Kent's Viewfinder: March 2025

My wife and I visited the Galapagos Islands in February. This was my first trip to South America and my first time in the southern hemisphere. The Galapagos Islands remind me of the Hawaiian Islands, at least with respect to geology. They also have similar invasive species problems. This was a fantastic trip, with wildlife, volcanic features, and wonderful visits to beaches and hills in warm, humid weather.

We flew from Dulles to Quito on Copa, with a stopover in Panama City. We had a full day in Quito, during which we rested and walked to the nearby botanical garden for a visit. In spite of its location on the equator, Quito was cool and damp because of its high elevation.

After our day in Quito, we took a bus to the airport. We had to put our luggage out the night before for invasive species inspection and sealing. At the airport, we had to go through hand luggage inspection in addition to security. We flew Latam to San Cristobal Island, with a stopover in Guyaquil. The airport on San Cristobal was a typical small-island airport - no air conditioning, only one area each for arrivals/departures, and a long line to get through entrance control. Even though this was a domestic flight, we still had to clear passport control and provide documentation that showed why we were there and when we were leaving. After passing through all that, we had to wait, as a group, for all of the luggage to come off the plane, where it was lined up in rows and, when it was all out, a cop with a dog briefly inspected it. He selected a few bags for more-thorough inspection and then the rest of us could claim our luggage and leave.

We boarded some hot buses and made the short trip to the marina. There we waited on the dock for our turn to ride a zodiac to the ship. There were sea lions on the dock, sleeping. There were sea lions on the rocks, sleeping. There were sea lions in the water. There was an iguana running among us, and we had to be careful to avoid stepping on it.

When our turn came, we boarded a zodiac and rode out to the ship. There was significant swell, which made getting into/out of the zodiac an adventure, which we repeated twice a day for the next week. Once aboard the ship, we immediately noticed that it rolls, constantly. We’re used to much-larger ships that have better stabilization so this was a surprise. I never got seasick; it was never uncomfortable, but always noticeable. We waited a while for our turn to check in, then went to lunch, then finally got our key cards for our cabin. We unpacked, watched the safety video, went to the muster drill, had a quiet afternoon as the ship departed port, and were quietly sitting in our room when we had our first stop: Kicker Rock. I opened the window to take a few shots from our room.

Kicker Rock

This is when we noticed that the AC wasn’t working. It never turned back on after I closed the window, so we had a warm first night. We reported to our butler (that’s what the staff calls them) and he got it fixed while we were on our first outing.

This was an expedition ship, which means it is small, which means there’s also a meeting every night before dinner with a brief educational presentation followed by the activity director’s description of the next day’s activities. I was dubious about the value of these nightly meetings, but the educational info was mildly interesting and the description of the next day’s activities was crucial for making good decisions about what to do.

I used the Apple Journal app on my phone to keep track of what we did each day. I grabbed screen shots of the map at each stop so I had a record of the location of each activity. The ship has good Wifi so I was always able to get good maps.

Our first morning, I went with the “power walk” group to a hilltop viewpoint on St. Bartoloma Island. We climbed (on a boardwalk with steps) to the top of a volcanic cone, where we had a great view of the volcanic features around us.

St Bartoloma looking toward Santiago

The ship repositioned during lunchtime to a place off Santiago Island where we had an afternoon zodiac tour of the shore. Then briefings, dinner. This was the pattern for the whole trip: a morning activity, the ship might reposition, then an afternoon activity, then briefings, dinner, bed. Sometimes there was a second morning activity. There were walks ashore, zodiac tours, snorkeling, kayaking. There was hot weather and hotter weather. There were brief periods of blue sky, mostly partly cloudy days, and some overcast periods. There were torrential overnight downpours. What there wasn’t was a clear sunset or sunrise. And I was hoping for clear nighttime skies to see the dark sky, but we barely saw the stars. Having said all that, we did have good weather for all of our landings except one: a wet landing where the waves picked up as we returned to the ship and I got hit by waves up to my waist and then got rained on.

We also visited Isabella, Fernandina, Floreana, and Santa Cruz Islands. Each island has its own geography, wildlife, and unique places to visit.

After seven nights aboard, we disembarked at the same port where we embarked, saw the sea lions again, rode a bus to the airport, went through security again, and flew to Guyaquil on Latam. We stayed at a hotel in town until midnight, when we went back to the airport for our 3AM flight on Avianca. We had a stopover in Bogota, then returned to Dulles.

Wildlife seen: Iguanas, sea lions, lava lizards, Nazca and Blue-footed boobies, sea turtles, penguins, porpoises, and tortoises.

Photography from a zodiac in waves was an adventure. Aside from that, landscape photography was pretty good, with good light most of the time. Wildlife photography was also quite easy because most birds, iguanas, and sea lions were unbothered by close approaches. For landings, I used my 70-200mm lens for most shots and rarely wanted a different lens. I kept a second body handy on the ship with my 300mm lens attached and used that a few times for wildlife. I also brought my 24-70 lens, and there were a few times that I used it for interesting landscapes visible from the ship. I also used my phone a lot.