Vanessa's map shows us getting closer to the equator.
Isla Bartolomé is one of the few Galapagos islands which has retained (more or less) its original English name, having been named after Sir Bartholomew James Sulivan, a long term friend of Charles Darwin.
The Endeavour II anchored off Bartolome.
Bartolomé's main feature is a 120m volcanic cone which is accessible via a prepared dry-landing platform and a man-made wooden track of 376 steps up an arid hill, virtually to the top. The view is said to be one of Galapagos' most iconic landscapes, and thanks to a 5:00am start, we saw it in perfect light as the sun came up. Socrates said that he guided the crew of the seafaring movie "Master and Commander" up here for filming several years ago.
It was a hard climb to the top for us oldies, but very rewarding when we got there.
The iconic landscape that signifies "Galapagos"!
Sun rises on the volcanic landscape of Bartolome, an island in perpetual drought.
After breakfast, we were able to swim and snorkel in Sulivan Bay, naming source obvious, just near the spectactular pinnacle, a caldera artifact, as we saw from the volcano-top lookout. This was possibly our best underwater outing, under bright sunshine and with very clear water. And later in the same day, we got a second opportunity to snorkel beside another volcanic caldera in the multiple small Bainbridge Islets. We fleetingly saw reef sharks and giant rays, but they all eluded our Nikon underwater camera!
The endemic Galapagos penguins wouldn't swim with us, but they make a loud braying noise.
Whatever this yellow fringed black & white fish is, it was pretty uncommon.
These two fish blended well with the sandy bottom, and seemed to be dancing with each other.
Something we didn't see on any other snorkel outing, a field of 100's of star fish.
The angelfish swim back and forth in huge schools. Smaller fry stay out of their way.
Diving to get a better view of the reef sharks.
We puzzle why some groups from Endeavour II bother to snorkel. When in the water, they talk and laugh endlessly, giving special meaning to the expression "could talk underwater", and they shriek loudly whenever a new fish is spotted.
The glass-bottomed Zodiac gets loaded back onto Endeavour II.
As the Endeavour II cruised around the Bainbridge Islets today, passengers were excited to see numerous dolphins riding the ship's bow-wave and off midships. The captain turned the ship around so we could get a better view. We also had close encounters with dolphins and more jumping manta rays while we were in the Zodiacs, so a great day for seeing these aquatic creatures.
In the Bainbridge Islets, a unique geographical structure - a captive lake inside a small volcano caldera. With bonus flamingos in the lake!
Vanessa, our expedition leader, gave us a very interesting talk today on the particular role the Galapagos Islands played in Darwin's expeditions in the Beagle and how what he saw and collected helped develop an understanding of natural selection and the evolution of species. Amazingly, we noted that some of our fellow passengers seemed totally unaware of this - maybe they are creationists by faith?
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