After our great morning at South Plaza, it was time to visit Santa Fe Island. The Yacht made it’s way to this Island while we ate lunch. Once again, we boarded the tender and made our way into the beach. The ride in was a little longer than before as the waters were shallow and prevented the Yacht from getting closer. As we approached the beach, we could see Sea Lions everywhere. It was an amazing sight.
This would be a “wet” landing, meaning there is no dock to get off the tender. We would approach the beach as close as we could and then have to jump off the tender into the shallow waters. We had read about these landings prior to arriving in the Galapagos. I was a bit nervous about my camera gear getting wet, or worse dropping it. We bought a dry bag to take with us that is water tight and even floats on the water if it drops in. We did not end up using it since the waters were so calm and getting in and out was not that difficult.
After walking up onto the beach, our guide provided us some towels to dry our feet and gave us a chance to put our socks and shoes back on. We were literally sitting within feet of dozens of Sea Lions. We had some time to walk around and explore the beach and watch the Sea Lions clumsily keep moving themselves up the beach further from the rising tide.
We even saw a very young pup who was searching for it’s mother. There will be a video posted of this cute little guy soon.
Once we were satisfied with our sea lion experience, we headed into the island for a quick look around. We came across more land Iguanas and various bird life to include the Galapagos Mockingbird and Galapagos Dove.
We even saw some more Sea Lions perched on a giant rock under a cactus tree.
As our time was ending, we headed back to the beach to get on the tender. We spotted one more interesting sight. It was an Iguana sitting on a rock in front of a Sea Lion.
We boarded Pikaia I and changed into our snorkel gear. We would be snorkeling right off the beach we were just on. We saw Sea Turtles, Spotted Eagle Rays, and even got to swim with some playful Sea Lions. We will post the videos from snorkeling separately. The water was pretty cold, so Pikaia provided wetsuits along with the snorkel mask and fins. After about 45 minutes snorkeling, we boarded the Yacht and headed back to the lodge. This time, we were dropped off in the main town of Santa Cruz since it was closer than going around the island to Baltra dock.
After a long day, we were excited for dinner. Tonight’s amuse bouche was a chicken nugget. This immediately reminded me of my most favorite appetizer I had in Peru during our stay at the Sanctuary Lodge at Machu Picchu. You can read about that trip here.
And of course, the night would not be complete without Chocolates from our turn down service.
Stay tuned for our next post which will detail our half-day land excursion to visit the Giant Tortoises, lava tubes, and sink holes around the island of Santa Cruz.
Adam Woods
