Located on the northeastern tip of San Cristobal, Punta Pitt offers the only place in the islands that we can see the three species of boobies nesting and an incredible landscape formed by eroded tuff cliffs.
With a sunny day, our last day in the Galapagos began with a Zodiac ride along the coast of San Cristobal. We observed a great number of sea birds such as frigate birds, red, blue, and Nazca boobies, while in the ocean sea lions tried to catch some of the yellow-tail mullets swimming close to us.
Afterwards we landed on the green sandy beach of Pinta Pitt, whose color comes from its high content of olivine crystals. We headed inland through a narrow trail, crossing through shrubby vegetation and rocky terrain which was steep and looked concave in certain parts. Certainly this natural path was created after intensive rainfalls during the last “El Nino” phenomenon. Finally we arrived at the top of the cliff, and observed a magnificent landscape with eroded tuff formation and vertical cliffs everywhere. After this, we moved downslope along flat and easy terrain, whose soft soil permitted marine iguanas to dig and make their nests easily. We observed many of them and some iguanas basking their bodies on the black rocks while on the top of the bushes, red-footed boobies nested, incubating their eggs.
After visiting Punta Pitt, we started navigating along the west of the island to snorkel around Kicker Rock, or “Leon Dormido,” a group of three rocks in the middle of the ocean. With excellent weather and clear water we headed to the foot the magnificent formation. We observed a great number of Galapagos sharks, black-tipped reef sharks, and green sea turtles swimming indifferently along the vertical walls and moving down to the deepest ocean. There was a huge bank of black stripped salemas close to the surface and two sea lions trying to catch some of them.
Our day finished with us circumnavigating around Kicker Rock, observing many frigate birds flying over our guests who enjoyed the view and the sunset along the west, remembering the best memories of this beautiful place forever.
