Capturing the Moment

  Me and David in the Santa Cruz highlands. It was pretty amazing to be surrounded by these giant, ancient reptiles. Santa Cruz Island is the commercial hub of the Galapagos Islands. While the island is relatively undeveloped, the main port town of Puerto Ayora does boast 30,000 people. There is a road going for 42km straight across the island from Puerto Ayora, which connects to the airport on the next island of Baltra. This is also the home to the famed Charles Darwin Research Station, where young giant tortoises are raised through their vulnerable early years, before being released into the wild at the age of ten. Marine iguana enjoying the sunny day. Many backpackers, who can't afford to go on fancy expedition cruises, will use Puerto Ayora as their base of activities. The town is filled with hotels and hostels, restaurants, and tour operators. I saw advertisements for ferries to other islands, snorkel day trips, and even surf trips, as I walked around the waterfront. But I did...

  Two American flamingos fluffed up and enter-twined, their version of fighting.    After traveling through the night on our expedition ship La Pinta, and crossing the equator twice, I woke to the dropping of the anchor in front of an beautiful island called Rabida Island in the central part of the Galapagos Archipelago. A beautiful red sand beach stretches along the coast here, and that provided our beach landing spot for our morning nature walk. It was a wet landing, so everyone sits and spins off the sides of the zodiac into the shallow water. As we did this a curious sea lion played nearby in the surf, and a few blue footed boobies cruised overhead.    After drying our feet and putting on our shoes, Dries, our guide, led us about fifty feet, behind the bushy dune, which revealed a shallow lagoon. Inside this brackish lagoon we were delighted to see bright pink flamingos. Dries said that they never know if the flamingos will be here, because they fly from isl...

  We had great encounters with six different giant Galapagos tortoises on our hike at Urbina Bay. Several of the tortoises were on the move, fighting, and stretching their necks out. This one gave me the shot I was hoping for! What a packed day for Day 3 of our Galapagos Expedition Cruise. Last night we crossed back over from Fernandina Island to Isabella Island. On the menu for Day 3 was four different activities at two different locations on the west side of Isabella. We started with a nature walk into the tortoise filled forest of Urbina Bay, followed by a snorkel from the beach there. In the afternoon we had either a kayak or drift snorkel, followed by a power hike or skiff tour at Urbina Bay. The wind kicked up a bit in the morning as we jetted into Urbina Bay on our little zodiac. We had to do a wet landing, so our guide, Dries, jumped out in the shallows to hold the front of the zodiac steady, while everyone else did the sit-and-spin over the sides and scampered up the beach...