Day 12 – another 2h swimming in the Pacific Ocean, 5 fish caught, 0 visibility on the last snorkel attempt

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Sergio from the travel agency promised today’s trip to be „a little bit of everything“. Two days ago, when we were desperate to find some last-minute open spot for North Seymour (the place we originally wanted to go to), he recommended this tour we have been on today.

We got picked up a little late and it was good that the actual boat captain was our driver, otherwise I don’t know how we would have ended up today. While our receipt clearly stated that we would be picked up from our hotel, we thought to have our receptionist call a number mentioned on the receipt half an hour after the agreed pick-up time. Turned out the driver/ captain thought we would be coming to the travel agency.

We were relieved when we finally arrived at Itabaca Channel about half an hour later to board the boat and realized there was no large family with children, this time.

We took off and the first thing they told us about is to be careful with the fishing rod. They would try and catch some fish – this was great because I’ve not expected that and have never done deep-water fishing before. By the the end of the day we would have caught four yellow-fin tunas, one jack fish and a one and a half meter large shark (which we let go). That was fantastic – every now and then the excitement rose when the boat stopped and everyone was curious what would be on the other end of the leash.

We even got to try it ourselves – or at least hold the fish afterwards. 😉

The first round of snorkeling ended after an hour of swimming against the current around a little rock close-by Daphne Island (it really is a trip for experienced swimmers with stamina!). We came back to the boat, having seen white-tip sharks, fish and sea lions. Like yesterday, this was great, the sea lions they came really close and were not afraid at all.

It helped that our group only consisted of nine people in total and our boat was the only one. Our guide, also called Sergio, was a good diver and showed us where to find the sharks (some hid in a cave five meters below the surface) and pointed us to all sorts of (rare) fish.

Eventually, we had lunch (tuna steak from a fish they apparently caught the day before) and drove around Daphne Mayor Island (there is a big and a small Island, Daphne Mayor and Daphne Menor) to get a good look at the frigatebirds (the birds with red throats on the pics below), blue-footed boobies, both of which are endemic to the Galapagos Islands, we were told. For sure there were pelicans and sea lions bathing in the sun, as well.

The second snorkeling stop on a beach was not successful, the water was full of algae and visibility was limited to two meters, at max. That was a bit sad because there were rays and turtles we could at least see from above.

In my opinion, it was good we did both day trips.

I loved the colorful underwater world at Pinzón. There were many fish to be observed, sea lions were playing around, as well. We saw at least some turtles and white-tip sharks, too.

Today, the better part was above the water: Fregates, blue-footed boobies, a lot of other birds nesting on the rock, sea lions and the part where we were catching numerous yellow-fin tuna fish were the highlights.

I wouldn’t want to miss either part of the experience.

// We can recommend booking with Sergio: Galapagos Mocking Bird Travel Agency

 

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