Chinese Hat Island is a satellite of Santiago Island with a beautiful shape and color. We explore it by Zodiac to look for wildlife. We spy a couple of penguins standing on the rocks, as if waiting to greet us. They are cute, but also special for being the only penguins to live and nest in the tropics. Sea lions were not expected, but they are here and we feel lucky to have encountered them.
Later we returned to the same spot, this time ready to explore the world beneath the waves. It is unique in so many ways, for the quantity and quality of its content. We saw sharks, rays, many fish in different shapes and colors, and the penguins approached some of us with the innocence of children.
Later, back on board the ship, we navigated by a group of islands called the Bainbridge islands to look at flamingos in a brackish water lagoon.
We reached Sullivan Bay where another activity was prepared. We made a dry landing on fresh lava and followed a path full of it. Different shapes and colors were combined to make this an incredible place where we can see how the islands, and the planet itself, must have looked in the beginning. Bare, sterile lava with little signs of life cools little by little until one day it is covered by plants and animals of all kinds to look like the others.
The day ends with the celebration of Lindblad Expedition’s 50th anniversary in the Galapagos.
