Galapagos Day One – South Plaza Island and Santa Fe Island



Getting started on our dream journey was relatively uneventful.  We flew to Baltra, one of the Galapagos islands where the airport is.  Apparently this airport was a US airbase in WW2 charged with protecting the Panama canal.  The landing was initially aborted (and my heart skipped a beat I think) but landed easily on the second attempt.  They claimed wind at ground level but I have my doubts.  Then we cooled our heels for a bit in the VIP lounge at the airport while they waited for the next plane which also had people destined for our boat.  


Our home for the week
The boat itself was a 48 passenger (and 40 crew) arrangement which I think was perfect for what we were doing.  The various boats in the Galapagos seem to be grouped as taking on 16 people (many of these), a few mid -sized (like ours) and a couple of large (100 person ones).  We were very happy with our choice – neither too big nor too little.  There were usually 2 choices of activities at any time (long hike vs a short one, or snorkeling vs zodiac rides) so it was never crowded.  Plus the number of guests per naturalist is controlled by the park.





Our first full day took us to South Plaza Island in the morning and Santa Fe Island in the afternoon. 

South Plaza was our first real hike.  There is also a North Plaza Island and the park allows visitors only to the south one.  Landscape here is quite unusual – fairly flat – with the vegetation mostly grey or red (it was the end of the dry season) with occasional cactus trees.  









There are vast amounts of land iguanas here and they are really cool looking and quite photogenic.









Group photo-op


In the afternoon we did our first snorkel at Santa Fe Island (boat moved during lunch).  The water through much of our snorkel sessions was not as clear and calm as in the Caribbean (no protective reefs).  The result was water that was a bit turbid from the waves but still quite easy to see through.  There was a male sea lion protecting his bit of shore line and he did not seem to happy to have us as close as we were.  Lucky he only barked a lot as he patrolled back and forth.  A wonderful amount of fish of course.

This guy was busy protecting his stretch of coastline



Amazing amounts of fish


The afternoon, still on Santa Fe but at a different spot, had a shorter hike (about 1.5 hours).  None of the hikes were fast – the idea was to go slow enough to see easily what we wanted to and to have enough time to take many, many photos.

The first group of many wonderful sea lions




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