Santa Cruz Island (B, L, D)
Today you will visit one of the islands of the below list. Depending on your departure and availability the visits of the islands will vary. Each island is unique in itself and has different highlights to offer. This is an amazing chance to reach out to inhabited islands in the archipelago. Your tour will include lunch onboard, a walking and a snorkeling activity to maximize your experience.
NORTH SEYMOUR
AM: North Seymour is a small flat island, with a trail about two kilometers long. Palo santos trees are endemic to the island and stand just above the landing site usually without leaves waiting for the rain to bring them into bloom. Opuntia, the local prickly pear cactus, is the food for the land iguanas.
Swallow-tailed gulls sit perched in ledges of the cliffs only a few meters high form the shoreline. Amongst the emblematic fauna of the island you will be able to see sea lions basking on the lava rock, during the walk you can find land iguanas and colonies of blue- footed boobies and magnificent frigates.
PM: Las Bachas, a beautiful coralline beach located on the north shore of Santa Cruz Island, is the perfect place for practicing snorkeling, swimming or to simply enjoy the white soft sand. Several brackish lagoons only a few steps away from the sea are the feeding grounds of various wading birds, from stilts to flamingos.
SOUTH PLAZAS
AM: The Plazas Islands (North and South), Only South Plaza is open to visitors. Here the vegetation and is represented by annual plants such as sesuvium, and by opuntia cacti. The sesuvium, serves as groundcover for a grove of luminescent green prickly-pear cactus. Yellow-Brown land iguanas sit beneath waiting patiently for pears to drop.
Depending on the dry or the wet season the island wears a red carpet during the months of May to December.
You will disembark on South Plazas where you will be greeted by a colony of sea lions inhabits the island, The trail takes you gradually towards the southern cliff of the island where you will be able to observe nesting swallow-tailed gulls and several sea birds such as tropicbirds, frigates, Nazca and blue-footed boobies, Audubon shearwaters, pelicans gliding the sky.
PM: You will have the possibility of snorkeling in the calm waters of Punta Carrión where you will be able to observe a variety of tropical fish, sea turtles, rays,yellowtail mullets and white tip reef sharks that peacefully rest on the sandy bottom.
SANTA FE
AM: Santa Fé offers a beautiful bay, In the middle of a sunny day the lagoon turns into an eye-catching turquoise blue. The white Sandy bottom is only a few meters below the Surface.
You will disembark on a small sandy beach where you will be able to see a colony of sea lions basking lazily in the sun. A trail leads inland to the top of a Cliff, from where the view is breathtaking. Two species of land iguanas inhabit the archipelago, but one of these, the endemic dwells only in Santa Fe; it is biggers, with a whitish color, sometimes chocolate Brown when moulting. The Galapagos hawk often overlooks the beach.
This island is also characteristic by its forest of the giant prickly pear cactus, or Radiate headed scalesia, is an attractive Bush with white flowers and exquisite fragance.
PM: After the visit on land you will be taken to enjoy snorkeling in the clear waters of the anchoring site of Santa Fé. You will be able to see a variety of tropical fish and a possibility of swimming with sea lions, sea turtles, small white-tip sharks, spotted Eagle rays and round stingrays are common to the small bay.
BARTOLOME / SULLIVAN BAY
AM: A very impressive Little island in front of Sullivan Bay, with a landscape of real volcanic desolation: tuff cones, spatter cones, scoria formations and black volcanic sand.
A trail of 600–meters with stairs leads to the Summit of the central of the volcano. From the top of the volcano, the view is extraordinary and offers one of the most emblematic sceneries of the Galapagos Islands,. Towards the east, a field of spatter cones punctuates the island. Towards the west, one is amazed by the isthmus of Bartolome, cover by mangroves and bordered by two small coves of Golden sand in the shape of half moons. On the north beach, the Pinnacle Rock stands like a finger pointed to the sky.
PM: Depending on the permission of the boat this day you have also the opportunity to do snorkeling in one of both places; on the north cove, under Pinnacle Rock or in Sullivan Bay, this last one is a clear evidence of the volcanic past of the islands. Both places give a unique experience.
