Swimming with a sea turtle in Bahia Gardener, Galapagos
The photo was taken in Bahia Gardener on the western side of Isabela Island in the Galapagos.
I was on day five of a Galapagos cruise holiday on board Cachalote which is a charming but fairly small sail boat. The previous night had been the roughest of the journey as we rounded the southern tip of Isabela against the full force of the prevailing winds. At around 5am we came around the headland and into the still waters of the lee side of the island. It was a wonderful morning to stand on deck with a cup of coffee, enjoying the stillness.
What makes the western side of Isabela so lovely is that relatively very few boats have permission to visit. Whilst landings in the middlemost islands of the archipelago are very well managed, you are usually aware of a few other boats. Out on the far shores of Isabela this just isn’t the case and you really get a welcome sense of remoteness.
Gardener Bay is one of the few wet landing sites – i.e. you hop out of the zodiac into thigh deep sea and walk up onto the beach. From here there is a path leading off into a baking hot dry forest which is home to land iguanas and also giant tortoises, apparently. The tortoises weren’t coming out to play the day we visited so we headed back to the beach where we could relax, read, swim or snorkel.
At this particular site, you can swim anywhere within the bay so I took advantage of the freedom to float off snorkelling on my own. A few minutes later I came across this turtle, grazing on seaweed. For the next 20 minutes or more we drifted together, at times literally inches apart. There was nobody else out in the bay, no big group to rejoin, just time alone to swim with a sea turtle.
That was the moment it struck me how privileged I was to be in the Galapagos, how lucky we are that this place even exists.
You can read more in our guide to the Galapagos islands or on our Galapagos cruises page
A Galapagos penguin on the Mariela Islands
This photo is of a tiny Galapagos penguin standing on the lava of the Islas Mariela, just off the main island of Isabela. If I do say so myself, I think the photo itself is a rather lovely summary of the intimacy of a small boat Galapagos cruise experience. What it doesn’t convey is just how odd it is to see a penguin here at the equator.
I was lucky enough to spend a week on board the Galapagos cruise boat Cachalote a couple of years ago. The itinerary she follows is a cracker – no doubling back on yourself, just a straight circuit of the Galapagos Islands. My favourite part of the islands, and the least visited, is along the western side of Isabela. It is there you can get a real sense of being away from it all in a basically pristine environment surrounded by this extraordinary wildlife.
What makes the wildlife in the Galapagos so abundant and mixed is the convergence of three oceanic currents: the warm Panama, the cold Peru and the deep sea Cromwell. The western side of Isabela is a particularly good place to see the effect of the meeting of these three currents.
Just after I took this photo we navigated into a forest of mangroves. We found a sea lion alseep in a branch. A sea lion and a mangrove tree really don’t normally meet. Under the boat we saw sea turtles swim alongside penguins – it was like Antarctica had gone on holiday to the Caribbean.
So, there we go, I love this photo because there we are in the warm equatorial afternoon bobbing about in an open boat wearing t-shirts, looking at penguins. Those are the incongruities which make a Galapagos cruise such an exquisite experience.
If you would like to read more information about the Galapagos, see our guide to the Galapagos. If you are interested in a holiday to the Galapagos, see our Galapagos holidays or more particularly our Galapagos cruises page.