Santa Cruz Island

After another overnight cruise, we awoke for breakfast with the boat moored off the north coast of Santa Cruz Island, one of the larger islands in the Galapagos.  We took the pangas to shore for a “wet landing,” where there is no dock and you have to jump off the pangas into the surf and wade ashore.

As we walked on shore the first thing we saw were the distinctive tracks of sea turtles all over the beach.  Santa Cruz is a prime nesting site for these huge reptiles, which drag themselves out of the water on their flippers, dig nests in the sand, and then deposit their eggs in the sand before returning to the ocean.  We didn’t see any turtles on the beach this morning, but their tracks and nests were everywhere.  As we walked the beach we saw brown pelicans and a bird called a brown noddy, which hangs out near the pelicans so that they can catch and eat the small fish that the pelicans strain out of their huge bills. We saw a bright red crab common to the Galapagos known as a Sally Lightfoot crab, and we saw a few lava lizards, small  lizards that scurry around through the lava rocks.  In a brackish water (saltwater) lagoon near the beach, we saw some beautiful pink flamingoes.  Finally, before returning to the boat for lunch, we finished our morning outing with some fun on the beach.

During lunch we set sail for another location on Santa Cruz Island where we would spend our afternoon. After lunch, North joined Captain Victor on the bridge of the Flamingo 1, and he showed North how to navigate and how to steer the ship.  North steered the boat while the captain kept track of our course for most of our afternoon cruise.

During our afternoon shore excursion, we took a walk through an arid landscape where we saw some terrific examples of a cactus tree that is endemic to the Galapagos.  This cactus forms a hard woody trunk and grows tall like a tree. Nowhere else in the world can you find such a species of cactus.  In this are we also saw a number of Galapagos land iguana, a large and relatively rare lizard that nearly became extinct because of competition for food from goats and other species introduced to the islands by people.  The national park service has since removed most of the goats from the island the land iguana population is recovering.  We finished the outing with a short swim on the beach before returning to the boat for dinner.  Upon returning to the boat, we immediately set sail for our longest overnight navigation of the trip which would take us all the way to the westernmost part of the archipelago.

Sea Turtle tracks and nest

Brown Pelican

Pelican with Brown Noddy

Lava Lizard

Pink Flamingoes

Beach Break

Sally Lightfoot Crab

Sara, Quinn and North on the beach with boats anchored

Body surfing

First Mate "Norte"

Land Iguana

Land Iguana

Cactus Trees