Galapagos Day 1

Out of Quito, after the disorganised chaos of the airport, in a plane about 3/4 full of adventure-clothing-clad tourists off to the Galapagos and 1/4 business full of passengers in their working finery off to Guayaquil, the largest city in Ecuador. Our flight touched down there, but we didn't disembark - just disgorged the business types and added a few more Galapagos tourists. 1000km out into the Pacific Ocean, we landed on Baltra, a small Galapagos rock on which the USA built an airfield in the 2nd World War. It's a small, primtive, open air terminal in the middle of barren cactus and low bush. Somehow, it was what I expected. Unfortunately, they are building a new terminal, but it does look like it may be sympathetic to the environment, and the current terminal is too small for the needs.

Once through customs and immigration (having had our passports stamped with Parque Nacional de Galapagos), the well-oiled machine of Klein Tours sprang into action. We were greeted by Alexander, Victor Hugo and Whitman, put on a bus and transported to the harbour to embark on Coral 1. Unfortunately, there seemed to be some people to whom  I took an immediate dislike. Was the term loud-mouthed Americans coined for these people? However, there were some nice people, sisters Ruth and Concha, who we met at Quito airport, plus some Aussies and some Swiss and a couple of very pleasant older Americans from Virginia, Sally and Chuck.

Coral 1 is a lovely, spacious ship with a back deck for sitting and getting on and off the pangas (local term for zodiaks), a nice sitting area inside with bar, a restaurant,. and about 18 well-appointed cabins with ensuite. There are two observation decks, with the top one having sunbeds and a BBQ. After a briefing, we got underway, had lunch, did an emergency drill and headed for a small island off Santa Cruz where there would be a panga ride or a snorkel off a panga. I opted for the snorkel. We did a small trip around the island and saw blue-footed boobies, herons, sea lions, iguanas, frigate birds. Frigate birds play around the Coral 1 and perch on the antennae, so we'd become a bit blase about them. Only a few people had opted for snorkelling, and with some trepidation I slipped into the water off the panga. It didn't take me long to get the hang of it again. A young sea lion swam with us, and actually touched my hand, there were so many fish it was extraordinary, a few sea turtles and I glimpsed some small white-tipped sharks below us. It was wonderful. We stayed in the water for about 30 minutes, until Victor Hugo told us it was time to go back to Coral 1.

There was a welcome cocktail,and the captain, Patrizio introduced the crew, followed by dinner. We would travel in the night for about 3 hours from 1am to the bottom of Isabella.