Santa Cruz Island Remote Beaches
Our last 2 days of the cruise were spent on Santa Cruz Island. Santa Cruz is the second largest and most heavily populated of the islands in the Galapagos Archipepego. Many of the ship’s staff come from the island.
Today was spent in some of the more remote areas of the island. It is also our last day of our short shore excursions. The excursions for the day were in remote areas on the north shore of Santa Cruz Island. The options for the morning were kayaking or time on a beach at Bowditch Point. We chose the beach. People had the opportunity to walk on the sand and snorkel near the beach.
The excursions started an hour or so later than previous days because there was no deep water snorkel after the morning excursion. The tenders did a wet landing on the beach which means you step into the water when leaving the tender.
We decided we would just walk-on the beach so we didn’t bring any swimming gear with us. Sand near the shore was fairly compact but just away from he shore your feet sunk into the sand making for a challenging walk.
At each end of the beach was a salt water pond that fills with the tides.
There landscape was interesting but there was not much wildlife to see except for one lone sea iguana, a few birds scouting for a meal, and a few Sally Lightfoot carbs on the volcanic rocks. There were small dunes that hung over the beach that were off limits for walking. The vegetation on the dunes is very fragile and on some dunes there are turtle nests.
After walking the beach one time we decided to head back to the ship. Tenders shuttled guests back as needed so we didn’t have long to wait. When we returned to the ship there was some much needed time to just relax and catch up on my blog before lunch on the top deck. The fish of the day was snapper which was excellent.
As we ate lunch we sailed the short distance to Dragon’s Hill, another remote beach on Santa Cruz. Small islands, too small for visitation dot the areas around the Galapagos. This one we passed reminded me of a Hershey’s Kiss.
After lunch I took a nap which was a first for me on this trip. The afternoon excursions were a short walk or a long walk on Dragon’s Hill, both with a dry landing on on some tricky to navigate lava. I chose the short walk and David the long walk. Both walks covered some of the same area and once over the lava, the walks were easy. Our group doing the short walk started with 9 people but a few decided to cancel so they could rest on the ship. Upon arrival at the landing site, 2 of the others in our excursion group found the uneven lava terrain something they didn’t want to attempt so they returned to the ship. We ended up with a small group of 6 or so with our naturalist/guide, Charly.
We walked across the sandy beach with black lava rocks at the shore and short dunes on our other side.
We took an approved path over the dunes that led to a salt pond where Black-necked Stilt birds were looking for food. Near the shore on this pond were hundreds of small crabs enjoying a mud bath. At the shoreline we spotted a marine iguana who decided to take a swim as we watched.
Down the beach a little farther was another pond where we saw a lone flamingo reaching for crustaceans. Flamingoes get their color from the food they eat,
On the way back to the tender we spotted another marine iguana who seemed to pose for us.
The walk back over the lava path to the tender didn’t feel quite as difficult as it did on the way out, maybe we are just getting used to the terrain, or maybe it was because it was mostly uphill on the way back and easier to see where one was stepping.
Back on the ship we had a little time to freshen up before meeting our group for drinks in the lounge before dinner. Dinner doesn’t start until about 7:30 so by the time dinner is over most everyone was pretty tired and headed off to bed despite the encouragement of the staff to join the silent disco party in the lounge. A few in our party joined in as did many of the naturalists. Johanna and Kellie from our group stayed till the end of the party, dancing with the staff.
Tomorrow is our final day of activities and is a full day off the ship.