Bartolomé & Santiago Islands
Clear skies overhead! Wake up! Time to move and experience our last day to the fullest! Hurry!
Well, not quite like that, but I did make a call to those interested, and bright and early the stairs led everyone up to the top of Bartolomé Island. Iconic Galápagos – the rising sun cast reddish hues over the tuff cones, cinder cones and oxidized lava flows of eons past.
After breakfast the landing took place on golden sand, once again those earth-tones dominated, overlaid by bright green thorn bushes and mangroves. A sand dune separated us from the southern beach where whitetip reef sharks lurked close, waiting and hoping for an early hatching of marine turtles.
Snorkelling at a dead-low tide made everything close. The fish sensed their ceiling had descended, and were bunched under rocky eaves and in the shadow of Pinnacle Rock. A whitetip reef shark of major proportions cruised by. Flounders were scattered over the bottom of the bay, skittering away when offered a brief glance.
Santiago’s Puerto Egas on the western side was excellent – the afternoon breeze joined with the setting sun to create a photographer’s dream combination: waves crashing on a rocky shore with glistening sea lions rolling in on the surf. Marine iguanas snorted impartially. A female Galápagos fur seal nursed her enormous pup of minimum two years old, if not older. It was an unusual sighting for fur seals, normally hidden away in cracks and crevasses among boulders on cliffs.
It felt good to be ignored by the inhabitants of the islands. It meant humans have not yet made an impact on their lives.
Clear skies overhead! Wake up! Time to move and experience our last day to the fullest! Hurry!
Well, not quite like that, but I did make a call to those interested, and bright and early the stairs led everyone up to the top of Bartolomé Island. Iconic Galápagos – the rising sun cast reddish hues over the tuff cones, cinder cones and oxidized lava flows of eons past.
After breakfast the landing took place on golden sand, once again those earth-tones dominated, overlaid by bright green thorn bushes and mangroves. A sand dune separated us from the southern beach where whitetip reef sharks lurked close, waiting and hoping for an early hatching of marine turtles.
Snorkelling at a dead-low tide made everything close. The fish sensed their ceiling had descended, and were bunched under rocky eaves and in the shadow of Pinnacle Rock. A whitetip reef shark of major proportions cruised by. Flounders were scattered over the bottom of the bay, skittering away when offered a brief glance.
Santiago’s Puerto Egas on the western side was excellent – the afternoon breeze joined with the setting sun to create a photographer’s dream combination: waves crashing on a rocky shore with glistening sea lions rolling in on the surf. Marine iguanas snorted impartially. A female Galápagos fur seal nursed her enormous pup of minimum two years old, if not older. It was an unusual sighting for fur seals, normally hidden away in cracks and crevasses among boulders on cliffs.
It felt good to be ignored by the inhabitants of the islands. It meant humans have not yet made an impact on their lives.
