We arrived early in the morning to northern Santa Cruz. We were now far away from the inhabited areas of this island, and the panorama looked quite different with the landscape being dominated by bare incense trees and prickly Opuntia trees instead of the greenery of the southern coast. It is here where we find a visitor’s site called Cerro Dragon, named after the endemic yellow-colored land iguanas that inhabit it. Since it is their last ‘kingdom’ on this island, major conservation projects have been carried out by the National Park, mainly to increase their numbers that have been decimated by predation in the past. We landed on the shoreline and followed an inland trail that led us to the land iguanas’ territories. We walked past cacti and spiny bushes, and soon enough we started finding them: most were warming themselves up in the mild temperatures of this morning, while others had started to patrol their territories. We were expecting to find just a few of them, since they are usually well camouflaged, but today’s weather was on our side and we found two or three dozens of them! After such a successful excursion we returned back onboard to get into our snorkeling gear and leave once more. This time were ready to explore the underwater world of a group of rocks named Guy Fawkes. They are the remains of an eroded tuff cone located far from the coast, and the snorkeling here was quite stunning: there were large schools of king angel fish, scissor-tailed chromis and razor surgeons. Colorful fish were to be found here too like the blue-chin and the bump-head parrotfish, barberfish and harlequin wrasses. Alongside a magnificent wall we had a close encounter of a local inhabitant of these rocks: a Galapagos penguin, which amazed us with its diving skills and speedy swimming. Some of our guests preferred to enjoy the peace and tranquility of a local little beach, where they could just swim and relax.
In the afternoon we changed our location and navigated westwards towards Eden Islet. There is no trail to land on in this area, but we could certainly enjoy the ocean and the beautiful coastline. While our younger guests set off to learn to drive a Zodiac, others joined a Zodiac ride to appreciate the local wildlife: marine iguanas, great blue herons, lava gulls, brown noddies and blue-footed boobies, just to mention a few. Towards sunset we had already weighed anchor in order to circumnavigate Daphne Major, a large tuff cone where long-termed research has been done for over four decades by a couple of British scientists on the evolution of the Darwin finches. The occasion was perfect to celebrate a wonderful expedition with a glass of champagne in hand. We cannot wait until tomorrow and visit our next destinations in the Enchanted Islands: Bartolomé and Sombrero Chino.
