Dave & Claire´s Travels: Day 4 - Isabela Island (Tagus Cove & Elizabeth Bay)

We had a long navigation in order to take us from Rabida Island to Tagus Cove on the western shore of Isabela Island, the largest in the archipelago. Around 10pm we crossed the equator. Peter had a GPS unit so I got him to take a picture of me when it showed all zero´s, which I might add, is not easy to do on a fast moving ship. Most of the standard cruises that one can book to the Galapagos don´t get to come over this far west, so again, there is a real feeling that you are privileged to come to this remote land.

We had an early start. At 6am we boarded the panga, or at least those who could drag themselves out of bed did. We landed on Tagus Cove and walked up to where we had a stunning view of Darwin Lake. The man himself, Charles Darwin, was here, on this very spot, at this very time of year, about 172 years previous. I don´t want to say that we felt honoured again....but we did. From here we headed on up the trail to a lookout point where we had excellent views over Isabela island. Tagus Cove was historically used as an anchoring place for pirates, buccaneers, and whalers. Some of the aforementioned obviously had spare time on their hands. They carved their names, with the date, into the rocks. Some dated back as far as 1830. The more recent graffiti artists simply used paint.

In the afternoon, following a short navigation south, we anchored at Elizabeth Bay. Here we took a long panga ride into the many channels. At the gateway to the first channel we saw some penguins frolicking on the rocks & taking turns to hop clumsily into the water. There was also a majestic looking sea lion perched in isolation on a larger rock. Click, click, click. Inside the narrow channels, that were encroached upon by large mangrove trees, we saw our greatest concentration of turtles to date. They were everywhere. As we sat on the side of the panga, foot dangling in the water, there was a real danger that "this little piggy would be eaten by a sea turtle".