We woke up early in the morning to start our pre-breakfast exploration along the coast of Santiago Island. This is not just one of our favorite islands. It was also one of Charles Darwin’s favorites. Charles Darwin spent nineteen days on land in the Galapagos, and nine of those days were on Santiago. We started our day with a walk along Espumilla Beach. This was an incredible way to start the day, as we observed blue-footed boobies, ghost crabs, and brown pelicans fishing along the coast. Some of us chose to go kayaking and spotted a couple of Galapagos fur seals resting on the black lava flows.
After breakfast, we navigated about a mile from our first landing site and went deep water snorkeling along the coast of Buccaneer Cove. We were lucky to spot a few whitetip reef sharks, a couple marbled rays, and large schools of fish.
After lunch, National Geographic Islander repositioned to a new visitor site for us, Puerto Egas. We had a wet landing on a black sandy beach and soon continued on a hike along the black lava fields and collapsed lava tubes on Santiago. We also had the opportunity to take our young explorers out for Zodiac driving lessons, and we definitely had an incredible time. What an amazing experience!
Some guests chose to go deep water snorkeling after the walk. Snorkeling was quite amazing. We spotted three species of sharks: blacktip reef sharks, whitetip reef sharks, and Galapagos sharks. We even spotted a group of sea lions fishing.
We returned to National Geographic Islander and enjoyed a unique sunset / wine tasting experience.
