11.-15.11. Island tour with the yacht Angelito

Finally, we have faster internet again. I hope I can catch up tonight 😁

We spent 4 days on an island tour on the yacht Angelito 1.

There were only 14 passengers in total. All very nice. The crew and our guide were great too and the food was delicious. 

The only unpleasant thing was the strong waves during the boat rides. Luckily, we had motion sickness pills 😁. I still couldn't sleep because it felt like the boat was tipping over all night and I wanted to be ready to quickly get into the lifeboat. 😬 Only Milo slept peacefully and deeply. My theory: He felt like he was back in the time as an embryo. He had to do drops on the vertical cloth in my stomach. It probably felt similarly turbulent. 🙄

We visited various islands. These are all uninhabited and only a small part of them is accessible to ensure that the birds can breed in peace. Actually, you are only allowed to get up to 2 meters close to each animal. But since they don't have any natural enemies, they are often curious and come very close or sit right next to the path.

That's of course very nice if you, like me, only have a camera phone at your disposal 😁. Some animals occur on all islands, for example, the sealions 

and iguanas

Natural death 😁

Some of them have only a few colonies, such as the blue-footed booby.

The plant world is also unusual on the Galapagos Islands. There are cacti that look like trees

and white trees that look dead and suddenly turn green during the rainy season. 

There are also lichens and fantastic ground coverings in bright colors. 

That looks particularly great on the black underground. 

The islands are of volcanic origin and you can see almost everywhere that they consist of solidified lava.

We also snorkeled along the coasts for three days.

I found that very impressive. To swim in the middle of a school of fish or dive next to sealions. We also saw stingrays and sharks. It feels a bit uncomfortable when a shark swims by only 50cm away from you. Even if they were only 1.60m long. 😬

On November 14th, I celebrated my birthday quickly.

There was a delicious cake for dessert for everyone. Great crew 😘

On our last morning, we visited the Darwin Research Station in Santa Cruz. There is a giant tortoise breeding station there.

Good Darwin

Otherwise, we would all still believe we were made of clay.