Galapagos Sea Cloud
ITINERARY DAY BY DAY
8 days / 7 nights
Friday to Friday
Day 1
Baltra Island / South Plaza Island
Arrival at Baltra, you are transfered to the Samba. Your first outing is on Plazas Island. You spend the next few hours ashore viewing land iguanas, sea lions, Swallow-tailed gulls, red-billed tropic birds, Audubon’s shearwaters and more can be seen.
Day 2
Darwin Station / Highlands (Santa Cruz Island)
The Charles Darwin Research Station and headquarters of the Galapagos National Park may be visited at Puerto Ayora, the Islands’ most populated human settlement. The highlands offer the lush humid zone with its vegetation of Miconia bushes, Scalesia and inactive volcanic cones. Santa Cruz has more endemic plants than any other island in the Galapagos. You can see the Galapagos tortoises in their natural habitat here.
Day 3
Gardner Bay / Punta Suarez (Española Island)
Gardner Bay is a spectacular beach where you can swim with sea lions and is a great opportunity for snorkeling off the islets in the bay. Punta Suarez offers you quite a display of wildlife: marine iguanas with copper red patches, Swallow-tailed gulls, the endemic long-billed mocking bird, finches, masked and blue-footed boobies, oystercatchers, sea lions and lava lizards. This is the only island where the waved albatross is to be seen during the breeding season, April to December.
Day 4
Punta Cormorant / Post Office Bay (Floreana Island)
At Post Office Bay, one may leave letters like whalers did in the 18th century, in a wooden barrel mailbox. At Point Cormorant, you visit a flamingo lagoon where other species of shore birds may also be seen, and you snorkel at Devil’s Crown, a submerged volcanic cone.
Day 5
Punta Moreno / Urbina Bay (Isabela Island)
Punta Moreno is another sight of interest with lava fields and pioneer plants. Occasionally, you will find flamingos in oasis-like green lagoons as well as flightless cormorant and marine iguana. At Urbina Bay, observe Flightless Cormorants, Brown Pelicans, large marine iguanas, rays, marine turtles and remains of a coral reef.
Day 6
Punta Espinosa (Fernandina Island) / Tagus Cove (Isabela Island)
At Punta Espinoza, flightless cormorants, pelicans, sea lions, Sally-light foot crabs and an abundance of marine iguanas can be seen along the shores of one of world’s most active volcanoes. This afternoon, visit Tagus Cove, a beautiful protected cove sheltered by the shoulders of two volcanic craters. Keep an eye out for cormorants, hawks, blue-footed boobies, whales, dolphins, and penguins.
Day 7
Puerto Egas (Santiago Island) / Bartolome Island
Nowhere else is the geological history of the archipelago better portrayed than here. The most impressive volcanic scenery may be viewed from the top of Bartolome: varied lava formations, volcanic peaks and the moon-like landscape. The Galapagos penguin can be seen here.
Day 8
Black Turtle Cove / Baltra Island
Today, you visit Turtle Cove on Santa Cruz Island. Enjoy a Panga ride in the mangrove lagoon and see stingrays, sharks, the night heron, several species of Darwin’s finches, and possibly marine turtles. Then, return to the Baltra Island for your flight back to the Ecuador mainland to Quito or Guayaquil.