Today was the day we had booked a tour to Kicker Rock - one of our two pre-planned snorkel trips. We woke quite early (well Suzanne did, as the best Internet was around 5am-6am in the morning) and were told to meet our group at a local tour company office at 8am. So there we were - nice and early at 7:50am - to meet our tour. At around 8:05am and without anyone else there, we contacted the tour company - apparently our phones did not automatically reset to the one-hour back time difference and we were there an hour early - it was only 7am. (Which also means that Suzanne woke at 4am to teach! 😒) So off to breakfast we went...and had some of the best Ecuadorian coffee of the trip!
After breakfast we had time to kill, so we wandered around the town enjoying the sea lions still sleeping, just waking up, frolicking - of which, one can't get enough pictures!
Snuggling sea loins!
Does this look comfortable?
A morning swim to wake-up........
Besides sea lions, there is actually a town!
Speaking of which, throughout the Galapagos, there were a lot of buildings unfinished - maybe half, maybe more. It seems as if people lived in open spaces - like the family room just sort of had a missing wall that connected to a patio. All of our hotels rooms had AC, but not the lobbies, so we wonder if that's the same in the houses.
The harbor on San Cristóbal Island.....
Eventually it was 8am and we met our tour group at the pier - and took a water taxi to the snorkeling boat. We took lots of water taxis while on the islands - this is what they generally looked like:
There were 12 people (eight scuba divers and four snorkelers) and five crew members. We cruised for quite a while (no idea how long) and chatted with people (there were three Australians, two French, one Catalonian, two Irish, and four North Americans). Two of the Australians live on their sailboat full-time and this was one of their stops on their 3-year-and-counting journey. Oh, and the two Frenchmen realized that they only live 10km from one another! Small world!!! We snorkeled with Katrina from Australia and Paolo from Catalonia - both super nice.
Our first stop was a beach about 15-minutes from Kicker Rock. Since all of the Galapagos Islands are a national park, there are strict time limits of when boats are allowed in certain areas and for how long they are allowed, so the stop at this beach was a way for everyone to swim a bit and take a break from the boat. There were tons of marine iguanas that really blended into the rocks and we saw a small sea lion pup playing in the water by some people lounging while its mom slept soundly.
The beach......
We then cruised for about 15-minutes to Kicker Rock
Where we all donned our wet suits and jumped feet first into the ocean. The water clarity was just okay, but we did see about 50+ sea turtles, a couple of rays, some sharks, and different schools of fish. We snorkeled two different times, each for about 45-minutes, swimming in opposite directions around Kicker Rock. In between we were given hot chocolate, some sweet bread, cookies, and fruit. The water was a bit cool and the current a bit strong at times - there was one instance where we were trying to get around a bend, we could see a rock below us, and we couldn't make any headway against the current and the rock never moved out of sight. Eventually with a bit more oomph, we got back to the boat.
Snorkeling pics -
(Nope - can't have too many sea turtle pictures! 😄)
Not a sea turtle.....
(Yes, that is Brad.)
Once we were finished with snorkeling, we had lunch of rice, chicken, fish, mixed vegetables, and a drink. Oh, and the boat had a fresh water shower to rinse off all the salt water which was very nice! On the way to town, we also had a champagne toast - cheers!
It was really a great day with some very nice people, a super nice crew, some great snorkeling, and good food.
Once we reached the harbor and took yet another water taxi, this guy was taking an afternoon nap - we wondered how he got up on the bench....
We showered and got cleaned-up before dinner in town as we needed to rise early the next day to get to the next island.
And that was San Cristóbal Island..............
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