Welcome to the Galapagos!

6:45 wake up call and a beautiful view of Guayaquil slowly waking up from our hotel room. We had an excellent buffet breakfast before hopping on buses to airport. It hit me like a ton of bricks, in a few hours I’ll be in the Galapagos. Not only in the Galapagos, but there with National Geographic and Lindblad Expeditions. I’m not sure you could go with a better group!

Part way into the flight the attendant came over and informed me that my seat was broken and I would have to move to business class. I have no idea what was ‘wrong’ with my seat, but I sure wasn’t going to complain. Flying over the islands of the Galapagos was surreal. The evidence of their fiery origins was on full display.

We landed on an island called Baltra, also known as South Seymour. The flatness of this island made it an ideal location for a US base during WWll. I was walking on air as we made our way to customs, I was finally in the Galapagos. Before boarding buses to the dock, I dashed off a quick post card and sent it to my little guy. The first animals I saw were little finches, totally unafraid and hopping around people's feet as they went in an out of the airport. While waiting for zodiacs to take us to the Endeavour, I spotted a marine iguana, sally light foot crabs and some blue-footed boobies.

It was a slow cruise to the Endeavour as the perfect breeze was making things a bit choppy. It’s the ‘cold’ season in the Galapagos right now, it really just means that a perfect breeze keeps things from getting too hot. Upon boarding we dropped our things off in our cabins and headed to the lounge to meet some of the crew and for a safety briefing and lifeboat drills. We had a quick lunch and then prepared to disembark for our first wet landing with the zodiacs.

Our location was Santa Cruz at an amazing beach called Las Bachas. I was part of the first zodiac to the beach and we headed off to explore the beach and lagoon in behind. Within a few short minutes we had already seen marine iguanas, sea turtle nesting spots, blue-footed boobies diving for fish, frigate birds lazily gliding overhead, a lava lizard and dozens of sally light foot crabs. There were many bird species and we were treated to a flamingo flying overhead at one point.

After the walk, those that felt like it were able to go for a swim off the beach. The water was beautiful, what a treat. I can’t wait to start snorkeling tomorrow. As I was drying off and the sun was slowly sinking to the horizon, I saw a young sea lion swimming along the shore. Without hesitating, I ran into the water and sat down. The sea lion turned back and swam right up and stared me in the eye, before starting to do some back flips, almost as if playfully trying to urge me to swim off with it. It was an absolutely incredible experience. This little trip off the boat was meant to warm us up for bigger things to come. I can’t wait for tomorrow and North Seymour and Rabida!

Baby Watch: Negative