Nathan's Insights

Wednesday 18 December 2024
Highlights: Darwin Bay hike, Hammerhead Sharks found when snorkelling, Prince Phillip’s Steps hike.

Day 6 of the Galapagos Tour again was action-packed. We had two hikes, snorkelling and kayaking on the agenda. We had so much to do that breakfast today started at 6.30 am.

Our first activity for a wet landing in Darwin Bay was to do a beach hike. This was a very casual and slow walk over an hour and 15 minutes. Omar taught us about this island and in particular the finch birds that we watched a video on last night.

Back on our ship, we had to quickly change for our snorkelling activity. The water was much rougher than our previous snorkelling adventures. This time we managed to see hammerhead sharks for the first time. 

We also found a lot of other colourful fish. On the way back to the ship I got to see two sea turtles for the first time as well.

Both Erin and I decided to skip kayaking today. Snorkelling was a lot harder and exhausting today.

For lunch, we had a BBQ on the top deck. Nice scenery with a meal goes a long way.

In the afternoon we moved the Prince Phillip’s Steps for a more extensive hike. Our target was to find a short-eared owl which we managed to do. They are predators on Genovesa Island killing smaller birds. 

The area we explored was reached by steps and was very bare. Apparently, in the wet season, it turns green with vegetation everywhere but that was hard to imagine.

For our briefing on tomorrow’s activities, we learnt about Charles Darwin and how he ended up on the Galapagos almost by chance, and how he waited until he was 50 to publish his Origin of Species which changed scientific understanding of evolution and the natural world.