National Geographic Endeavour II spend the day exploring the northern side of Santa Cruz Island, the channel between Santa Cruz and Santiago Islands including the Daphne Islets. We started our day early with a walk around the promontory at Dragon Hill, where we were looking for the brightly colored Galapagos land iguana and a few species of land birds. Later in the morning guests explored the underwater world while snorkeling at nearby Guy Fawkes Islet. Finally, after spending the afternoon on the lookout for marine wildlife, we circumnavigated Daphne Major while sampling South American wines on the sundeck.
10/3/2024
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National Geographic Endeavour II
Bartholomew Island and Sombrero Chino
We split into groups for different excursions this morning. Four groups went up the staircase to the top for the iconic view over the isthmus of Bartholomew Island and Pinnacle Rock. We walked past exposed volcanic formations of all sorts: spatter cones, tuff cones, and lava tubes. Two other groups chose to explore along the coast by Zodiac in hopes of Galapagos penguin sightings. All of us were successful in what we hoped for and even the walkers saw penguins near the dock where we disembarked! Both snorkeling off the beach and deep-water outings along the backside of the island were tremendously productive because we saw it all: penguins and sharks being the top species, and diving blue-footed boobies too! The afternoon had National Geographic Endeavour II anchored not too far south, off the coast of Santiago Island near Sombrero Chino. A dramatically barren, small volcanic cone where another snorkeling outing was offered and late-afternoon Zodiac rides to search yet one more time for penguins. We can never get enough of them!