Santiago Island, Playa Espumilla – Buccaneer’s Cove
Santiago Island is the fourth largest of the Galapagos Islands, and is one of the few islands that has a source of fresh water inland. Because of this, it was one of the early places that hosted human visitors. Including pirates. It is also a place where Charles Dawin spent a lot of his time (9 of the 19 days he spent on land).
This morning we were supposed to do a wet landing at Playa Espumilla before breakfast, but conditions were too espumilla (which means foam, or maybe spray) so we just stayed on the ship until after breakfast rather than a very wet landing.
After breakfast, we did a zodiac ride around Buccaneer’s Cove, although some brave souls went kayaking in the extra foamy.
Don got some pics of Nazca Boobies using the waterproof Kodak camera.
Santiago Island – Puerto Egas
During lunch, the ship moved to Puerto Egas. There are visible remnants of human occupation here, although today the goats and feral pigs are gone and native wildlife is returning.
The coastline here has tide pools formed from lava, many with channels in them that the sea lions like to shelter in presumably because they get to be lazy.
Don got an amazing picture of a sea lion diving back into the water.
We saw multiple bird species. A favorite was the Fly Catcher which was happy to pose on branches a few feet from the trail. It would also hover in flight right next to its reflection in a camera lens, and even land on an offered finger if you could hold still long enough. We failed to lure one in.
And of course, there were marine iguanas.
This is a wonderful trip, we did the same about 18 years ago!
We move to Borgholm 14 of Mars in order to come closer to the summerhouse.
Hugs from Inger