Today we navigated to the northwestern site of Santa Cruz Island, to a place known as Dragon Hill. We disembarked in the morning ready to explore and enjoy the beauty of the islands.
As soon as we arrived we found a majestic landscape of contrasts: colorful vegetation along the shore versus the dry vegetation and cacti a little farther; white sand covering some black lava; red soil washed by dark blue waters of a brackish lagoon… and at the lagoon we found a pink flamingo surrounded by ducks and gulls!
That was the beginning…
We hiked to a higher area, with softer soil and more cacti, and there we started our search of the day: Galapagos land iguanas!
In order to find them… we had to think like one of them! When the day is getting hotter, like it was today, these reptiles look for shade, and all the better if that shade is close to a prickly pear cactus which might let a fruit or two to fall. We looked for trails, which is a line in the soil from the iguana’s tail! So if you follow it, you might end up finding an iguana! You can also find an iguana by finding the holes they built all over the area--they are territorial so they will be close to their holes. With all of this information in mind, we started our iguana counting, and we were able to find several of them, while enjoying this unique environment.
We came back ready to get in the water, so we took some of our guests to a nearby beach, and others we went to deep water snorkel from a Zodiac at Guy Fawkes Islets. The snorkeling went very well! The highlight of this area is the wall that drops so deep it seems to have no end, which is covered with all kind of invertebrates: corals, anemones, sponges, of course fish, urchins, sea stars and sea lions where there too. But the other highlight was a solitary penguin which observed us from a rock. What a contrast, to see a penguin and a flamingo on the same morning!
The afternoon was spent in Eden, which is a mangrove area that is home to herons, boobies and pelicans, as well as underwater life like sharks, sea turtles and rays. The blue footed boobies really stole the show with their impressive dives in front of our boats. We explored the shores, gaining a further understanding of the importance of conserving this very unique and fragile environment of the mangrove forests. We came back and navigated to Daphne Major, where we enjoyed the view of this iconic island for science, where Darwin finches have been studied for decades. We learned about these events, while cheering with all our new friends against the backdrop of a beautiful sunset. This was the perfect way to end this day.
