Puerto Ayora (Santa Cruz)

Landing: Dry
Video from Puerto Ayora
and from the Fish Market.

After breakfast we went into Puerto Ayora is the largest town in the Galapagos.

Here we first visited the Darwin Centre (see other blog) and then we went for a walk in the city - the most interesting seeing was the local fish market, where the fishermen just had landed the  catch of the day and was cleaning the fish - sea lions, frigate birds and pelicans were fighting for the remains, and fishermen had a hard time keeping sea lions and the large birds away from the fish - a fun experience - late morning we went back to the ship for lunch.

Santa Cruz Island is situated in the centre of the archipelago with an area of 986 kilometres squared and a maximum altitude of 864 metres. It is a large island with a variety of geology, wildlife and vegetation, all of the Galapagos life zones are present on Santa Cruz. Santa Cruz Canton is the second largest island after Isabela. Its capital is Puerto Ayora, the most populated urban centre in the Galapagos Islands.

Santa Cruz is named after the Holy Cross, its English name (Indefatigable) was given after a British vessel (HMS Indefatigable). 

Puerto Ayora
Santa Cruz hosts the largest human population in the archipelago at the town of Puerto Ayora, a port city located along Academy Bay on Santa Cruz Island, with more than 12,000 inhabitants, the largest city in the Galapagos. The city is home to the National Park Tortoise Breeding Center and the Charles Darwin Research Station and a center of tourism in the islands. There are many trips from Puerto Ayora to the different islands in the Galapagos.
 

North Seymour Island

Landing Dry
Video from North Seymour

After lunch we did approach North Seymour with a dry landing on the steep rocks.
The island is teeming with life. North Seymour has a visitor trail approximately 2 kilometres in length crossing the inland of the island and exploring the rocky coast.
During our visiting we had to give way to passing sea lions and land iguana. The whole island is covered with low, bushy vegetation.

Magnificent frigatebirds perch in low bushes, near the boobies, while watching over their large chicks. The frigates are huge, dark acrobats with a 2.5m  (90-inch) wingspan. Male frigates can puff up their scarlet throat sacks to resemble a giant red balloon. Boobies and frigates have an interesting relationship. Booby birds are excellent hunters and fish in flocks. The frigates by comparison are pirates, they dive bomb the boobies to force them to drop their prey. Then the acrobatic frigate bird swoops down and picks up the food before it hits the water.
See the video: Blue-footed Booby and Magnificent Frigate bird, 

North Seymour is a small island near to Baltra Island in the Galapagos Islands. It was formed by seismic uplift rather than being of volcanic origin. The island has a flat profile with cliffs only a few feet from the shoreline, where swallowtail gulls and tropicbirds sit perched in ledges. A tiny forest of silver-grey Palo Santo trees stand just above the landing, usually without leaves, waiting for rain to bring them into bloom

The island is named after an English nobleman, Lord Hugh Seymour. It has an area of 1.9 km² (0.7 square miles) and a maximum altitude of 28 metres (92 feet).

Bartolome Island (Santiago)

Landing: Dry
Video from Bartolome

Bartolomé Island is one of the most spectacular of settings in the Galapagos.
After a dry landing we did climb the volcanic cone (board walk and 380 stairs) and from the top there was a great views of the other islands. 
Bartolomé is famous for its Pinnacle Rock, which is the distinctive characteristic of this island, and the most representative landmark of the Galápagos.

Optionally you could also swim and snorkel around Pinnacle Rock; the underwater world there is impressive. You can snorkel with the penguins, marine turtles, white-tipped reef sharks, and other tropical fish.

Bartolomé Island is a volcanic islet in the Galápagos Islands group. It is a volcanic islet just off the east coast of Santiago Island. It is one of the "younger" islands in the Galápagos archipelago. This island, and Sulivan Bay on Santiago island, are named after naturalist and lifelong friend of Charles Darwin, Sir Bartholomew James Sulivan, who was a Lieutenant aboard HMS Beagle.

With a total land area of just 1.2 km², this island offers some of the most beautiful landscapes in the archipelago. The island consists of an extinct volcano and a variety of red, orange, green, and glistening black volcanic formations.

Daphne Island

We started the afternoon with lunch in Darwin restaurant and at 4:00 PM the snorkelling gear was distributed t deck 6 - Fins, wetsuits, mask, snorkels and snorkeling vest.
We left Baltra at and headed for a circumnavigation of Daphne Minor and Daphne Major, located in the sea like a volcanic cone, north of Santa Cruz.
The cliffs along the coast is home to sea lions, pelicans and blue-footed boobies.
The crater is an important breeding area for blue-footed bobbie and there is a very large bird life on the island.

Unfortunately, it is currently not possible to visit Daphne - so we had to see the island and wildlife from the ship's deck. The naturalists were on the decks to point out highlights and answer any questions.

By late afternoon, there was a briefing on the activities in the morning and at 20, there was dinner. A single glass of wine in the Discovery Lounge before bed.

Daphne Major  and Minor is two small islands just north of Santa Cruz Island in the archipelago Colon, commonly known as the Galápagos Islands. It consists of a tuff crater, devoid of trees, whose rim rises 120 metres above the sea. An intensive study of Darwin's Finches was conducted here by biologists Peter and Rosemary Grant over a period of 20 years.


Daphne Minor is fairly eroded and not accessible to tourists, although the surrounding waters are very popular dive site. The underwater geology of Daphne is very interesting, with recesses and steep cliffs, and the possibility of seeing sharks (white-tipped, Galápagos, and occasionally hammerheads), sea turtles, or rays is high.

Arrival to Galapagos, Baltra Island

We did stay two nights at JW Marriott in Quito prior to the Galapagos cruise.
Read the Quito pre- and post-cruise review here.

Sunday morning we were ready at 7:30 to go to Quito airport, but there was an 'unexpected' marathon in Quito that morning. Much of the city was blocked off, so the buses could not get in to the hotel - we were over an hour late. Luckily it was a AeroGal plane chartered specifically for this Xelebrity cruise, so the plane had to wait. At 11 pm we arrived at the airport and went straight for the charter flights from Quito to Baltra in the Galapagos, - a 2 hours flight.
See the short video: Celebrity Xpedition Flight from Quito to Baltra

Arrived at Baltra Airport and went through immigration. After a short bus ride from the airport to the pier and a short panga ride in a Zodiac rugbber-raft (picture), we were aboard the Celebrity Xpedition (picture below).
Short video: Transfer Baltra Airport to Pier.

The luggage was delivered directly to your cabin, which gave us the opportunity to get lunch and explore the Celebrity Xpedition, a 296-foot megayacht, which will be our home on the tour around the Galapagos Islands.

We have cabin 419 on deck 4 - there are 4 decks with a total of 46 cabins. The cabins at deck 3 and 4 are about 15 m2 and we have to do without a balcony on this cruise, however limited in how much time will want to spend in your cabin during the day time.


Baltra Island or Isla Baltra is a small island of the Galapagos Islands. Visitors to the Galapagos Archipelago often visit here first, as this is where the main airport, Seymour Airport, is situated. Until 1986, Baltra was the only airport serving the Galapagos. Now one of two airports, most flights operating in and out of Galapagos still fly into Baltra