance to see dolphins but they did not make an appearance. The group hit the shops and bars and I had a very nice Long island ice tea cocktail in the Rock bar, purely for medical reasons you understand... I was trying to stop the land sickness that we were all feeling, very strange to be in a bar at the start of the evening and feel it swaying away merrily.
Day Four - Wednesday
We were back at Santa Cruz island and we did the day on the island in the Charles Darwin research centre, where they are tyring to bring the tortoises back from the brink of extinction with the main attraction being Lonesome George a giant tortoise, the last of his kind from an island, Pinta, in the north of the group.
They had been keeping him in an area with some females from a nearby island, that would be the closest genetically to him, in the hope that he will breed with them and at least get a half bred, but George is not playing ball or is, they suspect, gay, so the total of giant species will go down from 14 to 13 when he dies. But as he is "only" around 120 years old he may have 80 year left to get the horn back in his life... Go George go!
The afternoon was spent in the highlands of the island where we saw giant tortoises in the wild and a lava tunnel then was quite massive. We also lost some of our group and picked up some more for the north part of the trip.
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