Saturday 20th March

We motored a huge distance in the night to the east coast of Santa Cruz to Isla Bartolome. Choosing to climb 405 steps at 8.30 in the morning wouldn't usually be high on your list of things to do but it was definitley worth it. A path from a jetty leads up to the summit of the island where the view was spectacular, particularly of Pinnacle Rock.

The girls and the boys on the way from the boat ready to disembark.

On the way up the wooden boardwalk we'd have regular breaks to learn about certain volcanic formations such as lava bombs, spatter and cinder cones. For those of you who have seen the film Master and the Commander you might recognise this as one of the places where it was filmed.

Again we had another chance to snorkel, this time off the beach. As soon as Amy and Jack put their heads in the water they saw a baby Galapagos shark, from then on it was rays, turtles, an octopus, sea lions and many fish. Me and Amanda had a penguin zip right infront of us, they're so quick! We had also seen a five foot shark when we were away from the beach but when Amy was in about five foot of water swimming up to the beach a five foot shark swam right in front of her face. She was so excited as she'd never seen one that close before. It just goes to show that when you're just stood in the sea you don't know what is swimming around you! She'd never have known if she wasn't snorkelling!

A baby shark to the left

A ray to the left and a parrot fish to the right

A sea lion on the left

Amanda to the left, me to the right and Amy below

From Bartolome it was back to Santa Cruz to Black Turtle Cove, located near Las Bachas beach on the north side of the island. Here we had a dinghy ride through the mangroves where the motor was turned off to allow close observation of the black turtles, sharks and rays. We saw a few turtles, a swimming crab, a ray and a couple of sharks but this was the first time we weren't that impressed. Until we reached the edge of the mangroves where there were hundreds of blue-footed boobies. The one animal that we hadn't really seen that we all really wanted to see. The dinghy was about a metre away from them and they are just lovely creatures. So in the end that made the trip.

The girls entering the mangroves

To the left is Steve and our guide Hernan. On the right we are all sheltering as we manouvered through s secret passage in the mangrove.

Black turtles

A lava heron and a pelican and below is the swimming blue crab.

Kim and Jane had organised a little party for my birthday for the last night as they were due to leave in the morning so at our table at the BBQ on the sun deck there were balloons and a banner. The chef appeared with a cake for me and Chrissy (as it is her 50th on Tuesday) and everyone sang happy birthday. It was lovely!

Me and Captain Patricia and toasting my 50th

Later on in the evening Hernan the guide informed everyone that there were four sharks swimming around the boat if any one was interested and of course everyone was so we all piled out onto the decks to have a look. Eventually the sharks, all five of them, which were a few metres in length kept swimming at the back of the boat in the light so we could see them clearly. They were teasing the pelicans that we sat in the water. They'd swim up to the pelicans and almost pretend that they were going to eat them causing the pelican to fly off. Of course if they wanted to eat the birds then they would no problem so it really was a game to them. Then there were two sea lions chasing fish around, with one fish jumping so high out the water that it ended up on the back of the boat. Eventually it did catch the fish which was a fantastic sight. We watched it all for hours and I think we were quite sad that it was our last night, but what a show they put on for us.