The Galapagos Islands - AMAZING!!

We arrived in Quito and booked a last minute island hopping cruise in the Galapagos. It's a fantastic place for wildlife and the animals are not afraid so we can get quite close. You are supposed to stay 2 meters away, but this can be difficult when you get a bird nesting right on the path, for example! Birds nearly land on you and sea lions play in the waves mixed in with humans!

We have seen Red, Blue Footed, Nazca and Masked Boobies, Giant Tortoise, Great Frigatebirds, Mocking Birds, Darwins Finches, Red Billed Tropicbirds, Land Iguanas, Waved Albatross, Galapagos Penguin, Lava Lizards, Galapagos Sea Lions, Galapagos Heron, Marine Iguana, Galapagos Robin (!!), Pelican, Galapagos Hawk, Short Eared Owl and loads more. See the snorkelling blog for what we saw underwater.
Here are some pics...

The Galapagos - Snorkelling

These are photos taken from our snorkelling trips using our Nikon AW120 camera, which is also waterproof. Our snorkel trips included the Pinnacle Rock, Devils Crown and Kickers Rock. We didn't realise when we booked the cruise that we would be snorkelling twice a day on most days in different places, so we got to see a lot underwater too! Some snorkels were done from the beach along rocks and others, in deeper water, were done from the panga (RIB).

We have seen White and Black Tipped Reef Sharks, Galapagos Sharks (a cousin of the Great White), Green Sea Turtles, Marine Iguanas, Sally Lightfoot Crabs, various Starfish, Parrotfish, Blue and Gold Snappers, Moorish Idol, various Rays, Porcupine Fish, Galapagos Penguins, Panamic Green Moray Eel, Marine Iguanas and many more!

The sharks were the highlight for Phil; Dee liked them too but was a bit unnerved, when swimming in a couple of feet of water, to find a gang of them hunting inside a shoal of fish! There is a good chance of seeing Hammerheads but we didn't. Dee liked swimming alongside the huge sea turtles best :) Oh, and the sealions and penguins......