January 27, 2026, Day 7 of the Cruise
This day was a lot. We did two activities in the morning and two in the afternoon, and the highlights were the up close and personal sea lion I saw in the water in morning and the sharks in the afternoon! But there was so much, so this is a LONG entry.
We started today on Rabida Island. it was pure rust colour. I have to say it’s a good think I was not allowed to take sand from Galapagos, because I would have had to take at lest 6 containers. We have been on beaches and paths of red, white, black, brown, coral, coarse, fine, powdery, everything really. Rabida’s sand is volcanic but it’s volcanic with a really high iron content, so instead of black, it’s red. It’s amazing. I haven’t had my eyes react to so much red since we were in the desert in Jordan.
MORNING EXCURSION PART 1
Unfortunately, Rich was still not feeling well, so he missed the morning hike on Rabida and the beach snorkeling. We started out on beach and went for a hike upwards and got a great view. There were so many lizards and birds on the beach and on the hike and a Sea Lion that literally walked out of the water towards us, right up the beach and hit the path. They are so graceful in the water (my best Sea Lion video every is further down), but so awkward on land. They look like someone tied there legs together and they are only able to take steps by moving their feet at the ankles. Anyway, SO MANY VIDEOS below.
I’m sad that he missed this snorkeling because I’ve never see anything like it. It was fish highway. I’ve never seen so many fish. There had to be millions of them. The “highway” was probably 50 metres wide and went on for well over a kilometre from what I could see, maybe longer. And as far as depth goes, at least a few metres. The only way to see the depth of it was when one of the people in our group dove down and the fish parted in a graceful circle and then closed back up.
MORNING EXCURSION PART 2
The most amazing thing happened and I thought I captured video of it, but I was so flustered that I didn’t actually record it. One of our group, dove down to the fish highway. As he got close to them, disrupting their flow, they opened up in a circle. The man was only about two feet above them swimming towards them when the open circle formed, and swimming up through the circle came a full grown white tipped shark. They were face to face for a second. The guy in our group did some crazy acrobatics to get out of there. It fully scared the shit out of him. I was on the surface so not nearly as close as he was and it scared the shit out of me! I did manage to get a glimpse of a shark a little while later. Just for a few seconds The video is below.
Then I got the best underwater video of a Sea Lion on the whole trip. Here is the video and some stills from it.
AFTERNOON EXCURSION PART 1
After lunch we moved on to Bartalome Island where we went snorkeling again off the beach. So happy Rich was finally feeling better and could come along! This particular snorkeling excursion was amazing because WE SAW SHARKS. It was so cool. The first one I saw caught me totally off guard. I was watching a Galapagos Puffer, a sort of odd looking wide fish. I was just floating there watching it, and thank god taking video, because I looked up and right there was a White Tipped shark, just swimming on by. I immediately did what any sane person would do, and just followed it… until i realized I was nowhere near the others, so I abandoned following the shark and went back.
But then, I found Rich and told him I had been following a shark and before you know it, we started seeing more of them….
And this one that was kinda coming right towards me… Shocked me a bit because I had been looking to the side, and when I looked forward again, there it was, and I had to hit record real fast. He was just a baby though.
Also, saw this cool Ray.
When it was time to meet back at the beach, we reluctantly headed in. As an aside each of our snorkeling excursions was approximately 45 minutes to an hour, and honestly I could have stayed out there all day. I love snorkeling so much. I could just lie there on the surface of water watching the world under me forever. I’m so glad that overall I think we did at least 10 snorkeling excursions on the cruise. Anyway, we headed back, and this baby Galapagos Shark went by right under me.
Once we were on our way back to the beach, sort of leaving the deeper water where the sharks were and into the more shallow water, there were so many other types of fish.
Back on the beach, we thought we were done, but a bit more excitement was coming. There was a Sea Lion absolutely mugging for the camera. And it really really liked one of the people in our group, Sara. No matter where she moved to the Sea Lion tried to get to her. It was really funny. Also, I caught a Boobie diving for a fish in the background of one of my videos, so that was awesome.
When we were on the zodiacs and were heading back to the Coral 1, we saw these awesome little penguins. Dudes what are you doing here?
AFTERNOON EXCURSION PART 2
After dropping off our snorkel equipment and a quick shower and rest, we headed back to Bartolome Island for a dry landing and a hike up to the lighthouse (378 stairs approximately).
The terrain was super cool. All carved out by volcano eruptions. And the volcanic rocks were so light! It was wild.
From the top we had a great view of the bay below. The right hand side is where we had been snorkeling earlier.
This is the lighthouse at the top that was outlined in red in the first picture.
Then on the way back to the ship we cruised by this huge rock…
…and we found this guy!