The ocean was calm and there was a pleasant breeze coming from the giant volcanoes of the sea horse shaped island, known as Isabela. National Geographic Islander navigated along the coastline, allowing us to enjoy the incredible geology, while some others got to spot a few ocean birds skimming the surface for planktonic species!
After breakfast, we crossed the Equator line and were baptized with the permission of King Neptune; all of us became shellbacks. We soon arrived to Punta Vicente Roca (the northern part of Isabela) and had a Zodiac ride, where we were able to spot a group of Galapagos penguins fishing and surfacing around our Zodiac, we also saw flightless cormorants nesting along the coast and pacific sea turtles floating on the surface of the ocean just resting and basking!
We got into our wetsuits and decided to snorkel around the same bay we visited on our Zodiac ride. This time the penguins got a bit closer to us underwater as they were fishing all around us. We encountered many pacific green sea turtles and swam with them; some of them were resting on the sandy bottom while others were feeding on the green algae off the shallow rocky shore!
After lunch we repositioned the National Geographic Islander and anchored off the coast of the youngest island of the Galapagos, arriving to Punta Suarez (the only visitor site on this island). As soon as we had a dry landing, we found the land of dragons in front of our eyes. Hundreds of large marine iguanas welcomed us to enter the most preserved island in the enchanted archipelago. A Galapagos hawk was resting on the red mangrove trees and lava lizards were sitting on some iguanas’ heads. These black marine iguanas were covering large areas of our trail as some sneezed salt out of their nostrils! This is the only marine iguana in the world and we sure saw hundreds of them today!
