Santa Fe and Plazas Islands

We were up for a 7am breakfast of fruit, granola, yoghurt, bread and cheese. Then we were dropped at Santa Fe island on a sandy beach full of sea lions. We went for a short walk up a rocky path full of giant black lava boulders and saw about 6 light brown land iguanas and lots of prickly pear cactus which has thick tree-like trunks (only island in the world you can see these species).

After a quick revival of juice and biscuits we went snorkelling. I saw lots of cool fish including one with luminescent blue spots and there were apparently turtles around but Anna and I spent the entire time with the sea lions. There were at least 20 juveniles who just wanted to play with us - the most amazing experience!!! They would swim straight at you, then whoosh around at the last second, never bumping into you. They loved it if you dove down and blew bubbles or swam upside down / in circles. They also liked biting the ends of our flippers...one lady even had her ponytail grabbed!

Once we were dragged away from the sea lions (I'm not sure who was more sad, them or us), we set sail for the 2.5 hour journey to the Plazas Islands. Most of us fell asleep on the top deck whilst frigate birds (who puff up their red chests for mating) flew above us and landed on the boat.

After lunch we went ashore for a 2 hour walk along the trail seeing more cactus, different land iguanas (black that become more yellow as they get older), more lava lizards and lots of birds. We also saw a few sea lion pup skeletons and a couple of dead marine iguanas. One looked really odd - it was almost fully formed apart from it's head and it's tail were rigid in the air from dying from the heat and the muscles constricting. Sea lions were sat on the concrete jetty blocking our path and both times we had to clap loudly to get them to move.

Back on board (BOB) at 4pm, we were greeted with more food! Delicious cheese empanadas. We then watched a short clip of a crab shedding it's exoskeleton as we'd found a carapace ashore earlier. Next we watched David Attenborough's Galapagos programme. I could barely keep my eyes open and went for a lie down when the second episode came on.

After a lovely dinner all but four of us went to bed as soon as we set sail at 9pm. We went up to the top deck to see the stars which were truly amazing - the only equivalent I've seen is in the outback in Oz. We were accompanied by the world's only nocturnal gull which swooped gracefully around our boat. We went to bed about 11pm and slept pretty well considering we were rocking about a lot for the seven hour journey. Only Anna and I managed to sleep properly.Read more