Galapagos cruises - Beagle yacht - day by day itinerary

Sample cruise itinerary

Day 1 - Tuesday  - Mainland Ecuador - Galapagos airport at Baltra Island - North Seymour 
Morning flight to the Galapagos. Arrive at Baltra Airport. Our Guides will escort you on a short bus ride to the harbor. After a briefing and a light lunch the first site is visited.

North Seymour is the perfect place for marine bird watching, like blue footed boobies, frigates, swallow tailed gulls, all of these nesting in season. The sound, the variety of their activities, the colonies sizes, is part of one of the most fascinating experiences in Galapagos. In the other side of the Island, you will be able to see sea lions, playing with the waves, which afterwards crash against the rocks that are covered with marine Iguanas.
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Day 2 - Wednesday  Genovesa Island
This is one of the most intact islands against human presence, due maybe to the distance. Darwin Bay is the semi submerged crater of what once was the caldera of a volcano; a coral beach with sea lions make it a perfect place for swimming, snorkeling and diving, where you can even get to see hammerhead sharks.

Prince Philip's steps is an ideal place for bird lovers, because here you will find a large colony of red foot boobies, masked boobies, frigates, red-billed tropicbirds, storm petrels, swallow-tailed gulls, Galapagos doves, lava gulls, Darwin's finches and short eared owls. 
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Day 3 - Thursday  - South Plaza Island - Santa Fe Island
South Plaza is one of the smallest islands visited, 426 feet wide (130 meters) and just over ½ mile (800 meters) long. Here you can watch land iguanas, in a small Opuntia cactus forest. A trail will take you, from the sea lion colony, to the cliffs, where you can observe sea birds, such as frigates, Swallow tail gulls, boobies, red billed tropic birds, pelicans, and so on.

Santa Fe  After landing on a beach next to a sea lion colony, a short walk will bring you to one of the widest Opuntia cactus forest in the Islands. Here you will find Cacti of close to 10 m. in height. You will also see a different land Iguana species, endemic to Santa Fe, as well as rice rats, also endemic.
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Day 4 - Friday  Santa Cruz Island
In Puerto Ayora functions the National Park’s office, as well as the Charles Darwin Research Station, where you will see the incubation and raising of the Giant tortoises. Here you will observe the baby tortoises before their repatriation to their natural habitat. After touring the Station,  a journey by bus into the highlands to Los Gemelos, the two deep pit craters situated in the Scalesia forest with lots of interesting bird life. Go for a walk through the giant lava tunnels, of more than a kilometer in length. Lava tubes were made by the solidification of the surface of a lava flow. When the flow stops, the liquid lava inside keeps on flowing, leaving the exterior surface solidified and forming the tunnels. Dinner served at owner's farm.
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Day 5 - Saturday  Española Island
In Gardner Bay you will find one of the most beautiful white sand beaches in the Islands, with excellent opportunities of swimming and snorkeling around the nearby small, rocky islands. This beach is frequented by a transient colony of sea lions, and is a major nesting site for marine turtles. Around the small islets nearby, snorkelers will find lots of fish and sometimes turtles and sharks. On a trail leading to the western tip of the island you'll pass the only nesting site in the Galapagos of the waved albatross. These huge birds nest here from April to December.

In the afternoon we head for Punta Suarez, one of the most interesting places in the whole archipelago, where you will be able to see a subspecies of marine iguanas with red and green spots, endemic to Española. You will also see blue footed boobies, masked boobies, Hood mockingbirds, swallow tailed gulls, oystercatchers and red-billed tropicbirds.
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Day 6 - Sunday  In Floreana Island.
One of the most interesting places in the Galapagos Islands is Punta Cormorant, with its green beach due to olivine crystals. A short walk takes you to a lagoon where you can see flamingos next to a few other wading birds. A spectacular place to snorkel and dive is the Devil’s Crown, the top of a partially submerged volcano that resembles a black crown. Over the tops of the rocks that emerge from the sea, red-billed tropicbirds and Audubon Shearwaters are nesting. Under the water, you will find thousands of colorful fish, rays and coral formations. In the afternoon, the visit to Post Office Bay can be very pleasant for those who are interested on the human history of the Islands.
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Day 7 - Monday  Santiago Island - Bartolome Isle
Santiago has several sites to visit at the western end of James Bay. Puerto Egas is one of the most popular sites of the islands. There is a wet landing on a black sand beach and then the walk goes along the shore, where black lava formations, tide pools, caves and entries will captivate you with their shapes and colors, and so will the wildlife you will find in this place. Big marine iguana colonies feed from green seaweed that contrast above the black lava from the shores, next to the red Sally light foot crabs that attract lava herons which are their predators. At the end of the road you will meet a colony of  fur seals, and walking to the interior you can always see some Darwin’s finches, large billed fly catchers, Galapagos doves, Galapagos mockingbirds, dark billed cuckoos  and the Galapagos Hawk.

Bartolome is the most photographed island in the Archipelago. A walk through an unusual lava landscape, and then up some wooden stairs, will take you to the top, from where the view is more spectacular than what the images suggest. There is a beautiful crescent shaped beach where you can snorkel among the endemic penguins from Galapagos, marine turtles and tropical fish schools.
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Day 8 - Tuesday  Santa Cruz Island - Baltra airport - mainland Ecuador
Black Turtle Cove is a salt-water lagoon surrounded by different mangrove species and in its quiet crystal clear waters you can observe marine turtles, sharks and rays. In the afternoon we head for Baltra, and return to Quito or Guayaquil.
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