3rd July 2008: It’s our last day in Galapagos, and we decided to explore another part of Santa Cruz which is very close to the town of Puerto Ayora. To get there, we took a ‘water taxi’ to Finch Bay Dock at Punta Estrada, a 5-min boat ride away.

 On the boat

Cruise yachts in the background and water taxis in the foreground

Finches on the grass

Marine Iguana

A Land Iguana On Baltra island

In contrast to the town of Puerto Villamil on Isabela island, the town of Puerto Ayora on Santa Cruz island seems bustling - not just with travellers and locals, but also with animals.

Brown pelicans love to rest on mangrove trees

A Sally Light-Foot Crab

Marine iguana

The “fish market” attracts local people as well as sea lions, pelicans and other birds

It was a pleasure watching the sea lions wait eagerly for their share of the ocean’s catch

Snatching in action!

A cute sea lion waiting near the edge of the dock

Pelican

The Great Blue Heron joining in the fun

A truly amusing and amazing fish market!

Wahoo fish is a common catch

We decided to fly back from the island of Isabela to the island of Baltra so as to return to the island of Santa Cruz instead of taking the 2-hour (very) rough boat ride across the Pacific Ocean during the garua season. There’s only one airline carrier plying the routes in Galapagos - Emetebe. We booked our flight at the Emetebe office behind Hotel Albermarle, and were lucky to get the last 2 seats on the 9-seater plane.

This plane fits only 9 people including the pilot himself. There’s only a small space to contain all our luggage.

 That’s the cockpit

 A chance to see Galapagos from the sky!

The flight was very smooth despite our initial reservations. We hope though that Emetebe would consider changing or upgrade these small planes sometime in the near future.

 A volcanic island

Seeing Galapagos from the air is different from seeing it on the ground. It’s amazing how much of Galapagos is still untouched despite pockets of tourism.

 The flight is worth every penny

 Such clear waters

About to land… 

 Touching down on Baltra island

 Our first sighting of a Land Iguana on Baltra

From Baltra, we had to wait quite a while for a bus to take us to the tip of the island where we had to take a 10-min ferry to the island of Sanata Cruz. Once there, we then sat through a 30-min bus ride to the town of Puerto Ayora where we had booked a house for the remaining days in Galapagos.

1st July 2008: It was our last day on the largest island of Isabela in the Galapagos. After doing our work in the morning, we set off for the beach, walking as far as we could. In the late afternoon, we were lucky enough to experience an incredible feeding frenzy set off by Galapagos’ sea birds. Imagine standing beneath thousands of blue-footed boobies, frigatebirds…it was an exhilarating experience!

The blue-footed boobies dive-plunge into the waters, aiming their dagger-like beaks at the shoals of fish swimming in the ocean.

Blue-footed boobies dive straight into the ocean at such a fast speed that it’s a wonderful sight to behold.

This marine iguana is the biggest species of all the Galapagos islands 

Lava Heron