We`re still here. We returned to Santa Cruz last night fgollowing our 4 day tour and this morning we changed our flight, putting it back to Monday. We have heard really good things about the Island of Isabella so we`re heading there this afternoon.

I forgot to mention in our last blog that we`d also visited the Charles Darwin research centre on Saturday where we spent a couple of hours with the ginat tortoises, you can get really close to them and it`s interesting to sit and watch them going about there business, although this did include the one tortoise going round the enclosure trying to hump all the others, being an all male enclosure he wasn`t getting much response.

We joined up with our cruise on Sunday and spent the first day hanging round at the airport, watching a painful 90 minutes of Copa del Mundo and then waiting for the other members of the tour to arrive, one guy getting mixed up with another group. We were really lucky that the other people were all really good fun and great people to share the tour with, a swedish and israeli couple as well as one american and one further israeli. In the afternoon we visited Balchas Beach in the north of Santa Cruz where we snorkelled before spending our first night on board, the highlight of this being the first of many great meals prepared by the Cook Carlito and the fact that the Israeli guy Guy had brought with him a perudo set. This was obviously very exciting for me and we played until late in the evening (a different version of the `spot on`rules though).

The next day we visitedf Balck Turtle Cove where we saw turtles as well as seals, small manta rays and other wildlife. We then set off for the island of Santa Fe which was a 3 hour trip. At Santa Fe we were able to snorkel with sea lions, this was amazing, they were really friendly and would swim and play with you and we spent a good hour in the water. Occassionally the big male would appear in the water and we had to be careful not to try to get too close to him but other than that it was really great to watch them swimming around us. We then spotted a big turtle before going on to the island where we were able to see more seals as well as blue footed boobies and other Galapagos species.

Having got back on board we then had another dinner prepared by the magician in his tiny kitchen and I was all geared up for another round of perudo. Unfortunately everyone was feeling the effects of sea sickness, we were travelling through the night to the far southern island of Espanola. Alison was throwing up out of the back, while admiring the phosphorous, people were being sick in bins and over the side and I was reading my book in between wiping Alison`s chin. The capitan said that it wasn`t very rough at all but the swells in the ocean were pretty huge and the boat was up and down until we arrived at about 2am.

First thing on Tuesday morning we visited the island to see the wildlife and in particular the birds, including albatrosses, two of whom were in the process of helping their egg begin to hatch. We then retruned to the boat and spent the afternoon snorkelling, again with seals and other fish, this included a short swim in the middle of a really powerful current that allowed us to see the strength of the sea. We were taken on this outing by the capitan who was clearly haqlf fish given his ability to swim underwater.

That night we travelled again to Floreana and there was another quiet night given the sea sickness, although we did manage to get a game of cards in without any vomiting. We were woken the next day before 6 to snorkel around the Devil`s crown. This was really really spectacular, the rocks were quite a way off the coast and the currentas were again strong but there was so much marine life, we swam with at least 5 white tipped sharks, eagle rays, sting rays, manta rays, huge turtles and seals and thousands and thousands of fish, it really was an amazing experience. Once again the Capitan demonstrated his fish like qualities by actually catching a fish in his hands and bringing it up for us to see. We then visited the island and went down into some caves which had been created by lava, this was interesting as we had`t been told to bring torches and it was pitch black as we clambered down to the really cold water that runs through the caves. The trip to Floreana was rounded off by a game of beach football between the crews and some passengers of the tour ships in the bay, we both produced far better performances than other English players have demonstrated on foreign fields in recent days.

So with these pretty amazing experiences fresh in our minds and only a 10 dollar fee to change our flights we have decided to extend our stay here.