Galapagos Islands, San Cristobal - Española - Floreana

Tuesday morning at 7 am we headed back to Quito's International Airport. From there it was a 2.5 h flight via Guyaquil to the Galapagos Island of San Cristobal. Within the hour we boarded our sail boat, the Encantada, and headed along the northern shore of the Island. There we were instructed that we would be snorkeling with sea lions shortly. A couple minutes later we were dumped into the cool Pacific waters. Sea lions swam all around us. It was sureal. Following, we had a short land excursion where we learned all about the sea lion colonies. After a fabulous dinner on board we sailed toward our first destination, Española Island, south of San Cristobal. We always sailed the greater distances at night, when we were supposed to be sleeping. The small boat and sometimes rough navigation through large swells made that difficult. Awakening the next morning we had already ancored in a beautiful bay of Española. We explored the cliffs with the dinggy and landed on a beautiful 1 km white sand beach where we enjoyed the wildlife swerving around colonies of sea lions, pelicans, and sea iguanas. After lunch back on board we snorkeled, this time in wetsuits, along the cliffs discovering a whole new world of fish, starfish, corals, sea cucumbers and other amazing creatures. Again we were accompanied by sea lions. They are quite curious animals, one of them kept nibbling on my fins. Another land excursion on Española brought more amazing discoveries. We had the privilege of witnessing the birth of a sea lion, more pelicans, bluefoot & masked boobies, as well as the endemic galapagos albatros.
Dinner was usually server at 19:30 (great food), and shortly after we set sail for the next Island, Floreana. Here we saw penguins and our first glimpse at sea turtles. A three star snorkling around the Devil's Crown reef gave us the opportunity to see eagle spotted sting rays, more sea turtles and an abundance of amazing sea life. I can understand now why people book vacations for snorkling and diving. It's a world of its own that's well worth exploring.
Again lunch was followed by a land excursion to a lava tunnel. With flashlights we forged ahead until we hit sea water. There we donded our snorkles and masks and explored in frigid water another 200 meters or so. It was out of an Indiana Jones movie.

Back on the beach we had the opportunity to play some soccer. It was women against men. The women won... but only because our tour guide had special rules! :) We had dinner and continued on toward Isla de Isabela, the largest Island of the Galapagos.