Isabela

From the itinerary: Isabela Island: Tagus Cove / Urbina Bay

We were awake for the sunrise

And the welcoming penguins!

And ready for our breakfast of fruit, a hard boiled egg, and a crepe.

Then we started our trek up to the ridge to see a view of Tagus Cove and the Darwin Lake. Darwin Lake is salt water - fed by an underground link to the sea. Nothing lives in it.

Coming into the cove where the boat was anchored we noticed a lot of graffiti. It turns out some of it is very old and some of it was made as a result of army exercises. We got a close up as we walked up to the viewpoint.

Going up to the viewpoint we saw several birds like:

Flightless cormorants

a fly catcher

a cuckcoo and its nest

several lava lizards

And an iguana

and bunny in a tree (here's another shot of the boat in the cove from the same vantage point)

Some morning glories

On the way down we found some dead sea lion bones

After the hike we had a small zodiac ride close to the cliffs where we saw flightless cormorants, pelicans, penguins, Galapagos martins, boobies and a brown noddy

The afternoon snorkel was freezing cold, but we were able to swim with the penguins

A starfish

And two bull head sharks

Lunch was a lovely soup and beef. Desert was a crepe with some ice cream.

Today’s chocolate was Allspice and it was very nice.

We cruised over to Urbana Bay and could see the steam vents from the volcano as we went.

The afternoon was a nature walk starting on a black sand beach

where we saw a lot of large land tortoises (and their poop). When we came back the tide came in and we ended up walking through water (thankfully (?) in bare feet) because the water was full of tortoise poop

and several land iguanas

our first hermit crabs

a dragon fly

and some whale bones

Snorkeling was next when I realized my goal of swimming with turtles.

And some other nice looking fish, unfortunately the visibility wasn’t great.

Tonight’s cocktail demonstration was Ecuadorian Mohito. Chris got a free drink because he answered the question, "how many seals are in the Galapagos" - answer is none

Dinner was Squid cocktail or Fish with mash. We had the fish with mash which was so bad I couldn't eat it. In fact, I believe it was off because I felt ill afterward.

We had a side trip on the boat towards the active Floreana volcano. While looking at the stars you could see the volcanic activity reflected on the clouds (below in red)