Saturday 16th April

We didn't set sail till 5am this morning and it was only an hour to our next stop at Sombrero Chino (Chinese hat); a tiny island, a fairly recent volcanic cone just off Santiago Island. We had a small 400m trail around where we saw sea lions (there are estimated 50,000 sea lions throughout the archipelago. During the mating season, bulls become highly territorial and dominant males patrol up and down justcoffshore to keep other males from his harem. Bulls can reach 250kg in weight. The alpha male has exclusive mating rights to up to 30 females - as long as he's able to keep other males away!) Then there was a (last!) chance to snorkel but I opted out as I was still sore from yesterday's sunburn!  But Joe saw a marine iguana feeding underwater!

Back on board to sail to Santa Cruz we stopped at Cerro Dragon; a relatively new visitor site. We did a 1.5km trail here that was like walking through the jungle! It was roasting and there were spiders everywhere! The trail isn't used by all boats so had become quite overgrown, we passed through two small lagoons where we saw flamingos  we saw more land iguanas here; they were huge (they can live up to 65 years!) 

Back on board at 2.30 it took us 5 hours to sail to Puerto Ayora (still on Santa Cruz) we had dinner and our briefing then headed back into land for a few drinks before our final night on board!