Punta Vicente Roca

Our final day ended with another panga ride and some snorkeling along Vicente Roca Point on Isabela Island. The snorkeling was the best of the trip. They called it a deep-water snorkeling and I almost didn’t bother to go because of my very poor eyesight. I have prescription goggles, but we did not take them thinking that we wouldn’t be doing any snorkeling because the interest in the birds and iguanas would be paramount. That turned out to be wrong. The water wasn’t much more than about ten feet deep and we were close enough to shore that I was easily able to see most of what was there. We purchased an underwater camera that I also used figuring that anything I couldn’t see under the water, I could see later in the pictures. The most fun part of this day was the ten minutes I got to swim with a tortoise. Just as I was ready to look for the boat, another swimmer hollered and pointed to the tortoise. As a result, I was the last back on the panga for the ride back to the ship. 

Chocolate Chip Starfish

After a shower and a change of clothes, we went back out on the panga for our final shore ride of the trip. This turned out to be the most interesting as we saw two new birds and had some great views of the penguins, blue-footed boobies, and Magnificent frigatebirds.

Blue-footed Booby

Brown Noddy

Frigatebird

At the top of the cliffs we got to watch the Galapagos hawk eating his dinner. While the hawk was too far away for us to tell what he was eating, we were able to watch for about ten minutes before he walked up the cliff and flew away. 

Shortly after that we came upon some Nazca boobies. While they aren’t as interesting as the blue-footed variety, they are a more beautiful bird and live a similar lifestyle. 

Nazca Boobies