Luxury Galapagos Cruise on the M/V Evolution

Arrive in Galapagos

Arrive at the airport in Baltra & transfer to the dock. Check-in to your cabin before attending an introductory briefing and safety drill. After lunch on board, head to Whaler Bay, a beautiful green sand cove at the base of Dragon Hill and Eden Islet, home to a great variety of seabirds and marine iguanas and also a great snorkelling site. Return on board for a welcome cocktail and dinner.

Overnight: M/V Evolution (L, D)

Isabela Island & Fernandina Island

After lunch, visit Fernandina Island and La Cumbre volcano, which erupts frequently (most recently in April 2009). You will visit Punta Espinosa, a narrow spit of land, where a number of unique species, such as marine iguanas, sea lions, herons, egrets, flightless cormorants and Galapagos hawks can be seen in close proximity.

Overnight: M/V Evolution (B, L, D)

Isabela Island

After breakfast you will have an opportunity to visit Urbina Bay. This bay is directly west of Isabela’s Volcano Alcedo, where you will make an easy, wet landing and walk on a stretch of three miles (5 km) of the marine reef that has been uplifted 13 feet (4 m) out of the water. Highlights of this excursion are the giant land iguanas and giant tortoises, as well as the opportunity to go snorkelling amongst marine creatures, or just relaxing on shore. In the afternoon visit Tagus Cove on Isabela Island. A wooden stairway rises to the trail entrance and continues around Darwin Lake through a dry vegetation zone, and ends in a promontory formed by spatter cones. The site provides spectacular views of our anchorage in the bay, as well as Darwin and Wolf Volcanoes.

Overnight: M/V Evolution (B, L, D)

Bartolome & Santiago Island

After lunch, visit Sullivan Bay, one of the most outstanding volcanic sites in the Galapagos. In the nearly 100 years since the Sullivan Bay Flow, only a few plants like Mollugo and lava cacti have managed to take root in this harsh environment. Oyster catchers can be seen fishing for crabs and molluscs in the tide pools of Sullivan Bay. After exploring the lava flow, there is swimming and snorkelling with playful sea lions off two small coralline beaches.

Overnight: M/V Evolution (B, L, D)

Santa Cruz Island

After lunch there is a visit to Dragon Hill, named after the large number of land iguanas that are found there.  It also an important nesting site for iguanas reintroduced by the Charles Darwin Research Center. A short walk from the beach leads to a hypersalinic (saltier than the ocean) lagoon that is frequented by pink flamingos, common stilts, pintail ducks and other species of birds. From here, they will pass through a forest of the endemic Scalesia tree. There are only 400 specimens of the Scalesia tree left in the world. Past the forest, hike up Dragon Hill for impressive views of the bay.

Overnight: M/V Evolution (B, L, D)

Santa Cruz Island

Santa Cruz is the second largest island in the Galapagos and its capital, Puerto Ayora, is the economic centre of the Islands. In the morning we visit the Charles Darwin Research Station to visit the Giant Tortoise and Land Iguana Breeding and Rearing Program. After lunch on board you are off to the highlands, where the dry coastal vegetation transitions to lush wet fields and forests overgrown with moss and lichens. Your destination is the Tortoise Reserve, where you will have chances see these animals in the wild, walk through lava tubes and see the Gemelos, the twin collapsed craters.

Overnight: M/V Evolution (B, L, D)

Espanola Island

Española Island, sometimes called Hood, is the southernmost island of the archipelago, and is one of the most popular due to the breath-taking variation and number of fauna that inhabit the island. After breakfast, visit Punta Suarez where you will witness the largest variety of marine iguanas in the Galapagos, nazca and blue-footed boobies nesting along the cliff’s edge, as well as the famous waved albatross. In the afternoon you visit Gardner Bay, a magnificent long white sandy beach, where colonies of sea lions laze in the sun, sea turtles swim offshore and inquisitive mockingbirds boldly investigate new arrivals.

Overnight: M/V Evolution (B, L, D)

Depart San Cristobal

A short trail arrives at Frigate Bird Hill, where both “magnificent-frigates” and “great-frigates” can be seen in the same colony. Next we return to the airport where we began our journey in the Galapagos for the flight back to Ecuadorian mainland.