Galapagos: A dream trip. Conquered!

On January 7th I arrived in Santa Cruz, one of the 13 main islands of the Galapagos. We quickly boarded our 72 foot yacht, the Pelikano. The 16 passengers consisted of travelers from Canada, England, Italy, Germany, Switzerland, Australia and Ireland. Our first stop was a visit to the highlands to view the infamous giant tortoises in their natural environment. Mostly males live in the highlands and it is during the mating season that the females leave the lowlands to procreate.

Scattered about the lush green landscape they are something to see upclose! I was surprised by how easily they moved around. Some estimated ages ranged from 80- 120 plus years! It isn´t unheard of for some of the giant tortoises to live to 200 years. During the walk we also entered a lava tunnel. An owl was perched on a ledge ready to greet us. There were also numerous birds- finches, flying about.

We returned to the yacht for some sailing, a daily briefing, an introduction of the passengers to the crew and a welcome toast- a delicious piña coloda! The food served was always delicious. You couldn´t possibly go hungry with the large breakfasts, lunches and dinners with tasty desserts.


Day 2 was spent on Floreana Island. We landed on Cormorant Point, where numerouse sea lions were resting on the brown beach.There is a great mystery to this island. A baroness and her two lovers, a German doctor and his mistress, and a German couple with their young son all came to settle on this island. Disappearances and mysterious deaths occured, no one is quite sure what happened.


After a snorkel trip at Champion Rock, where we saw a variety of colorful fish, sting rays and more sea lions we took a trip to Post Office Bay, also on Floreana. A barrel was placed here in the late 18th- century by English whaling vessels to be used as a post office. Passing ships would stop to leave mail for loved ones, collecting at the same time any mail destined for for ports on their itineraries. Today the box is used mainly by tourists, who may drop off and pick up unstamped letters to be carried to other destintaions. There was one pre stamped envelope to someone in New Hampshire. I intend to mail it when I return to the states and add a little note.


On day 3 we had a dry landing at Suarez Point on Española Island. Wildlife here consists of red marine iquanas, sea lions, waved albatross, blue footed booby, masked bobby, doves and finches. We spent a good few hours walking around taking in the scenery and certainly a large quantity of photos. I often lagged behind the group to "snap away". Late in the morning we sailed to Gardner Bay, ate lunch, snorkeled off the dinghy and then had a beach landing.




We saw more sealions (they were found pretty much everywhere). Mockingbirds would often follow you around, showing no fear of people and they seemed to especially enjoy my water bottle.



Our night sail brought us to Santa Fe, day 4. This island is populated with the Prickly Pear Cactus. I highly enjoyed the contrast of the green cacti against the blue ocean along with the red and gray brush that is present on the island. Land Iguanas are also very popular to view. Lying around everywhere you definitely had to make sure you were looking at the ground, they would move quickly and upon taking one step back there would often be another one nearby.




After another delicous dinner we set to North Seymour. Come back to read about days 5-8 of my tour of The Galapagos!