Location: Puerto Ayora, Galapagos
So we finally arrived in Galapagos, and let me tell you, it’s something really special. The first day we woke up at 06:00 and did an early breakfast, and made Vela look pretty cause costumes were coming onboard the boat to clear us into the country as well as make sure we didn’t bring any shells and other biological materials into Galapagos. While the costumes were clearing us in, we had a marine biology class on deck, followed by some free time. After lunch, we had some time to get ready. cause we were about to step foot on Galapagos for the first time (for most of us). When arriving in the harbor by water taxi, they told us to walk fast cause there were sea lions lying all over the dock. So with a decent speed, we walked onto the dock to get our first look at San Cristobal. Believe me, when I say there were hundreds of sea lions everywherelying on the beaches, in the water, and relaxing on the rocks accompanied by many big bright orange crabs. Within our first 10 minutes in Galapagos, we were exposed to such rich and amazing wildlife. We split into groups, as we almost always do, cause 24 people walking around together gets a little crowded. I walked off with Morana, Magdi, and Saskia to explore the beautiful new city we were in. We arrived at a beach filled with so many sea lions, and they were so smelly and loud. We stuck around a watched them for a while, just observing them enjoying themself, before we sat down at a cafe. We sat down on a balcony and got some cold drinks while being surrounded by sea lions. After a while, we decided to continue our exploring cause the sun where burning os at the cafe. We met up with more people outside of a souvenir shop, where we got milkshakes, before slowly walking towards the restaurant, where we all met up for a lovely but long dinner. Most people ordered sushi, which took ages before arriving, so some of us decided to return to the boat. Ula, Magdi, Elise, and I walked back to the dock to find that all the sea lions were sleeping on the dock benches. There were no water taxis in sight, but a private dingy came up on the dock, and Ula (with her kind smile) made the man sail us back to Vela, and he sailed fast, which was a lot of fun. We quickly took showers because we were leaving as soon as the rest of the group came back.
Watch team two took the anchor up and started a short watch of two and a half hours. Short watch because the passage where only seven hours long, and even our watch teams were less people than normal cause some people were going diving the next morning. This was the last watch with our watch team before we switched to new watch teams, but let me tell you, we had a blast of a last watch together.
Overall we are all super excited for the following days to come, and so far, Galapagos has been no less than spectacular.