Cerro Dragon & Sombrero Chino
We continued our expedition today with an early morning hike on Cerro Dragon. This visitors’ site, located in the northwestern part of Santa Cruz Island, is well known for the abundance of Galápagos land iguanas that live in the area. Around this time of the year, the peak of the rainy season, the vegetation around Cerro Dragon looks beautifully green, air temperatures are pretty high as well as the humidity. The latter conditions made an early walk ideal, for in the morning the heat and humidity have not reached the maximum levels. In fact, beautiful weather accompanied us during the whole walk.
Later in the morning we went for our first snorkelling outing of the day around Guy Fawkes Islets. In this place there is a beautiful underwater wall where we observed many different fish species and many kinds of invertebrates.
In the afternoon and just after lunch we went around Bainbridge Islets off shore Santiago Island. After a Geology talk, we got ready for our second snorkelling outing of the day, this time around the volcanic setting of Sombrero Chino. This beautiful volcanic cone resembles a Chinese Hat. Snorkelling was superb; we observed many different species of fish, stingrays, many white tip reef sharks and Galápagos penguins!
Other guests decided to explore the area by kayaking, spending some time at a nearby little beach or taking Zodiac rides. Late in the afternoon we all came back onboard to talk about our new adventures and warm-hearted memories that all the day’s activities left on us.
A breathtaking sunset was literally a golden finale for this beautiful day. Our expedition will continue tomorrow, and we can hardly wait to see what this fascinating and remote archipelago will bring to our lives.
We continued our expedition today with an early morning hike on Cerro Dragon. This visitors’ site, located in the northwestern part of Santa Cruz Island, is well known for the abundance of Galápagos land iguanas that live in the area. Around this time of the year, the peak of the rainy season, the vegetation around Cerro Dragon looks beautifully green, air temperatures are pretty high as well as the humidity. The latter conditions made an early walk ideal, for in the morning the heat and humidity have not reached the maximum levels. In fact, beautiful weather accompanied us during the whole walk.
Later in the morning we went for our first snorkelling outing of the day around Guy Fawkes Islets. In this place there is a beautiful underwater wall where we observed many different fish species and many kinds of invertebrates.
In the afternoon and just after lunch we went around Bainbridge Islets off shore Santiago Island. After a Geology talk, we got ready for our second snorkelling outing of the day, this time around the volcanic setting of Sombrero Chino. This beautiful volcanic cone resembles a Chinese Hat. Snorkelling was superb; we observed many different species of fish, stingrays, many white tip reef sharks and Galápagos penguins!
Other guests decided to explore the area by kayaking, spending some time at a nearby little beach or taking Zodiac rides. Late in the afternoon we all came back onboard to talk about our new adventures and warm-hearted memories that all the day’s activities left on us.
A breathtaking sunset was literally a golden finale for this beautiful day. Our expedition will continue tomorrow, and we can hardly wait to see what this fascinating and remote archipelago will bring to our lives.
