00:44.91S 090.18.46W Puerto Ayora, Academy Bay anchorage.
We arrived here on Sunday and anchored in the bay along with almost everyone else in the world doing a circumnavigation this year. There could be sixty yachts around us all preparing for the run to the Marquesas.
On Monday we went to the island of North Seymour. All the birds and animals, even fish, here are ridiculously unbothered by us eco-tourists and loaf around so people can have a good gawp. In fact, they are sometimes difficult not to tread on. We quickly had our fill of land iguanas, frigate birds and blue-footed boobies and other exotic birds nesting onshore and Galapagos sealions, marine iguanas and crabs playing on the beach.
The colours here are one of the more striking things. Santa Cruz island, where we are anchored, is very green and looks superficially like Surrey but on islands to the north vegetation is sparse and the rock is black basalt with dashes of white where the birds sit. The sealions and marine iguanas are also bible-black but then there are flashes of crimson from the male frigates and the bright orange of the crabs all over the rocks and not forgetting the boobies blue feet. The beaches are white or yellow and under the turquoise sea the fish are every other available colour.
Today, Tuesday saw us on the island of Bartolome. The volcanic rocks are very recent here and tower up into some fantastical black Gothic-style formations. After a hot slog up to the top of a volcano we took to the water with masks and snorkels. Lots of Galapagos penguins, manta rays, white-tip sharks, turtles and the usual collection of fish on show. There are no coral reefs here but the flying-buttresses of lava extend underwater and make a complicated playground.
We are going somewhere else tomorrow and there had better be some giant tortoise around or there will be trouble.
M