Santa Cruz Island: Dragon Hill/Chinese Hill Island

The title of this blog was our itinerary for today. We had lots of activities!

After a soft sunrise

breakfast was a fried egg and bacon. I gave the egg to Chris and I ate our bacon (both pieces!)

The morning walk was amazing - we saw 12 Galapagos Land Iguanas which are quite impressive (the 4 year old, Hugo, counted them:).

At the dry landing we saw a frigate bird hanging out on the hand rail

We saw both male and female and they seemed to continue to increase in size as we continued our walk:)

They left a trail (poop) and invited us to their house/holes

We saw the local lava lizard variant (male/female)

Our nature walk took us near a marsh and saw a black necked stilt, but no flamingos

and Galapagos Fly Catchers

and a yellow warbler

some "X" spiders

a praying mantis

morning glories

and butterflies

and sea lions

We had a quick break before snorkeling of the beach, during which someone saw a 6 foot tiger shark, so we had to stay close to the beach. That said the angel fish and puffer fish got quite curious if you were able to just hang out as the waves rippled over you.

There were also several schools of fish which were enjoyable to watch.

I tried to stay away from the majority of snorkelers - here is the same school with others around

At the hill top we had a nice view of the boat

and boobies

We were chased off the beach by horse flies and couldn't wait to get back for lunch.

After lunch of chicken stuffed with spinach, made from old tough chicken,

we went for a snorkel off a wall which was more interesting. We finally saw marine iguanas

and even a marine iguana eating under water

and some rather big shells which were inhabited

and large schools of fish which included some parrot fish. We went on a very boring walk of China Hat Island

where we saw three baby seals which were probably going to die, and one that had died.

a partial lava tube

The only nice part of this walk (besides getting on the zodiac to go back to the boat), was sitting on the lava rocks near a cliff and watching/listening to the surf crash.

some sea stacks and small offshore islands

and crabs

and some romance

Michelle almost had a bad moment when she fell trying to get out of the zodiac as a wave hit the boat at a bad time. Luckily it was only a couple of scraped knees.

We started cruising to the next island and the frigate birds flew with us

Dinner was with Michell and Patty and quite a lot of wine was drunk. We had shrimp in white sauce on toast covered with cheese. The best part of the meal was the salad - greens, avocado, and local cheese.

At night the back boat lights were on again and we had another fish frenzy

Before going up deck to see the stars