Extensive Galapagos Adventure

Arrive in Galapagos - San Cristobal

Arrive at the airport in San Cristobal & transfer to the dock. Check-in to your cabin before attending an introductory briefing and safety drill. After lunch you head to your first visitor site Ochoa Beach, a beautiful white coral sand beach next to a turquoise bay and home to a small colony of sea lions. End your day at Kicker Rock, a spectacular rock formation that rises 152 meters (500 feet) out of the Pacific. It takes the form of a sleeping lion, but from another angle you can see that the rock is split, forming a colossal tablet piercing the sea. Return on board for a welcome cocktail and dinner.

Overnight: M/V Evolution L, D

South Plaza & Daphne Island

After breakfast, it’s your chance to see land iguanas on South Plaza Island. As you wander through the interesting flora, including bright red carpet weed you will see nesting swallow-tailed gulls, red-billed tropicbirds, frigatebirds and shearwaters flying with dancing displays. After lunch, enjoy some snorkelling at Punta Carrion followed by a visit to Daphne Island. The geology of this island is extremely interesting thanks to the large tuff cone – a huge pile of compacted volcanic ash shaped like a cone.

Overnight: M/V Evolution B, L, D

Chinese Hat & Santiago Island

After breakfast, visit Chinese Hat Island, a fairly recent volcanic cone. The name Chinese Hat, or ‘Sombrero Chino’ as it is known in Spanish, will make complete sense as soon as you look at its unusual shape. On the rocky shoreline of nearby Santiago Island, the tiny Galapagos penguins are often seen.

Overnight: M/V Evolution B, L, D

Genovesa Island

Genovesa Island, also known as Tower Island, features an ocean-filled caldera ringed by the outer edges of a sizeable and mostly submerged volcano on the southwestern part of the island. The island is slightly removed from the Galapagos archipelago and sits to the northwest. It is also known as ‘Bird Island thanks to its huge birdlife populations! In the morning make your way to Darwin Bay.

Overnight: M/V Evolution B, L, D

North Seymour & Santa Fe Island

After breakfast you will visit North Seymour Island teaming with wildlife! The shoreline is formed by cliffs only a few metres high and is are home to numerous swallow-tailed gulls. Just above the landing stands a tiny forest of silver-grey Palo Santo trees.

Overnight: M/V Evolution B, L, D

Floreana Island

Floreana Island has a colourful history, please do just ask your guides and they will be more than happy to regale the stories. In the morning you visit Post Office Bay, where in 1793 British whalers set up a barrel as the island‘s Post Office, to send letters home on passing ships. The tradition continues to this day, simply by dropping a post card into the barrel without a stamp and crossing your fingers that it may eventually arrive at its destination. After lunch, visit Punta Cormorant which offers two highly contrasting beaches; a green-olivine beach and an iron-red beach. Between the two beaches is a salt lagoon frequented by flamingos, pintails, stilts and other wading birds. Late afternoon snorkelling at Devil's Crown, which is home to a myriad of marine species including a variety of corals, pencil sea urchin, wrasses, angelfish and amberjacks, makes for some of the best snorkelling in the Galapagos.

Overnight: M/V Evolution B, L, D

Santa Cruz Island

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

Overnight: M/V Evolution B, L, D

Depart San Cristobal

Today your Galapagos cruise comes to an end, but before you say your goodbyes to your home from home, the Evolution and her crew, you pay a visit to the Galapagos National Park Visitor Centre on San Cristobal Island. This centre presents a comprehensive exhibition of the islands’ varied history and your naturalist will use the exhibits to provide an illustrated overview of life on the islands. A short trail arrives at Frigate Bird Hill, where both “magnificent-frigates” and “great-frigates” can be seen in the same colony. Next you return to the airport where you began your journey in the Galapagos for the flight back to Ecuadorian mainland.