Off to the Galapagos Islands

We are here!! We caught our flight this morning from Quito to Baltra in the Galapagos. Like everything else here we weren’t too sure about what time our flight left, internet said one thing, our itinerary said another thing, and the guide said another time. Everything ended up working out great, we were switched flights and ended up on a direct flight.

Galapagos - Thanks to Google or somebody

First view of Galapagos, our ship is the middle one!

So we are here, everything we could have imagined and more. We got off our flight and took an old bus to the dock to get to our ship.

There were all kind of sea lions waiting to greet us, what a way to start! A short zodiac ride out and we were on our ship.

There are 13 passengers on our ship, a German, a couple from Holland, a guy from Quebec, a few Americans and us. We have a real mixture of people, occupations and ages which is going to make it lots of fun.

Right after arriving on board we were given a briefing about the rules of the national park, rules of the boat, and a little about how our week will go.

Where we will be sailing this week

Samba - our home for the next week

Every day we are given a briefing of what is going to happen

We then had lunch, meals are served with us all around a big table with trays of food set out. Lunch was red snapper, delicious.

After lunch we had a safety drill where we had to go down to our cabins, find our life jackets and come back to the bow of the ship with our lifejackets on and shoes. I don’t know, in the case of an emergency I am not taking the time to find my shoes! Plus, if I have to get in the water with that life jacket on I think it may strangle me.

They are very serious here about conservation and preserving the islands as best as possible. Every time we get on the boat we have to dip our shows in this solution so as not to move anything from one Island to another. No shoes on deck either, it is going to be a barefoot week.

While eating we were traveling and rocking and rolling, I will keep myself well medicated for this trip, it is a rocky one.

Following lunch we stopped at South Plaza for our first introduction to how our days will be spent.

We need to take two Zodiacs off of the ship to get us to land, and we either have wet or dry landings, you’re either jumping into the water, or onto a wharf/dock of some sort.

Today was a dry landing and then a 2 mile easy walk.

The 2 miles took us over 3 hours, that is how much there is to see!!

We were first greeted by Sea Lions, it is the end of the pups being born, and we saw everything from 1 week old to a few months babies. It is amazing how tame everything is, just like you have heard they literally have no fear of humans. You will be walking along a path and a sea lion is in the way so you just walk around it.

This is also our first introduction to some of the different birds we will see. Like the sea lions they also have no fear, and will land right beside you. You can walk right beside them and they don’t even move, it is really amazing to experience.

We’re seen our first blue footed boobie, as well as red billed tropic birds being chased and attacked by frigates for their food.

The island we were on has very little vegetation, some cactus and another ground covering that changes from green to red depending on the time of year and how much rain there has been. It is very dry right now and everything was red making it very pretty against the cactus.

We have a guide with us that must accompany us on any of our tours on the islands. He is from the Galapagos and really fantastic. You can tell that this is his passion. He left to go to university and majored in ecology, with biology and geology as his minors. He is really amazing to talk to and listen to, I am sure he will make this tour even more memorable.

We also had our first introduction to reptiles today, we saw land and marine iguanas, as well as lots of lava lizards. I think we will see lots more of these as our days progress.

Our guide Juan told us today is a little overwhelming with just seeing everything for the first time, but he said it even gets much better. I can hardly wait!

Supper back on the ship, I went down to our cabin for a nap prior to supper, we were really tossing around.

Supper is now finished and it is 10:30pm and Andre and I are the only ones still up.

Tomorrow morning breakfast is at 6am and then we are off on another day of adventures. Tomorrow we are spending the day on an inhabited island touring, and then we are off to sea again and finally some time in the water snorkelling.

Bed is calling so that’s it for now. A quick word about the cabin, it is bunk beds that are supposed to be able to sleep 2 on the bottom, it will not be this 2. I have got the bottom bunk. We all have our own bathrooms, and the bunk bed and that is about it. They are very tiny cabins.

You have to go down some very tiny steps to get to the cabins, I am not being brave, I don’t care if I look silly I am going down the steps backwards. I am guessing the cabin is 6” by 7” at best. From the itinerary we have heard we will not be spending any time in the cabin anyway except quick naps and a nights sleep. Now I am really off to be rocked to sleep.