Pinnacle Rock

Our normal wake up call at 5:30 again this morning. Today we started with a zodiac ride to another island with lots of lava. The highlight of this morning walk was the Galapagos fur sea lion. They are much smaller than the sea lions that we have seen so far, and more timid as well. There are as many of this type of sea lion here as there is the regular sea lion that we have seen many of, except because these like to live on rough rocky places with shade available this is our first chance to see them. They are nocturnal so they were just coming back from their evening feeding and were ready to find the shade and rest.

Back to the zodiac and a quick change for snorkelling. This snorkel adventure was along a huge wall. Once again a very impressive spot with so many different fish.

After snorkelling we were back on board for a 2 hour move of the ship to our afternoon hike. This hike involved climbing to the top of a volcano in the heat. We took lots of breaks for everyone, but still more than 300 steps to climb was a lot. From the top you could see many of the surrounding islands, this is probably the most photographed place in all of the Galapagos, if you have seen a picture of the Galapagos this is probably it. We are also back now with lots of boats around, 6 of them were anchored at the same spot as we were to do the hike, but of course our guide had us out there first so we could get pictures from the top with no other tourists around.

Back on board again and we had 10 minute turn around for our second snorkel ride of the day. This time it was around Pinnacle rock, again lots and lots of beautiful fish. We did see our last view of the penguin in the water, I will so miss seeing these anywhere else that we snorkel.

We are back on board again after a very nice supper. Today is our actual 25^th anniversary and they had made a nice cake for us, they also opened up two bottles of wine on the house, we were very surprised, this was so nice of them.

The crew also all came up for a toast with Pina Coladas to say thank-you for spending our vacation with them, I can hardly believe this is nearly over.

Tomorrow we have a tour in the morning, and then off the ship. Most people are flying out tomorrow to different destinations, we are going to be spending 2 more days in the Galapagos, but it will still be sad to say good-bye to everyone.