Santiago Island

From the itinerary: Santiago Island: Egas Port / Espumilla Beach / Buccaneer Cove

Egas Port is lava and black sand.

After sunrise I saw a small stow-away in the boat's water drainage pipe

Breakfast was fruit, eggs, bacon and an Ecuadorian corn/cheese fritter

Todays nature walk was incredibly hot, mostly due to having to be in snorkel gear which didn’t breath. At one point I almost fainted. There were some interesting things to see and learn.

We had a wet landing onto the black sand beach

The house and buildings on the island were left over from a salt operation which closed down when the island was incorporated into the national park.

We saw more land iguanas

and sea iguanas

a Yellow Warbler

a Cuckcoo

numerous lava lizards

Monarch butterflies

Spiders

And along the coast there were interesting lava formations and natural bridges through which the ocean tides came offering fur sea lions a place to bathe and rest

There were also some pretty shells

There was even a lava fountain, of sorts...

It was generally a rather romantic spot, if only there were fewer tourists....

Walking back towards to zodiac we saw some interesting arrangements of shells, interesting shaped rocks and lobster parts

and a crab

Snorkeling was nominally interesting. When the sun came out I could film some fish eating.

some starfish

Lunch was up on deck where we learned how to make Ecuadorian Cerviche. The main course was a sort of beef stew.

After lunch was a much built up snorkel opportunity which was probably the worst of the trip. Very rough with poor visibility. We did go into a cave and saw some fish

amazingly you could see the fish in the half light of the cave

There were some sharks along the way.

Towards the end we could almost see a large school of fish which were being hunted by a shark that we also could almost barely see.

The last activity of the day (thank goodness) was a zodiac ride to nearby sea stacks

where we saw all manner of sea lions

we drove by some penguins on a rock

and lots of birds like Blue Footed Boobies

Nazca Boobies

Swallow Tail Gulls

Night Herons

Lava Herons

a Butorides (as defined by google...)

Blue Herons

and more interesting sea stacks

with cactus growing in seemingly impossible places

and we came around to an area where you could see lava layers

While we were gone a sea lion decided to come up on the aft staging area of the boat for a rest

The snack was pizza - very tasty.

We enjoyed a pretty sunset

before the goodbye drink/cocktail combined with a birthday for the captain and a group shot (all 18 of us)

And dinner, with champagne since it was our last night