Day 5 - Dec. 8

Santiago Island.
This is where Darwin spent most of his ‘on land’ time. He spent a total of 6 weeks in Galapagos, which included only 19 days on land. Nine of which were spent on Santiago Island.

(The movie Master and Commander is the story which includes a little of Darwin’s adventures. We were able to watch the movie since we’ve been home. Filmed in the Galapagos we highly recommended it if you haven’t seen it.)

Another day spent on the water, in the water, under the water - kayaking, swimming, snorkeling. Along with some hiking. When we traveled by zodiac to an island we either had a wet or dry landing depending on the area we were approaching.

A dry landing meant that the zodiac was able to butt itself up against very well placed steps or rocks where we could step from the zodiac on to the inflated side of the boat and then on to dry land. A wet landing meant that the zodiac stopped as close to shore as it could but that we would have to swing our feet over the side of the zodiac and jump off into – hopefully no more that knee deep water. Sometimes this worked well – sometimes not so much. If we did a wet landing with the intent to hike we would have to take along dry shoes for the walk.

When we boarded the ship from the zodiac we had to step on to the inflated side of the zodiac and then on to a ladder to take us up to the ship’s deck. This was always a two handed accomplishment. Most of the time it worked very well.