Wednesday 17th March

We'd all been looking forward to this once in a lifetime experience for a long long time, so when we were told at 9.00 pm, 11 hours before we were due to leave, that the cruise had been cancelled you can imagine the emotions that were flying around. It became clear after a conversation about the Coral 1 cruise being cancelled was overheard that the UK booking agents had not paid the tour operators here in the Galapagos. The deposit had been paid months and months and months ago but there was no sign of the final payment. After many phone conversations and negotiations carried out by Tony, a BWR director, the UK booking agents finally admitted that they hadn't paid the final bill until the 16th, the day before the cruise started. There was a lot of to-ing and fro-ing but eventually contracts were drawn up and all passengers had to pay again and we should all be reimbursed once the money has cleared. This all took a long time to figure out so we missed pretty much a whole day on the cruise. We had to look on the bright side though, at least we were finally on the boat, Coral 1 - and what a very nice boat it was too! Once we all stepped into the very swish air conditioned main lounge I think we all breathed a sigh of relief.

The crew and guides were all very welcoming and informed us immediately that the National Park had agreed to bend the rules for us and that we were allowed to visit Dragon Hill on Santa Cruz for a very quick hike. No-one should be on the islands after 5.30, so considering that we set off from the boat at 5.30 for an hour and a bit hike it was very kind of them. We learnt an important lesson almost immediately - we have a slightly different meaning of a 'dry landing'! We disembarked onto very slippy, wet rocks with waves splashing up over our feet which is not quite what I would call a dry landing. We came to realise that this was exactly what to expect each time we heard those two words. Non the less off we trotted with our group. As there were 35 people on the boat, all from the BWR, we were split into 3 groups each with our own tour guide.

We walked along a beach and then into the bushes where there were hundreds of mosquitos swarming around us to a saltwater lagoon. Flamingos can normally be found there but luck was not with us today. However there were some marine iguanas taking a swim.

We continued along a very challeging rocky path with occasional mud/clay patches. As these patches became more frequent Eddie (7) and Sozzie (4) from Roundabout, who were wearing crocs, soon began to struggle so they ended up taking off their shoes - it was either that or losing them in the mud.

We stumbled across a couple of land iguanas and one had taken shade in a little hole, all we could see was his bum and tail. The area was a nesting site for reintroduced land iguanas.

There were also a number of giant prickly pear cacti dotted around the landscape.

The vegetation on the island was lush and the scenery was very green. During the dry season we were told that the whole area would look like a desert. It's amazing how it can change so much during the year.

As we reached the highest point of our walk the sun was setting behind the bay which made a beautiful picture. The boat is Coral 1, our cruise boat. 

We started the trek back at a very high speed as the light was rapidly fading. Amy, Amanda, Chrissy and the two kids quickly fell behind as the kids were really struggling to walk over the rocks in bare feet. They lost sight of the guide and the rest of the group and the kids began to panic. Mark ended up having to go back to them to give Eddie a firemans lift, Chrissy carried Sozzie and Amy carried the very heavy crocs as they had doubled in size from the amount of clay on them. We were thankful that the National Park had let us go onto the island so late but boy were we tired!

A lovely dinner was served at 7.30 and then we were given our briefing for the next day. We soon realised it was going to be an action packed few days as everything was to be done to a very strict timescale. The National Park have rules as to what boats can be where and when and everyone has be on and off the islands at certain times, obviously so as to give the animals a bit of peace and quiet.