Posted by We have finally gotten settled in on the cruise and now it is time for the first little excursion. After a great lunch we sail a little bit from Baltra and back to the northern shores of Santa Cruz – I guess it is fitting our first stop is on Santa Cruz given our ship is named after the island it has just gotten a little II added at the end.
We get transferred from the ship on small boats and then it is time for the explorations. Actually we see a lot of blue footed boobies on the way to the coast. I find the blue footed bobbies are probably the funniest bird to watch on the Galapagos.
We walk along the beach to see a bit of the islands and as we walk along we spot a shark in the shallow waters. It comes pretty close to the shore so we can get some good photos in the shallow waters.
Along the beach we see several of the famous birds of the Galapagos. There are some frigate birds flying around on top of us. And there are herons hanging around on the beach along with still more boobies. Obviously there are also several marine iguanas. Everywhere we go on these islands there seems to be marine iguanas as long as you can see the water.
A bit further down the beach we see a lot of boobies going for their dinner. They dive into the water from above to go down and catch some fish down under the surface. I guess they do get some success and a dinner out of it.
One of the main reasons to go here was to spot flamingoes. And right there at a little lake is a single flamingo. This is nothing like the huge collections of flamingoes you might spot in East Africa but it was really nice to see at least one. It stays at the lake for a while and then it takes off flying right over our heads.
It is really getting dinner time so when we start walking back to the boat we spot some pelicans putting their oversized beaks into the water catching a few fish for dinner.
On the beach there are some strange tracks. It is a turtle which has gone on land to dig a hole for the eggs. Unfortunately we don’t see any turtles I guess they will only come on land after dark so there is no chance for us to get to see them since we have to get back before dark.
We get back to the boat and the small boat will have to be taken back on board. This is done by using a small crane.
After the days explorations it is time for dinner onboard the ship. During our trip on board I had a lot of time to spot the other passengers cameras. And I am surprised. Considering the price of this cruise I know the people on the ship must have money – especially considering many are travelling in family groups so they pay not just for one but several persons on the trip. Despite the fact people have money the number of DSLR cameras I spot among the passengers on this little excursion numbers one which just happens to be in my possession. I guess the people going on this cruise really aren’t that interested in taking photos of the wildlife on the islands.
The dinner is actually pretty good standard for a ship so we do enjoy the food on board the boat during our trip.
FrejaTravels 