Naturalist Cruise Through Galapagos Islands on the M/S Lammer Law (8D/7N)

Morning: Fly to Galapagos – San Cristobal & Puerto Baquerizo: Following an early breakfast, we transfer you to the airport for your flight to the Galápagos Islands stopping briefly in the coastal city of Guayaquil en route where passengers can also join the flight. The turquoise blue water surrounding the coast is visible from the air as we approach the island of San Cristobal. Charles Darwin reported encountering a pair of giant tortoises feeding on cactus during his first landing here in 1835. Upon arrival in Puerto Baquerizo, the administrative capital of the islands and a sleepy little port town, you’ll pass through Park Inspection, after which you’ll be met by your guide holding a sign for the Lammer Law. Our first stop is the Galápagos National Park Visitor Centre opened for the benefit of islanders and travelers alike, presenting a comprehensive exhibit of the islands’ natural history, human interaction, ecosystems, flora and fauna.

Next, it’s a very short ride to the harbor and it’s not long before you will be crossing from shore to reach the Lammer Law, your home and adventure center for the next week. Your captain and crew will be waiting to greet you and will take care of seeing to it that your bags reach your cabin. Now it’s time to get settled in and relax as we head off to our first landing.

Afternoon: Isla Lobos: Heading up the coast from Wreck Bay and Puerto Baquerizo, you will see Isla Lobos across a small channel off the coast of San Cristóbal. This basalt island outcropping lives up to its name of “Sea Lion Island” with its noisy population of frolicking and barking beasts. It is also a nesting place for blue-footed boobies and an excellent spot for snorkeling. This is your first chance to share the water with a playful colony of the ‘wolves of the sea’. (B, L, D…Accommodations: Lammer Law)

Day 2, Sunday
Morning: Floreana - Post Office Bay & Devils Crown: 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. The catch is you must take a post card from the barrel and see that it gets to the right place. That is how the system began and continues to this day. Some claim it works better than the post office. Seen 250 meters north from Punta Cormorant is an old submerged volcanic cone that has been worn down by waves, Devil's Crown is home to a myriad of marine species including a variety of corals, pencil sea urchin, wrasses, angelfish, amberjacks and many other creatures, making for some of the best snorkeling in the Galápagos. The eroded crater walls form a popular roosting site for seabirds including boobies and pelicans.

Afternoon: Floreana – Punta Cormorant: Floreana has had a colorful history: Pirates, whalers, convicts, and a small band of somewhat peculiar colonists—a Baroness among them—who chose a Robinson Crusoe existence that ended in mystery and death. Today roughly fifty Ecuadorians inhabit the island. Punta Cormorant offers two highly contrasting beaches; the strand where the yacht anchors is composed of volcanic olivine crystals, giving it a greenish tint that glitters in the sun. From here a trail crosses the neck of the isthmus—that rises to form a cinder cone—to a beach of very fine white sand, formed by the erosion of coral skeletons. Between the two beaches is a salt lagoon frequented by flamingoes, pintails, stilts and other wading birds. (B, L, D…Accommodations: Lammer Law)

Day 3, Monday
Morning: Española (Hood) - Punta Suarez: Hood is the southernmost island of the archipelago, and is one of the most popular due to the breathtaking variation and sheer number of fauna that greet the visitor. The giant tortoise was reintroduced to Hood in the 1970’s and counts as one of the park’s great success stories. They reside in an off-limits area, but don’t worry—the famous giant tortoise awaits you on other islands!

The quantity and variety of wildlife at Punta Suarez is remarkable. Sea lions surf the waves beyond the breakwater landing, and tiny pups are known to greet your toes upon arrival. A few steps inland are the largest variety of marine iguana in the Galápagos. They bear distinctive red and black markings, some with a flash of turquoise running down their spine, and nap in communal piles. The trail then takes us beside the western edge of the island where masked boobies nest along the cliff’s edge, and then descends to a rocky beach before rising to an open area and a large gathering of nesting blue-foot boobies. Galápagos doves, cactus finch and mocking birds forage by, unconcerned by human presence. The trail continues to the high cliff edge of the southern shore; below, a shelf of black lava reaches out into the surf where a blowhole shoots a geyser of water into the air. Further east along the cliffs is the “Albatross Airport” where “waved albatross” line up to launch their great winged bodies from the cliffs, soaring out over the dramatic shoreline of crashing waves and driven spray. In the trees set back from the cliff is one of only two places in the world where the waved albatross nests. In fact, the 12,000 pairs that inhabit Hood Island comprise all but a tiny fraction of the world’s population of this species. Lucky visitors can watch courtship ‘fencing’ done with great yellow beaks and necks among the large, fluffy, perfectly camouflaged chicks. Mating occurs year round.

Afternoon: Española (Hood) - Gardner Bay: On the northeastern shore of Hood, Gardner Bay offers 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. You will be lured into the turquoise water for a swim, but just a little further off-shore, the snorkeling by Tortuga rock and Gardner Island offers peak encounters with playful young sea lions and large schools of surprisingly big tropical fish, including yellow tailed surgeonfish, king angelfish and bump-head parrot fish. Sleepy white-tipped reef sharks can be seen napping on the bottom. (B, L, D…Accommodations: Lammer Law)

Day 4, Tuesday
Morning: Santa Cruz – Puerto Ayora: Santa Cruz is the second largest island in the Galápagos and something of a hub for the archipelago. The small town of Puerto Ayora in the southwest of this large, round volcanic island is the economic center of the Islands, with the largest population of the four inhabited islands (approx. 10,000). Tourism—including refurbishing and resupplying yachts—along with fishing and boat-building, are major sources of commerce.

Puerto Ayora is home to both the Galápagos National Park and Charles Darwin Research Station, the center of the great restorative efforts taking place in the park, a UNESCO World Heritage site. Here we go ashore to visit the Giant Tortoise Breeding and Rearing Program run by the research station, which began by rescuing the remaining 16 tortoises on the island of Española in the 1970s. This program has restored the population of animals there to over 1,000 today. You will see many of these animals, with their sweet ET necks and faces, from hatchlings to juveniles to large, distinguished individuals like Lonesome George, the last of his particular race of tortoise—may be 150 years old! The local color of this port makes for an attractive stop-off, with restaurants, souvenir shops and even an internet café.

Afternoon: Santa Cruz – Highlands: A highlight of any trip is a visit to the Santa Cruz Highlands, where the sparse, dry coastal vegetation transitions to lush wet fields and forests overgrown with moss and lichens. Our destination is the Tortoise Reserve, where we will have chances to track and view these friendly ancient creatures in their natural setting. This extends to the adjacent pasturelands, where farmers have given tortoise safe quarter in exchange for allowing paying visitors to see them. The best times to see tortoises here is during the cool dry season from June through December. Another attraction close by is a very large lava tube. A wooden stairway descends to the mouth of its arched entrance and continues underground to the narrow passage that marks its exit. (B, L, D…Accommodations: Lammer Law)

Day 5, Wednesday
Morning: Tower- Darwin Bay: Landing on the white coral sands of Darwin Bay and walking up the beach, you will be surrounded by the bustling activity of “great frigate birds.” Puffball-chicks with their proud papás—who sport their bulging scarlet throat-sacks—crowd the surrounding branches, while both yellow-crowned and lava herons feed by the shore. Farther along you will discover a stunning series of sheltered pools set into a rocky outcrop, forming another natural film set. A trail beside the pools leads up to a cliff overlooking the caldera, where pairs of swallow-tailed gulls, the only nocturnal gulls in the world, can be seen nesting at the cliff’s edge. Lava gulls and pintail ducks ride the sea breezes nearby. A brief panga ride brings us to the base of those same cliffs to reveal the full variety of species sheltering in the ledges and crevices created by the weathered basalt. Among them, red–billed tropic birds enter and leave their nests trailing exotic kite-like tails. This is also an intriguing place to go deep-water snorkeling, where the truly fortunate swimmer can spot one of the giant manta rays that frequent the inner bay along the cliff walls. You might also seem them at the surface as the sun set’s on your first full day in the Galápagos.

Afternoon: Tower – Phillips Steps: Tower Island could serve as a film set for a secret submarine base! The southwestern part of the island is an ocean-filled caldera ringed by the outer edges of a sizeable and mostly submerged volcano. The island sits to the northwest, slightly removed from the Galápagos archipelago. It is also known as “Bird Island,” a name it lives up to in a spectacular way.
Named for a visit by the British Monarch in 1964, 25-meter (81-foot) Phillips Steps leads to a narrow stretch of land that opens out onto the plateau surrounding Darwin Bay, and extends to form the north side of the island. Red-footed boobies wrap their webbed feet around branches to perch in the bushes, and, in contrast, their “masked-booby” cousins dot the surface of the scrublands beyond. Crossing through the sparse vegetation, you will come to a broad lava field that extends towards the sea—this forms the north shore. “Storm petrels” flutter out over the ocean in swarms, then return to nest in the cracks and tunnels of the lava field, where their predator, the short-eared owl, is a frequent. (B, L, D…Accommodations: Lammer Law)
Day 6, Thursday
Morning: Fernandina – Punta Espinosa: At 1495 meters (4,858 feet), the big news on this youngest and westernmost of the islands is La Cumbre volcano that erupts frequently, most recently in May 2005. Fernandina sits across the Bolivar Channel opposite Isabela. Our destination is Punta Espinosa, a narrow spit of land in the northeast corner of the island, where a number of unique Galápagos species can be seen in close proximity. As our panga driver skillfully navigates the reef, penguins show off by throwing themselves from the rocks into the water. Red and turquoise-blue zayapas crabs disperse across the lava shoreline, while herons and egrets forage through the mangrove roots. The landing is a dry one, set in a quiet inlet beneath the branches of a small mangrove forest. A short walk through the vegetation leads to a large colony of marine iguanas—a schoolyard of Godzilla’s children—resting atop one another in friendly heaps along the rocky shoreline, spitting water to clear their bodies of salt. Nearby, sea lions frolic in a sheltered lagoon. This is one of the few places you can glimpse iguanas grazing on seaweed underwater.

Farther down this stretch of shore, the world’s only species of flightless cormorants have established their colony near an inviting inlet frequented by sea turtles. Because these birds evolved without land predators—it was easier to feed on the squid, octopus, eel and fish found in the ocean—the cormorants progressively took to the sea. They developed heavier, more powerful legs and feet for kicking, serpent-like necks, and wet, fur-like plumage. Their wings are now mere vestiges. Back toward the landing and farther inland, the island’s black lava flows become more evident, forming a quiet, inner lagoon. Galápagos hawks survey the entire scene from overhead

Afternoon: Isabela – Punta Vicente Roca: Isabela is the largest island in the archipelago, accounting for half of the total landmass of the Galápagos at 4,588 square kilometers. Though narrow in places, the island runs 132 km from north to south, or 82 miles. Isabella is formed from six shield volcanoes that merged into a single landmass. It is also home to the highest point in the Galápagos, Wolf Volcano at 1707 meters (5,547 feet), and calderas of up to 20 kilometers (12½ miles) across.

Located at the ‘mouth’ of the head of the sea horse, which forms the northern part of the Isabela is Punta Vicente Roca. Here the remnants of an ancient volcano form two turquoise coves with a bay well protected from the ocean swells. The spot is a popular anchorage from which to take panga rides along the cliff where a partially sunken cave beckons explorers. Masked and blue-footed boobies sit perched along the point and the sheer cliffs, while flightless cormorants inhabit the shoreline. The upwelling of coldwater currents in this part of the Galápagos, give rise to an abundance of marine life which, in combination with the protection of the coves, make Punta Vicente Roca one of the archipelago’s sough after dive spots. One cove is only accessible from the sea by way of an underwater passage. The passage opens to calm waters of the hidden cove where sea lions like to laze on the beach having traveled along the underwater route. The entire area of Punta Vicente Roca lies on the flank of 2,600 foot Volcano Ecuador. This is the island’s sixth largest volcano. Half of Volcano Ecuador slid into the ocean leaving a spectacular cutaway view of its caldera. (B, L, D…Accommodations: Lammer Law)

Day 7, Friday
Morning: Santiago – James Bay: On the northwestern side of the island is South James Bay (Puerto Egas), which offers access to three unique sites. One landing is on a black beach with intriguing eroded rock formations inland. A trail crosses the dry interior eastward and rises to the rim of an extinct volcanic crater; cracks within it allow sea water to seep in, which then dries to form salt deposits that have been mined in the past. Darwin describes his visit to South James Bay in Voyage of the Beagle.

Another path leads south, where hikers are treated to a series of crystal-clear grottos formed of broken lava tubes. These are home to sea lions and tropical fish, and are the only place in the islands where fur seals can be seen. Further to the north, another landing and path lead to a series of inland lagoons, home to flamingos. Birders coming to James Bay will have the opportunity to spot vermillion flycatchers, Galápagos hawks and the tool-wielding woodpecker finch. Puerto Egas is a good spot for taking pictures—the light for photography is perfect at either dawn or sunset. The lava and the black sand seem to catch fire and the animals acquire a surreal and lovely quality.

Afternoon: Bartolome – Pinnacle Rock: This Island is famous for Pinnacle Rock, a towering spearheaded obelisk that rises from the ocean’s edge and is the best known landmark in the Galápagos. Galápagos penguins—the only species of penguin found north of the equator—walk precariously along narrow volcanic ledges at its base. Sea lions snooze on rocky platforms, ready to slide into the water to play with passing snorkelers. Just below the surface, shoals of tropical fish dodge in and out of the rocks past urchins, sea stars and anemones. A perfectly crescent, pink-and- white sandy beach lies just to the east of the pinnacle. Sea turtles use the beach as a nesting site and can sometimes be found wading in the shallow water near the shore, or resting in the sand to recover from the arduous task of digging nests, laying eggs and covering them over.

Penguins dot the nearby rocks of the next landing site, less than a kilometer along the eastern shore. Here the submerged walls of a tiny volcanic crater give the impression of a fountain pool. This dry landing—no wet feet!—is the entrance to a 600-meter (2000-foot) pathway complete with stairs and boardwalks leading to Bartolome’s summit. The route is not difficult and presents a museum of vulcanology; a site left untouched after its last eruption, where cones stand in various stages of erosion and lava tubes form bobsled-like runs from the summit. At the top you will be rewarded with spectacular views of Santiago Island and James Bay to the west, and far below, Pinnacle Rock and our beach, where the crystal blue waters of the bay cradle your yacht. (B, L, D…Accommodations: Lammer Law)

Day 8, Saturday
Morning / San Cristobal: Today our voyage comes to an end. But before we bid farewell to the Lammer Law and her crew we pay a visit to Leon Dormido, also know as Kicker Rock, is a spectacular 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 and, piercing the sea, a great chisel ready for etching. Small vessels can navigate through the narrow channel between the rocks. Following this visit we return to Puerto Baquerizo, where you’ll have time for some last minute island shopping.

Afternoon: Return to Mainland Ecuador: Next we return to the airport where we began our journey in the Galápagos for the flight back to the Ecuadorian mainland.