Bartolomé and Santiago Islands
What a way to start this expedition! After having seen the wonders of North Seymour Island yesterday afternoon, today we had our first full day in Galápagos. We came to the central part of the archipelago to visit two different islands – Bartolomé in the morning and Santiago in the afternoon. We had a pre-breakfast outing, hiking all the way to the top of Bartolomé Island, from the sea level to a height of 345 feet. Once at the summit we enjoyed a marvelous view. In this place you can appreciate most of the volcanic islands’ geological features all concentrated in a single site. Later in the morning, after a well-deserved breakfast, we had a snorkeling talk and distributed the snorkeling gear. Shortly afterwards we went to the beach of Bartolomé, which has a golden color due to its high content of minerals. Most of us went snorkeling. The water was clear and many species of fish were seen. This beach also gave us a great opportunity to relax and sunbathe.
We returned to National Geographic Islander at midday just in time to get ready for our traditional Ecuadorian buffet-style lunch, our guests took many pictures and enjoyed food typical to the region.
In the afternoon we landed at Puerto Egas, located on the northwestern side of Santiago Island. Most of us disembarked at 3:30pm in order to have some time for swimming and walking in a black sandy beach. The rest of the group came a little later to join us for a hike along the coastal part of Puerto Egas. Today the tide was low so there were lots of intertidal pools; we walked quite close to them. The whole area was replenished by marine iguanas and Galápagos sea lions. The second species of sea lion that inhabits the archipelago, the Galápagos fur seal was seen as well. This latter species is very different than the Galápagos sea lion; they have more fur per square inch.
At the end of our hike we boarded the Zodiacs and made our way back to the ship. We could observe an amazing sunset and a spectacular view as we finished today’s activities on the Enchanted Islands.
