Overnight we cruised to a small island called Chinese Hat. I was up fairly early and came to the sun deck and enjoyed a coffee and chat with Matthias (hunky and very nice Swiss guy). We got to see a couple of frigate birds perched on the sonar masts. Then, another bird comes and starts feeding the 2 birds perched. Obviously mama was looking after her kids. We spent some time watching this and enjoying the scenery and taking pictures and all of a sudden we see a...

Yay - today is the first real day of the Galápagos tour. It looks like it's going to be sunny in Quito today. We took an early flight to the Galápagos Islands with a stopover in Guayaquil (pronounced Whyakeel) the second largest city in Ecuador. The flight was 35 minutes. We had a bit of a rocky start. For some reason, only the Brits were able to have their boarding passes printed so there was a bit of waiting around. We did finally get our boarding passe...

We woke up to fog and cloudiness but it's not raining yet! Fingers crossed it holds out for the day. Before we left we booked a tour of Quito so we could get our bearings. It's called the Historic Quito Tour and was supposed to start at 8:00am. So we got up early and went down to the lobby. Apparently the time was changed to 2:30. They left a message that I didn't get. We have our tour meeting today at 6:00 so that caused some concern because we wan...

We are flying to Quito, Ecador and from there climbing aboard our small ship, Estrella Del Mar, for 7 nights to explore the Galapagos, including the less visited western islands. After what we hope to be an amazing time of hiking and snorkeling and swimming we'll head back to Quito, the capital of Ecuador for some sight seeing. Then we're off to Panama City for 3 days to experience all the wonder of the Panama Canal and the city. Our flight was delayed leaving...

We arrived back in Venice after travelling 2,655 nautical miles and visiting 10 ports of call (minus 1 that was cancelled due to weather) plus 3 days in Venice, We disembarked our floating home of 12 days and caught our bus to the airport to come home. The end of vacation is always a bittersweet time. Bitter because we're having to leave behind fantastic sights, experiences and new friends and sweet because we get to see our family and friends that we'v...