First Full Day !

 We woke up to a nice day.  The weather is cooler than we expected.  We had a nice breakfast and headed for a zodiac ride to a beautiful island of Santa Cruz.  We hiked 1.5 miles and saw land iguanas, cactus finch, sea lions, lava lizards, and lots of birds.  The island is recovering from a large goat population that ate most of the cactus.  The south side was windy with shear cliffs down to the ocean.  The sea birds would soar up and down in the wind currents.  

In the afternoon we decided not to snorkel and had a few hours to relax.  

We took zodiac ride that suddenly turned into a whale watching adventure.  We saw several different whale groups with one being a mother and child that was very beautiful.  The whales were about 30 feet long and we were able to pace them with the zodiacs as they kept rising and spouting again and again.  We finally had to break off and head back to the beach for our hike which was now very short.  

One of the rules in the Galapagos national park is that you must be off the islands by 6 PM.  We just made it in time.  

We got back to the boat and took a break before dinner.  

It was a great day with multiple zodiac rides!













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