Overnight there were 14 hours of navigation. We started with a dry landing on Fernandina (Punta Espinoza). We saw a snake briefly, a Galapagos hawk, many marine iguanas getting warmed up before going into the sea, a few lava lizards, some sealions and a family of flightless cormorants.
After that, while others were snorkelling we had a boat ride. Amongst other things we saw our first Galapagos penguins and a Galapagos hawk sharing a rock with a marine iguana.
We now had a couple of hours navigation to Urvina Bay on Isabela.
After lunch and a respite the plans were for a wet landing and a short walk. However a humpback whale and calf decided to swim between us and the shore. This held things up as we no longer went straight across to the shore but followed the whales for a while, during which the baby breached.
The landing was tricky as it was quite rough and the beach had a steep camber. Once on shore, however, we soon saw giant tortoises, the first that we had seen in the wild. We also saw, among other birds, a vermillion flyatcher. In addition there were several land iguanas wandering around. Our route back to the boat was again not direct as the whales were still around and were again closely pursued.
It was a good day!
