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 

30 June 2008: After an afternoon of snorkeling with the sea lions and fish at Las Tintoreras, we walked around the town of Puerto Villamil, Isabela. In Galapagos, there is always something to see.

Oh, if you do go there, be sure to check out the local bakery where you can get yummy freshly baked bread and pastries. Our favorite was the sugar sticks. Their opening/closing times are irregular.

These mangrove trees have their roots exposed during low tide, but are submerged completely during high tide.

View from Hotel Albemarle

 The tiny fishing village of Puerto Villamil- hardly anyone around in the afternoon

 A lookout point

 Around Las Tintoreras

 Our Marine Iguana friend

Houses

 Grace

 Beach

Marine Iguana

The most wonderful thing we did in Galapagos was snorkeling in the clear waters. At Las Tintoreras, we had such a blast snorkeling with the sea lions! The playful sea lions absolutely love human company, and would swim so fast around us, blowing bubbles into our face, waving their flipper at us! How amazing is that! Plus, they look at you with such big round eyes, it made us almost want to hug them, but no, we weren’t allowed to touch them. There were at least ten sea lions in the area where we snorkeled, so almost everywhere we swam, we would encounter them. Many of them are almost as tall as us. We took videos of them underwater and some photos too.

It was such immense joy swimming with the playful and wild sea lions 

These sea lions are so playful in nature - they even picked up a tree branch and started playing with it among themselves.

Sea lions are not the only animals we encountered while snorkeling. In another spot, we snorkeled among a few white-tipped sharks and a large manta ray - another amazing experience. Plus, there were many colorful fish around too.

Grace looking out to sea

 The boat that took us here from Isabela island

Ah…Galapagos…the surprise doesn’t end. The Blue-footed Booby (Sula nebouxii excisa) is the bird one shouldn’t miss when visiting Galapagos. This booby has bright blue feet, and is such a beautiful bird. These large diving seabirds have dagger-like bills. We would usually see them flying in the air or diving into the sea in large numbers, but here around Las Tintoreras, we saw their nesting site. There are roughly 20,000 pairs of Blue-footed Boobies in the Galapagos, which is approximately half of the world’s population.

What’s spectacular to watch is their plunge diving into the sea to catch fish. We had never seen a bird diving straight into the water to catch fish before. The boobies are graceful when fishing in a flock and that is one of the main attractions of the Galapagos. They often start their dive from 15 meters or more and accelerate their dive by aiming towards the water before folding their wings and becoming arrow-like. We’ll show you the photos in another post.

Colonies of Blue-footed Boobies