After finishing up the land based portion of our Galapagos trip, we boarded the Galaxy Yacht to see the islands from a different viewpoint.
The boat was absolutely amazing, with wood floors, large guest rooms (it only holds 14 passengers max), a nicely designed bar and dining room, along with tons of space on top to take in the sights. Shortly after boarding we met all of the other passengers and had lunch - the food also proved to be top notch throughout the cruise.
They wasted no time getting us active, and after lunch we boarded the little zodiacs and headed off for our first snorkel. It was a deep-water snorkel so we stayed along the coastline and watched all the fish pass below us. There was so much to see we were both surprised when it was time to go back and we learned that we had spent over an hour in the water. After a quick trip back to the boat we departed again to visit a Mosquera Island - a small island populated with sea lions, crabs, and sea iguanas. We were allowed to walk around the island on our own and had a lot of fun watching the sea lions play in the water near the shore.
Overnight the boat motored to Genovesa Island. After breakfast we loaded up and went ashore at a landing spot known as Prince Phillips Steps where we spent a couple of hours walking on a pre-defined trail looking at all the different birds. We saw our first Red Footed Boobies up close along with plenty of Frigate Birds that were puffing up their sacks trying to attract mates. Our guide somehow managed to spot an owl amongst the thousands of birds flying around and everybody shared binoculars to get a good view. We headed back to the boat, grabbed our snorkel stuff, and headed back out to look for cool stuff in the ocean. This was supposed to be our best shot at seeing hammerhead sharks, but unfortunately they didn't show. We did see plenty of cool stuff though, including three eagle rays gliding along effortlessly.
We stuck around in the same spot after lunch and made another landing, this time at a sight called Darwin Bay (we learned that when Charles Darwin was visiting the Galapagos he never even went to Genovesa Island, so nobody knows why this spot was named after him!), where we had another nice walk with birds and sea lions. We snorkeled from shore after the walk and then went back to the boat so we could head to our next stop. While in transit, we were encouraged to stand on top of the boat looking for wildlife, and sure enough a nice minke whale showed up for us to gawk at.
We awoke the next morning at San Cristobal Island with a nice view of Kicker Rock in the background. Our morning consisted of a landing beneath Witches Hat rock where we had an hour to walk around - it was a beautiful white sandy beach - and then another hour or so to snorkel from the beach. The snorkeling turned out to be some of the best of the trip; just before we were going to head back to shore a couple of sea lions decided to play with us. We swam with them for a long time, watching them move effortlessly underwater as they went all around us and practically between our legs.
We had a lazy afternoon on the boat as we waited for all the other tour groups to move on before we moved to kicker rock for some more deep-water snorkeling. The seas were pretty rough but the snorkeling was very nice. We saw over 20 different sea turtles and even a couple of sharks. There was one moment where our guide yelled out that she saw a hammerhead but by the time we swam over all I saw was a shadow swimming away, and Julie missed it completely. The fact that we didn't really get to see hammerhead sharks gives us a great reason to return for a dive trip!
The next morning we made our final landing at Puerto Baquerizo Moreno. We went with the group to visit the Darwin Discovery Center which is a museum of sorts where we learned about the history of the islands and it's inhabitants. After that we said goodbye to everybody on the boat and headed off on our own. We spent one night in town before flying out the next day to Belize and the LAST STOP of our world tour.
After trying both a land tour and cruise, the cruise was the hamds down winner! We would have been completely happen on the Galaxy boat for the entire 2 week.
The boat was absolutely amazing, with wood floors, large guest rooms (it only holds 14 passengers max), a nicely designed bar and dining room, along with tons of space on top to take in the sights. Shortly after boarding we met all of the other passengers and had lunch - the food also proved to be top notch throughout the cruise.
They wasted no time getting us active, and after lunch we boarded the little zodiacs and headed off for our first snorkel. It was a deep-water snorkel so we stayed along the coastline and watched all the fish pass below us. There was so much to see we were both surprised when it was time to go back and we learned that we had spent over an hour in the water. After a quick trip back to the boat we departed again to visit a Mosquera Island - a small island populated with sea lions, crabs, and sea iguanas. We were allowed to walk around the island on our own and had a lot of fun watching the sea lions play in the water near the shore.
Overnight the boat motored to Genovesa Island. After breakfast we loaded up and went ashore at a landing spot known as Prince Phillips Steps where we spent a couple of hours walking on a pre-defined trail looking at all the different birds. We saw our first Red Footed Boobies up close along with plenty of Frigate Birds that were puffing up their sacks trying to attract mates. Our guide somehow managed to spot an owl amongst the thousands of birds flying around and everybody shared binoculars to get a good view. We headed back to the boat, grabbed our snorkel stuff, and headed back out to look for cool stuff in the ocean. This was supposed to be our best shot at seeing hammerhead sharks, but unfortunately they didn't show. We did see plenty of cool stuff though, including three eagle rays gliding along effortlessly.
We stuck around in the same spot after lunch and made another landing, this time at a sight called Darwin Bay (we learned that when Charles Darwin was visiting the Galapagos he never even went to Genovesa Island, so nobody knows why this spot was named after him!), where we had another nice walk with birds and sea lions. We snorkeled from shore after the walk and then went back to the boat so we could head to our next stop. While in transit, we were encouraged to stand on top of the boat looking for wildlife, and sure enough a nice minke whale showed up for us to gawk at.
We had a lazy afternoon on the boat as we waited for all the other tour groups to move on before we moved to kicker rock for some more deep-water snorkeling. The seas were pretty rough but the snorkeling was very nice. We saw over 20 different sea turtles and even a couple of sharks. There was one moment where our guide yelled out that she saw a hammerhead but by the time we swam over all I saw was a shadow swimming away, and Julie missed it completely. The fact that we didn't really get to see hammerhead sharks gives us a great reason to return for a dive trip!
The next morning we made our final landing at Puerto Baquerizo Moreno. We went with the group to visit the Darwin Discovery Center which is a museum of sorts where we learned about the history of the islands and it's inhabitants. After that we said goodbye to everybody on the boat and headed off on our own. We spent one night in town before flying out the next day to Belize and the LAST STOP of our world tour.
After trying both a land tour and cruise, the cruise was the hamds down winner! We would have been completely happen on the Galaxy boat for the entire 2 week.
