Galapagos Cruise – Day 8: Turtle Bay, Santa Cruz

We had to be packed up and ready to go first thing in the morning as we were leaving the ship today. However there was still time for an early morning nature trip to Turtle Bay on Santa Cruz Island.

Landing is not allowed in this important Mangrove and nursery area so we would be cruising around in the RIBs using paddles to move.

My expectations were low for this outing but I was pleasantly surprised by the beauty of the area and the amount of life to be found.

We started at 6am with the sun just coming up and headed off into the bay.

The first things we saw were some Pelicans and Blue Footed Boobies on the rocks and fishing in the water. We also saw some Lava Herons and American Oystercatchers on the rocks.

It wasn’t long before we spotted the first of many turtles cruising through the shallow water as well as small sharks and rays.

On the way out of the mangroves at the exit to the bay well over a thousand Blue Footed Boobies had arrived while we were on the RIBs. Soon after we came amongst them they all took off together as if by a prearranged signal. They were resting while on a hunting expedition looking for a big school of fish.

When we arrived back at the boat we ate breakfast and then it was time to leave the boat and take a bus from the jetty to the airport.

We had a couple of hours to wait before our flight but this was fairly uneventful and we were back in Quito by the early evening.