Day 234: Puerto Ayora – Galapagos Islands – Feb 6th

Signed up for a Bay Tour to get a sense of what the islands were all about before we do some more extensive traveling around the islands aboard of a ship. There were 5 sights for the half day tour, leaving us the other half of the day to visit the beach!

Taking a small boat out to a small islet, we were fitted with snorkels and were told to jump into the water. The snorkels sorta sucked and kept leaking salt water as the currents kept washing us in all different directions. It didn’t matter though, as we snorkeled closer and closer to the islet, it was all good. Sea lions were resting on the islet, but the younger, more curious ones were weaving in and around our group!! They’d swim right up to about a foot away from you, face to face, then take a sharp turn elsewhere. All you needed to do was float in water and watch these amazing creatures at play with you! The guide (all activities on the Galapagos requires a guide) took a rope along, and played tug of war with the sea lions, while others bite on their fin to see what that was. They were so cute! The currents though, were not, as we kept getting pushed in and out of the shallow rocks, making us think what it’d be like tomorrow during the dive!

The next site, we saw some giant tortoises and iguanas swimming about. And finally the last interesting thing was this small chasm about 10m wide with a deeeep drop of water. It was a popular place for a cool swim as it was almost like a swimming pool, but the highlight was climbing up the rocks to dive in. Alan dove in from about 3m high, while exhilarating, was nothing compared to the guide who climbed up to the top and did a perfect dive into the water from about 15m!

We got back, rested and headed to a popular site nearby, Tortuga Bay. It was quite a long ways walk, taking over 45min, but once we got there it was all worth’d. The sand was silky soft, and although the waves were quite strong, the beach was very flat and waves would gently coat the beach with a thin layer of water, casting out a shimmering reflection of the clouds in the sky. It was exactly as you’d imagine a picturesque “beach vacation” pictures, with white sand, blue waters and only the two of us! And the government once again did a fine job, not allowing any vendors onto the beach, and keeping walk paths so you wouldn’t wander out and step on some iguana eggs.

The waters were amazingly clear, and this being the Galapagos, there was wildlife everywhere! Crabs were munching on algae on the rocks while iguanas were all taking a late afternoon stroll along beach. In knee-deep waters, you’d see schools of small fish, and even shrimps! We wandered around but took an amazing nap in the sun. When we woke up, we realized within 2m from us, there were several iguana tracks! They just walked right by us and we didn’t even know it! Ha ha.

Galapagos is awesome!