Sunday 10th April

The Galapagos are an isolated group of volcanic islands. There are 13 main islands, 6 minor islands and scores of islets. 5 of the islands are inhabited.

Galapagos Islands; discovered by accident in 1535 when Tomas de Berlanga drifted off course while sailing from Panama to Peru, the discovery was reported to King Charles V of Spain and included in the report a description of the giant Galapagos tortoises from which the islands received their name. The islands didn't appear on the world map till 1570 when they were identified as the 'islands of the tortoises.' 

The Galapagos most famous visitor was Charles Darwin, who arrived in 1835 aboard the British naval vessel the Beagle, Darwin stayed for 5 weeks. 

Ecuador officially claimed the Galapagos Archipelago in 1832. For roughly 1 century thereafter, the islands were inhabited by only a few settlers and were used as penal colonies, the last of which were closed in 1959.

We got up, packed our stuff and headed out to get some more supplies for the boat. We grabbed some brunch then went to wait at the harbour for our rep.

We got onto a small boat with 4 others (Bari from Canada, Lotte from Holland and a French-Canadian couple called Chantelle and Patrick) which took us to our big (!) boat the Amigo. As soon as we got on the boat we had lunch and had to wait for our guide and rest of our group to arrive (A family Gran - Jennifer Mum - Julie and Son - Ged from Oz, Sajeela from Oz and Susy from Cali, Daniella and Andrea from Switzerland and Elisa from NY (15 in total) Once they arrived and had lunch we were shown to our cabins. We had demanded a cabin with a window as Joe gets seasick (by this time Joe really wasn't feeling great so went for a lie down - we hadn't even started moving yet!) the cabin was ok, alot better than the ones on the lower deck with no windows! And it has air con.

We headed back onto the island of Santa Cruz to visit the Charles Darwin research station; Founded in 1959 more than 200 scientists and volunteers are involved with research and conservation efforts. The most well known of which involves a captive breeding program for giant tortoises. 

It was a good half hour walk and it was so hot! We saw giant land tortoises which they breed here as they get eaten by ferrel dogs, cats, pigs and goats. They have eradicated some of these ferrel animals but not all. Once the tortoises are 5 years old they are put back in their natural habitat.

We also saw Lonesome George who is the last giant tortoise of his kind, he is 120 years old and sadly they haven't had any successful attempts at reproduction. We also saw land iguanas here. 

After the centre we walked back to the harbour and back onto the Amigo for dinner and a briefing for tomorrow. We then headed to bed. We werent sailing till 1am. Managed to get to sleep ok but woke up when the engine started worrying Joe was gonna get seasick and the air con was leaking - dripping onto a plastic bag! so i had an awful night sleep and in the morning Joe said he was fine and I was worrying over nothing!