Day 241: Golindrina Yacht – Galapagos Islands – Feb 13th

Today we spent all day in and around the main port on Isabella island, Puerto Villamil. The town is nothing like Puerto Ayora where it seems like there are actually people living, here it is purely a docking area with some nice blue waters and a tempting beach next to it.

A 45min ride in this awesome buggy got us to the base of the Sierra Negra volcano. A brisk 45min hike up some muddy trails got us to the mouth of the massive crater. It is actually the second largest volcano on an island, with the largest being the one in Hawaii. The whole volcano is now dormant because the magma underneath the crust has collapsed under its own weight (not a very scientific term), but back in 2010 there was a small, minor eruption resulting in some newer, blacker lava rock off the one side! It was pretty cool, and the size of it was pretty amazing.

In the afternoon, we visited yet another tortoise sanctuary which helps tortoises on this particular island only! And even within the island, around different volcanoes there are different types of tortoises…. Galapagos is crazy!

And what a day in the Galapagos would be without some snorkeling! We were dropped off on this beautiful white sandy beach lined with palm trees. There weren’t too many tourists, and a local bar served up some of the best coconuts we’ve had so far on the trip. We got ready to jump into the water for snorkeling, but quickly realized despite the deceiving water colour, the visibility was probably the worst we’ve had so far! It also didn’t help the waves were really strong, making it less than pleasant to snorkel. Even the most avid snorkelers called it an early day, and we ended up having fun chatting at the local bar for about 2hrs, sipping on some refreshing coconuts!

The Boat: We had some tourists leave us and some fresh blood join for the rest of the cruise, as the boat is also sold separately as a 4day and 3day package. We had a shortage of snorkels when we started, but we borrowed some from the sister ship. Problem was, somehow when the new people joined the ship, the snorkels were gone and we have even less to go around for everyone! W T F? What kind of business is this?