Arriving early at the airport allowed me plenty of time to do all the pre-arrival administration required before you go to the islands - pre- registration, paying the first toll and getting my luggage check to make sure nothing I took would destroy the environment.

The flight was relaxed and arriving in Baltra I had to pay my $100 entry to the national park and start to protracted journey to the main town of Puerto Ayora - shuttle bus, ferry and local bus taking about 90 minutes.

I checked into my lovely hotel - air con and scatter cushions and a very comfy bed I set off to explore the town. Walking down a short passage between a bank I found my first wildlife - a sea lion, marine iguanas and lots of Sally Lightfoot crabs. Next I watched sea lions and pelicans begging for scraps as the fishermen prepared thier catch for market. Next I walked along to the Charles Darwin interpretation centre - not too exciting but I did see land iguanas and my first giant tortoises.

The next day I booked a couple of day trips having decided not to look for a cruise. I also hired snorkeling gear and headed via a short water taxi to Las Grietas a narrow channel in the rocks ideal for practicing snorkeling. In the afternoon I walked over to Tortuga Bay - the longest beach in the archipelago. The walk there was through fairly samey vegetation along a paved path but I did see lizards, some of Darwin's finches and my first wild giant tortoises. The main beach is for surfing only being to dangerous to swim off but after walking past red mangroves and basking marine iguanas you get to a second beach which is more like a lagoon. I spent the rest of the afternoon there swimming and sunbathing.

The snorkeling trip to Pinzon was excellent - in total we did 4 snorkels in different locations with slightly different sightings. Overall we saw loads of different fish, swam with white tip sharks, sea lions and sea turtles. The highlight though came just after we had got out of the water and our excellent guide shouted to us to get back in really quickly as dolphins were coming past. We scrambled back in as soon as each of us was ready and watched 100 dolphins go past us listening to them talking to us. Our guide said that he only saw dolphins once every two weeks and never that many in one go!

The trip finished on a beach but the pleasure here was reduced greatly by horseflies trying to bite us so we spent the whole time in the water to avoid them!

The next day's trip was to North Seymour to see seabirds and learn about their lives. The island has nesting Frigate birds and blue footed boobies - one of my personal favourites now. We saw male frigates displaying their red ballon-like chests to attract any unattached females, baby frigates, baby boobies and lots of land iguanas. After the island we went to another beach - more horse flies and then were back in the main town by 4 - not as good a trip but the birds were cool.

Next day I was off to San Cristobal on the early boat getting to the next island by 9am. This day was spent looking for more tour options and visiting the local Playa Man watching the sun go down over the sea lions who really owned the beach.

My tour was the next day to Kicker Island - more snorkeling as my 4 year break from diving meant I needed a refresher dive before doing a real dive. This meant the main shark viewing was not possible as they like to be much deeper although we did see one Galapagos shark swimming underneath us. The visibility was not great but still saw plenty of fish and Kicker Rock itself is pretty spectacular scenery.

After the trip I went back to Playa Mann to chill and watch another sunset.

My last day on the islands I went snorkeling in Las Tijeretas - more sea turtles and sea lions as well as loads of fish, walking along to Playa Punta Carola to see more marine iguanas and then having lunch in town before walking to Las Loberias. The walk was a long way on a tar road and to be honest I didn't see that many sea lions compared to Playa Mann. The snorkleing there was good again with lots of sea trtles - some trying to surface for air not realising I was above them.

After returning my snorkling stuff I went back to Playa Mann for a final swim, sunbath and sunset.

Next morning I took the 1km journey to the sirport and the flight to Quito.