We´ve had a really great time here in the Galapagos Islands since arriving on Wednesday, it really is an amazing place. Obviously you´d expect the wildlife to be here but it is everywhere with seals and (little) sharks swimming around the harbour area in amongst the water taxis.

We arrived on Wednesday morning to the main island of Santa Cruz and after confirming that England had managed to scrape through to the 2nd round of Copa del Mundo we set about visiting as many tour operators as we could to try to arrange a trip to see the outer islands. After countless agencies and a couple being visited several times we decided to go for a four day trip to the Southern islands starting on Sunday (tomorrow) and a one day trip to the island of Bartoleme for Thursday, we also got the snorkeling gear thrown in for the entire stay - I´d like to say it was dirt cheap but it wasn´t, however compared to what we would have paid before arriving here we have saved well over a couple of hundred quid.

The trip to Bartoleme was great, on arrival we walked up an extinct volcano (only a little one by our standards) to get a view of the island, this was pretty interesting seeing how the islands had been formed as a result of the volcanoes. We then were able to begin snorkelling which waqs the undoubted highlight. Countless brightly coloured fish, seals, pengiuns and a white-tipped shark were all swimming with us. For me the highlight was the shark which, although harmless, still gets the blood rushing, Alison plumped for the penguin as her highlight, she was very excited and tried to communicate through the mode of shouting, not so effective underwater with a snorkel in your gob. The only downside to this amazing introduction to the Galapagos wildlife was we didn´t have long enough before returning to Santa Cruz.

Friday we walked out to Tortuga Bay which is the quintessentail wwhite beach and tourquoise seas. It wasn´t so great for snorkelling as there are strong rip tides so we spent a few hours laying on the white sand, wandering along the peninsula surrounded by spitting marine iguanas and doing a little bit of snorkelling in the shallows, just out of reach of the big marine turtles we could see bobbing around in the surf.

Today we have made fuller use of the snorkelling gear. We took a water taxi over to Finch Bay where we saw loads of fish and braving the rocks and currents we were able to swim with some really big turtles, really amazing to swim along behind these graceful creatures which were completely unperturbed by our presence. We then walked over to a really interesting gorge with crystal blue water which rays of sunshine pierced creating a fantastic image and fish deep below us. It wasn´t as peaceful as we might have liked as the gorge was descended upon by what felt like a hundred school kids, hastening our departure along the volcanic rock pathway, not fun in flip flops. The gorge was also the scene of disaster at the worst possible timing, our waterproof camera which we´d used to take photos in Bartolome decided it no longer wanted to be waterproof. we don´t really know why but it´s dead. The day before we set off to hopefully see lots of wildlife this is a bit of a disappointment, my phone will allow some shots but not what we would like. A strongly worded email will be on its way to Panasonic and we´ll be dropping hints for contributions towards a replacement for our approaching birthdays.

So we set sail tomorrow, thanks for all those good luck wishes, returning to Santa Cruz on Wednesday night before flying back to the mainland on Thursday. Of course we´ll try and see England produce the one strong performance of Copa del Mundo tomorrow morning before they are eliminated by Messi in an uncanny rerun of the 1986 quarter finals.

Lots of love from two lucky so and sos