November 30th – December 6th – Galapagos

The grand finale was now here. We picked up the flight from Quito at Guayaquil’s impressively modern airport. An hour and a half later we were circling San Cristobal, the most easterly of the Galapagos islands. On getting off the bus after a 5 minute ride, we immediately saw sea lions lying around, not only on the beach, but also in the street, under a shelter. As the adjacent sign stated, SC is the “capital of paradise”, and it had made a good start in justifying that claim.

We were quickly on board the “Letty” with our 15 companions for the week (6 British, 2 German and 7 Americans), 2 guides plus about 11 crew and found our cabin on the upper deck and with an ensuite bathroom – not something which we had become accustomed to on our previous seafaring experiences. After lunch and briefing, we motored round the corner to a bay where we disembarked into inflatable dinghies for the beach. There were found more sea lions basking in the sunshine and totally unconcerned about the presence of humans. We were also given the opportunity to snorkel, although this proved to be quite challenging due to strong under currents from the beach (one of which knocked S right over) as well as equipment which needed quite a bit of adjustment to fit and work properly. But the sea lions more than made up for the snorkelling.

Our 2 guides were Orlando, an old hand who first came to the islands in 1974, and respectfully called “El Comandante” by the other guides we met, and Maria Gabriella (Maria or Gabi) younger but still very knowledgeable. They made a good combination, alternating presentations each evening before dinner on aspects of the islands and their wildlife, as well as a briefing on the next day’s activities.

We also met the Captain, a dashing man in his late 30s who entertained a different group of passengers at his table each evening. We were invited on the first evening and he arrived dressed in white, looking like someone who had just stepped off the set of “An Officer and a Gentleman”. He was suitably charming and all round we felt in safe hands for our voyage in paradise.

Dinner also revealed the presence of another English lawyer on board, a young solicitor with Allen & Overy who was on honeymoon. More interestingly, he turned out to be a Spurs supporter, while his new wife favoured the red side of North London – we explained that we now had similar splits of loyalty within our own (growing) family.

Also at dinner was another English couple who had experienced a nightmare with LAN Airways, who had managed to get them from Cusco to Guayaquil the night before the flight to SC, but without their luggage. They had to go emergency shopping in SC before boarding the boat, but would not be expecting to be reunited with their luggage until Day 5. LAN seemed to have behaved particularly badly, given that it was their cancellation of a flight and the delay of another which had caused the separation of the baggage from its owners.

One interesting aspect of life on board was that the Letty kept mainland Ecuador time. We realised that this was probably to ease the pain of being woken up at 6.00am each morning for breakfast at 6.30 and disembarkation at 7.15 for the first morning activity. Somehow 7.00/7.30 and 8.15 seemed so much more civilised.

The itinerary was designed so that most of the sailing between the islands was done overnight, so we woke up on Day 2 more than 70 miles to the north of SC, having crossed the equatorial line. We were at Genovesa, a tiny and uninhabited island, which only the smaller boats are allowed to visit. We landed in the inflatables and set off in 2 groups for a walk from the beach in the bay to the outer edge of the island and back. At virtually every step we were able to see birds at very close quarters, none of whom thought it necessary to move a muscle because of our presence. We saw numerous frigates, boobies (red as well as blue footed), mockingbirds, and storm petrels. It was an extraordinary experience not to have birds flying away at the first sign of human beings. Lunch on board was followed by a siesta (a welcome part of the daily routine) and then a choice of either snorkelling or a hike – S was concerned that the snorkelling was going to prove challenging again but this time it was off the boat instead of from the beach and the prospect of sea lions was too tempting – a decision she did not regret as, as soon as she got into the water and immersed herself, she was confronted by two sea lions playing underneath her and blowing bubbles in her face – a wonderful experience. The wonders of the undersea world were many, fish of many colours, sea stars (looking like chocolate chip cookies) so much to see that it quite took your breath away.

The remaining days contained so many highlights it is impossible to list them all, most days would involve both snorkelling either off the boat or from the beach and a hike on land (either wet or dry landing) – by far the “best” day snorkelling was on the Wednesday when snorkelling near the island called interestingly “Chinese Hat” owing to its resemblance to the same, we saw within the space of five minutes penguins, two enormous rays, numerous coloured fish and a sea lion chasing and nibbling the back fin of a white tipped shark (the latter seen only by S, but R was rewarded the following day by several close encounters with another WTS). The snorkelling throughout was outstanding and with so many fish visible so close to the water surface, scuba diving seemed unnecessary. The sea lions were completely different in the water, ungainly out of it, but full of grace and athleticism in it, and it was a real privilege to share their environment, even only for a short time.

We also visited Bartolome – generally regarded as the most beautiful land and seascape in the islands and the site of some of the filming of “Master & Commander”, which apparently did not involve any relaxation of the regulations of the national park. We were rewarded with fine weather and stunning views for our visit and snorkelling there, including another sighting of a shark as well as a huge ray (some debate on precise species, but either a manta or a stingray).

On land we enjoyed really close proximity to marine and land iguanas, blue footed boobies, nazca boobies, doves, gulls, Darwin’s finches and of course had endless opportunity to interact with sea lions. We also visited the island of Santa Cruz where we journeyed into the highlands to see giant tortoise in the wild, a species which is in danger of extinction as are several other species in the Galapagos and were taken to the Darwin Centre to see more tortoises and where they have a breeding programme to help prevent the loss of some of the sub-species of tortoise that exist on the islands. This is also where the tortoise “lonesome George” is found, the search for a female mate for him continues as he is the last of his sub-species – unfortunately he was nowhere to be seen as he was hiding in the undergrowth when we visited.

Our last day was spent on the island of Espanola – firstly on a beautiful white beach where in addition to the obligatory sea lions we observed oyster catchers and also the hooked mocking-bird who were very friendly – too friendly in fact as they tried to get to our water bottles having been encouraged to do so by tourists in the past.

After lunch and our final snorkel in underwater paradise we did a two hour hike on the island, again seeing many “tame” birds and also many young ones, S was very proud to show the rest of the group a Nazca booby sitting not on an egg as she had supposed but on a chick that was only a couple of days old. We also found the endangered albatross there, youngsters of about 6 months who stay on the island until they can fly and then launch themselves off the cliff when they have found their wings. There was also a spectacular “blow hole” off the beach which we could witness from above but could not get closer owing to a tragic accident in which two tourists died a few years ago. The hole was in fact the narrow opening in the rock above a large cavern into which waves crashed and the pressure of the water created a spout which sometimes went 10m or so into the air. The accident apparently resulted from a visitor standing over the hole and then being knocked into it by a spout with he and another couple of tourists who sought to rescue him being trapped in the cavern beneath the hole.

Then it was back on board for our final supper, cocktail with the Captain, guides and the rest of the crew before going on deck to witness our arrival back in San Cristobal around 10pm and our last night on board.

We have also been fortunate with our group of companions for the week. All the other 15 were pleasant company over dinner or to share a hike or snorkelling expedition. There was a female majority – 12 to 5 – with most of the females being older than us and having parted company in some way (either choice or nature) with their male partners. Although we thought our alcohol consumption during the week was fairly modest, for the first few days we had the only open tab at the bar and even though the rest of the party did eventually start to indulge to some extent, we ended up with the largest bar bill by some margin. Some of this was shared with others, but curiously the concept of reciprocation seemed to get lost in translation with some.

Erika, a recently retired scientific researcher from MIT and originally from Germany, was initially interested in offering her services as a volunteer to the Darwin Research Centre, but received a rather cool reception from the people she spoke to there, probably because they favoured younger and Ecuadorian candidates. But it seemed a wasted opportunity for the centre to pick up some high powered help for nothing. Erika also had the capacity to surprise the rest of us, most notably when she went fully clothed into the sea to join the others who had gone swimming off a beach. R and Thomas (the German) had left their kit on the boat as had Erika, but she was not deterred from joining in – very impressive.

The experience on the Galapagos has been truly breath-taking, even though we (S particularly) always thought it would be the highlight of the trip for us, nothing could have quite prepared us for the proximity of the wildlife and their trust in us and we are returning enriched by the adventure and armed with our wonderful memories and countless photographs to edit on our return to the UK - the enchanted islands were exactly as they sound – simply enchanting.

Our return to Quito took all day and we were met by William and reunited with our belongings that we had left with him and the hotel.