We woke up this morning with the boat tossing in the water like a kids’ bath toy.  The drawers were opening and closing and we could hear banging all over the ship.  I thought to myself, I don’t want to go snorkeling this morning!  Then my husband says to me, I don’t think I want to snorkel today!  He had also signed us up to go kayaking right after the snorkeling and I told him that I was not interested in that either.  I knew the water had to be a mess. 

There were two groups that went out kayaking in the morning. One left at 6 am and the other at 8.  We signed up for the glass bottom boat since we didn’t want to snorkel. We had breakfast at 7:30, then went to a presentation by Socrates about trips with National Geographic Lindblad to Egypt and the Amazon.  Both sounded amazing.  Shortly after the presentation both snorkeling and the glass bottom boat were cancelled due to rough seas. 

However, they said we could go out in the Zodiac and see where Darwin landed on Santiago Island, the praying monk, and possibly some animals. Stupidly, I went on the boat.  The waves were enormous.  I had a lot of faith in our Zodiac driver. They have proven to be amazing.  However, I could not look at the water. 

They brought us to the area where we were supposed to snorkel. There was a small cave.  I couldn’t even take a picture because it was churning and I thought I might drop by phone. 

We did stop by this island that had a ton of Nazca boobies.  If you zoom in, you can see them.  I was not taking many pictures!

This is the praying monk. 

You can see a beach beyond the praying monk and this is where Darwin landed. 

Santiago island was once overrun with goats. They ate everything and the land iguanas all died of starvation.  They decided to get rid of all the goats.  How did they do this? They put a collar on a female goat and all the other goats followed her so they could shoot all the goats from a helicopter.  Yes, they ate the goats. Now they have re-introduced land iguanas.  

Obviously we made it back to the ship safely and a little damp. They canceled kayaking because it was just too rough.  They moved up a meeting to get details about leaving tomorrow and the ship moved location to another area of Santiago Island.  

We got a new schedule in which they tried to add kayaking later, but it was still too rough on the other side of the island.  We even had lunch in the restaurant instead of on the patio since it was so windy.  There were two activities in the afternoon. We could go on a 1.7 mile hike that would take about two hours or we could go to the beach and relax and do some stretching or take a swim.  (Originally it was time to snorkel again, but that was vetoed.)

We were going to do the hike, but my husband asked if we could do a shorter hike if we just went to the beach.  They agreed.  The water landing at the beach looked tougher than it was and we barely got wet.  We put on shoes and went for a walk.  Our walk was a small portion of what the people on the longer hike ended up doing. 

Of course we saw sea lions on the beach.  

As we were walking, Felipe showed us a bunch of plants.  Most of them had scary looking thorns.  

We saw a lava lizard on a tree. 

There was a land iguana hanging out next to the trail and we watched him eat some yellow flowers. 

There were two seals on the rocks by the tide pools and one was nursing! 

All the pictures from this walk and on the island were taken by my husband because I didn’t dare to bring my phone since I didn’t have a dry bag for it.  

The island looked so sparse that I couldn’t believe that goats found something to eat on it.  There were also the ruins of a farm in which someone tried to start a salt mining business, but it didn’t work out.  

After our hike, we sat on the black sand beach for a bit, chatting with each other.  My husband and I heard an interesting bird call and I knew if I talked to the naturalist, Ibari, that he would know what bird it was.  I was right!  However, he said no one has have recorded that bird being on Santiago Island, but he has also heard ii! I thought that was pretty neat. The bird was a tiny one that was red and black. 

We returned to the ship and spent some time in the hammocks on the observation deck…until it got too windy. Then we chatted with the bartenders and tried some drinks before our farewell meeting.  The caption said a few words and we watched a slideshow in which every guest contributed some pictures.  They will email it to us later.  Earlier in the day we were able to download a video of all the things we saw snorkeling!  

I have been super impressed with this trip.  I feel like they have thought of everything.  We got two small gifts, one was a handmade magnet that said Galapagos and another was National Geographic luggage tags.  The service was top notch.  I can’t think of a single thing that they should change.  It was excellent.