Galapagos Islands Adventure onboard Evolution Cruise
After 7 nights and 8 days in the Galapagos Islands, my wife and I are beginning to download all our pictures, classify them and finish up our travel log. This past week in the Galapagos Islands onboard the Evolution Galapagos cruise ship was an experience that we will never forget. The activities each day in the Galapagos Islands, coupled with first class service and excellent dining onboard Evolution Galapagos cruise made this a very complete Galapagos holiday and one that we will remember forever.Our itinerary throughout the week was gorgeous. We started our cruise onboard Evolution Galapagos cruise with a visit to Cerro Brujo, an inviting powdery beach beside a turquoise bay, and an excellent introduction to the Galapagos Islands. Here we had a great opportunity to go snorkeling with sea lions for the first time! From Cerro Brujo we cruised to Kicker Rock, a spectacular formation that rises 152 meters (500 feet) out of the Pacific. It takes the form of a sleeping lion, but from another angle you can see that the rock is split, forming a colossal tablet and, piercing the sea. This was our first introduction to the wonderful geology of the Galapagos Islands.
Hood, or Española Island, followed in our itinerary and for the group was one of the most popular Galapagos Islands due to the breathtaking variation and sheer number of fauna that greet the visitor. Galapagos doves, cactus finch and mocking birds forage by, unconcerned by human presence while marine iguanas and playful sea lions surrounded the coast. This was one of our favorite Galapagos Islands to get spectacular shots of the animals!
The Evolution Galapagos cruise anchored on Santa Cruz Island on the third day of our trip. The small town of Puerto Ayora in the southwest of this large, round volcanic island is the economic center of the Galapagos Islands, with the largest population of the four inhabited islands. Tourism—including refurbishing and re-supplying yachts—along with fishing and boat-building, are major sources of commerce. We visited the Giant Tortoise Breeding and Rearing Program run by the Charles Darwin Research station, which began by rescuing the remaining 16 tortoises on the island of Española in the 1970s. This program has restored the population of animals there to over 1,000 today. We saw many of these animals, with their sweet ET necks and faces, from hatchlings to juveniles to large, distinguished individuals like Lonesome George, the last of his particular race of tortoise— and who may be 150 years old! We got to see these tortoises in the wild a few hours later in the highlands!
Santiago, or James Island, which we visited the day after, offered a unique visitor site. The landing was on a black beach with intriguing eroded rock formations inland. A trail crossed the dry interior eastward and rose to the rim of an extinct volcanic crater, one of several hundreds in the Galapagos Islands. Cracks within the crater allow sea water to seep in, which then dries to form salt deposits that have been mined in the past. Darwin described his visit to South James Bay in Voyage of the Beagle. Following our visit to James Bay we sailed on the Evolution Galapagos cruise to Pinnacle rock on Bartolome Island. This was a towering spearheaded obelisk that rises from the ocean’s edge and is the best known landmark in the Galapagos Islands. We had a spectacular view after a lengthy walk to the summit of the island.
That night we had sailed on the Evolution Galapagos cruise to Tower Island which is where we woke up early the next morning. This Island could serve as a film set for a secret submarine base! The southwestern part of the island is an ocean-filled caldera ringed by the outer edges of a sizeable and mostly submerged volcano. Two visitor sites on this Island, Prince Philli’s steps and Darwin Bay beach were the points where we got to see red-footed boobies, masked-boobies, storm petrels, frigate birds, nocturnal gulls and even a short eared owl on the hunt!
On the second to last and last days of our journey onboard Evolution Galapagos cruise, we visited the Islands of Fernandina and Isabela. Fernandina was the youngest and westernmost Island in the Galapagos and it sits opposite Isabela Island. Our destination was Punta Espinosa, a narrow spit of land in the northeast corner of the island, where a number of unique Galapagos species can be seen in close proximity. Snorkeling here was the best out of all the times we went snorkeling throughout the week! We also had a chance to go snorkeling on Tagus Cove, on Isabela Island. Named for a British naval vessel that moored here in 1814, Tagus Cove was used historically as an anchorage for pirates and whalers who passed by the Galapagos Islands. One can still find the names of their ships carved into the rock above our landing! After a walk up a wooden stairway we got a great view of Darwin Lake, a perfectly round saltwater crater, barely separated from the ocean but above sea level! Our ship, Evolution, looked especially charming from above.
Eight days after we set out on our cruise onboard Evolution, our voyage had comes to an end. We thanked all our wonderful crew, our expert and skillful captain, and our immensely knowledgeable and friendly guide for all their work and patience with us. I would recommend this experience to all who love nature.
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