When you fly out of Quito airport for the Galapagos you have to go through an extra bag check to make sure you aren't carrying food items and the like. You also have to pay a US$10 fee, probably for the pleasure of having this bag check. Fortunately the lady processing our details forgot to actually take our money, so we saved US$20!

Our flight passed through Guayaquil, as they all do. Since we booked the cheapest available flight option we had to wait a few hours in Guayaquil, though this wasn't an issue. While having a coffee in the departure lounge we got chatting to Jess who it turned out would be on the same boat as us.

After arriving and paying the US$100 Galapagos entrance fee (there is a fee for everything in Galapagos!), we were transferred to our boat, the aptly named Darwin Yacht. Sounds fancy, right? Next to the nearby mega yachts our boat wasn't much of a comparison, but for us it was adequate and the lunch we were served got things off to a good start as we got to know our 10 fellow passengers.

After a small sail and having our snorkels and wetsuits "fitted", we arrived at the point of our first activity. We completed our first wet landing (after loading into the dingy off the back of the yacht, you either have to get your feet wet on the shore, or you don't), and took a walk along the beach.

The first wildlife we spotted were hundreds of Sally Lightfoot Crabs. Their bright red and orange colouring looked so striking against the black volcanic rocks along the shorelines, it took us a while to notice the more camouflaged black marine iguana sharing their space. We were minutes in and already everyone was happily snapping away.

We made our way along the beach, spotting the tracks left by the sea turtles that had come in to nest overnight, then arrived at a small lagoon with a scattering of flamingos. We had to tread carefully to avoid resting marine iguanas while we observed the flamingos feeding on the small shrimp in the lagoon, the red colour of which gives the flamingos their pink colour. The land around us looked so desolate. There were a few small shrubs though without any foliage at this time of year.

After making our way back to our starting point we went for our first snorkel. We swam out from the beach and found a bunch of fish including a box fish and various colourful tropical fish. It was good snorkelling, but not amazing, until we saw a shark! What we later identified as a Black Tip Shark about 1.5m long. It swam in a semi circle around us and even posed for a few photos for us.

After we returned to the boat, we sailed a little further to our anchor point for the night, in the quiet channel between Isla Baltra and Isla Santa Cruz. While we watched the sun set on our first day in The Galapagos, we watched bird and marine life circling our boat, including another shark! We had already ticked quite a few must see off the list!

LAPFWT