Galapagos Islands

Sunday, April 3, 2016, WTRD 86

Three thirty in the morning rolled around fast.  We were enjoying a king size bed in a king size suite in Quito when the alarm went off.

We dressed, took the extra bags to hotel storage, locked up the small rolling duffles, grabbed our backpacks, checked out of the hotel, collected our box breakfast, and were loaded into the van and on our way to the airport at 4:30 am.  We ate our breakfast on our way to the airport.





There are 13 of us in the new group, us, Peter and Diane who were n Peru with us, Janet and her daughter Julie from England, Gill (Jill)  and Mick also from England, and the rest Aussies; Nathan, Bev and Leon, Jackie and Simon.  We arrived on Baltra Island, Or South Seymore around 9:30 as there was a 1 hour time change.

We boarded the Queen Beatriz, and our new guide gave us an orientation to Galapagos rules and safety talk.  We had about 45 minutes to organize our rooms before lunch was served. We have a nice size room with a private balcony.

The motor cat carries 16 people.  Passengers come and go depending on whether they are on a 17 day, 14 day, 10 day, 7 day, or 5 day expedition There isn't much on the itinerary today except for a snorkel.  When we joined the boat, all but 3 of the passengers had left this morning.  Our group of 13 joined with Thomas from Holland, Rudy from Belgium, and Robert from Canada.  They have 3 more days before they depart, and we will be the next ones to welcome newbies aboard.

Our first activity was a drift snorkel at Punta Carrion.  The water was warm and enjoyable, however it lacked clarity and coral.  The Galapagos has some coral but it is mostly volcanic rocks.  We saw angel fish, parrot fish, clown loaches, and schools of silver fish that we could not identify.  Not remarkable snorkeling, but it was wonderful to be back in the equatorial sea.  After over an hour of snorkeling, we returned to the QB for showers, briefing, Captain's welcome and cocktails, dinner and early treat to the cabins.  We were all exhausted.

Russ and I were hanging some clothing out on our balcony when we heard some thrashng in the water.  It looked like the crew had thrown some organics in the water just in front of our deck.  A huge shark 2-3 meters in length was snapping whatever they had thrown out.  There was very little moon, but our balcony light illuminated the thrashing creature and it looked ghostly white just under the surface of the water.  We would not have wanted to see this guy while snorkeling earlier.

Tomorrow we are up at 5:00 for a 6:00 am walk about to look for Marine Iguana.

All is well with The Worrall Travel Rs in the Galapagos.