We were both up early and easily made our 6:30am “bags out” call. Breakfast was in the courtyard outside our room. We left for the airport about 7:45am for a 10am flight to the Galapagos islands – 600 miles off the coast of Ecuador, about an hour and 40-minute flight.

I found this photo of the islands taken from the International Space Station and thought it was pretty cool. Isabela is the biggest. Santa Cruz, bottom left and mostly under clouds, has about 20k of the 33k population which resides here. 97% of the islands are part of a National Park managed by Ecuador.

The Galapagos has the world’s first ecological airport, built around 2012. Much of the construction used recycled material. The roof over the walkway behind Ash is made of solar panels. All of the energy used at the airport is renewable. Etc., etc. There were signs all along the walkway giving these and many other details.

We were taken by bus to a dock where we would meet up with our ship.

That’s our ship in the distance.

We donned life jackets and went over in Zodiacs 12 people at a time.

Welcome to the National Geographic Islander II.

As we were walking to our room I was already so impressed with the quality of the boat, even of the hallway, including the beautiful art. I was reminded of how shocked we were at the accommodation we had on the Africa safari last year with NatGeo and not sure why I would expect anything different here.

What a dump! We’d seen photos of this in the brochure but being in it and seeing the outside made it real and fabulous. They quickly pushed the beds together and made it up as a king.

The TV has some nice options on it, including the daily program, which we’ve already found helpful (cuz it’s a lot!).

Nice bathroom of course.

Everyone’s names are on the door. And all the doors are kept open. You can lock them of course for privacy when you’re in your cabin. Otherwise, no locks. It’s primarily so the staff can do what they need to do easily. They’ve already been in here twice today to take away towels, leave chocolates, etc. And there’s a safe, too, if you want to lock stuff up.

There are lots of stairs it seems – 5 decks total, and stairs on both ends. We are on Deck 3 – same as the Spa (notice the sign on the right). I already booked a massage for Friday afternoon.

Lunch was to be on the patio – they already had the salads out. We sat at one of those tables for 6 outside with some friends we’ve been hanging out with.

All of the staff has been super helpful and friendly. And don’t mind posting for photos, like the guy holding up the fish on the right.

This is the Cove Lounge on the 4th deck, where all of our briefings are held. We had 3 here today.

The 5th deck is observation and one side of it has hammocks, which Ash is trying out above.

The other side has a pool. With all of the other activities available I doubt we’ll use it, but the water was nice and warm, and is ocean water.

We had our first briefing at Noon for about an hour. This is Alexa in the center, the Hotel Manager aka Cruise Director. She’s been with Lindblad, the NatGeo partner who runs the tours, for 25 years. This partnership has been around for 20 years. She gave us the rundown on hotel staff, how daily operations work on board, etc. And the safety briefing, with a little “abandon ship” exercise to the lifeboats.

And then we had lunch. A nice salad above…

with a buffet from which I chose roast turkey – some of the best I’ve had – with gravy, wahoo fish (no, I’m not kidding, and it was good), a decent bolognese and grilled vegetables which were surprisingly good.

Meet Jonathan, the Expedition Leader, who’s been with Lindblad for 19 years. He designs the activities. Alexa is responsible for everything on the boat, he’s responsible for everything off the boat. He gave us the rundown on why this place is so special. I took notes! It was a lot, as with all NatGeo things, so I’ll keep it brief but admit I found it pretty fascinating.

• The Galapagos is an archipelago which is a cluster of islands
• They were never part of a mainland; all came up out of volcano
• There are 4 different currents that flow through here mixing warm and cool water all the time (he referred to it as a washing machine!)
• They are the only tropical volcanic islands with cold water year round
• It has the most endemic species of any place on earth, meaning they don’t exist anywhere else
• Conversationists got here in the 1820’s before it got too civilized and put regulations in place to control and preserve
• 200,000 square miles of protected ocean
• Since the animals have never been threatened by civilization, they are “ecologically naive” – meaning they’re not afraid of us

From there we went down for snorkeling equipment fittings.

Ash in his mask. If you haven’t been snorkeling before (I hadn’t), you’re just sticking your face under the surface of the water so you can see what’s beneath it easily. That tube on the right stays above water and you breath through your mouth.

In an area they call the Marina, every passenger has their own hangers where you store – and dry out – your equipment between excursions. We are 301a and 301b.

Ready to go! Here’s what I’ve got: life jacket of course; an equipment bag with flippers, snorkeling mask, 2 towels, and smaller life jacket; a small day pack with bug spray, sunscreen, water.

We rode the Zodiacs to the beach for a “wet landing” meaning exactly that: you will get wet. So dress accordingly. Our first outing was a walk along a beach and then snorkeling lessons for those who needed them (I was the only newbie in our group of 12) and then beach snorkeling, the only time we would do that. All other times would be going into the water from the Zodiac. You can see the Zodiacs in the water – they wait close by in case someone needs to go back to the ship – with the ship in the distance.

And right away we saw our first endemic species: this iguana can swim. Doesn’t exist anywhere else in the world. (He’s dead center in this photo but well-hidden against the rocks.)

A few feet away on the same rocks by the water was a crab colony.

There were hundreds of sea turtle egg nests along the ridge of the beach; these tracks are of the mama turtle, probably just from the day before.

I don’t know what kind of bird this is – something stork like apparently! – but it was just walking on by casually so I caught him. There were also lots of big black birds flying around, the guide said probably looking for turtle hatchlings. He said out of 10k births, only one will live to adulthood.

Not far from the beach was this pretty lagoon where 3 pink flamingos were hanging out. Did you know that they are actually white, and the pink color comes from eating shrimp?

I can’t believe I caught this amazing reflection. Just stunning.

Snorkeling was next. Ramiro, the guide, and Ash helped quite a bit. I’m more of an “on the water” person than an “in the water” person and it took me a bit to catch on but was mostly comfortable towards the end. I was so focused on the process and trying to relax into breathing that I wasn’t paying all that much attention to what I was seeing, but we definitely saw stuff. I enjoyed it and will do it again.

We got back to our room after 6pm and had to go for another briefing at 7, just enough time to shower and put on fresh clothes and relax a teeny bit. Jonathan led again and introduced more crew members. There are 57 total crew for 48 total guests. He also went over tomorrow’s itinerary. There are lots of options to cover a lot of tastes and capabilities, so it takes a while.

From there we went to dinner in the formal dining room, with the tables beautifully set.

Chicken and rice soup to start which was amazing. Great flavors and the peas and carrots were super fresh.

Ash had fish – neither of us remember the name now but pretty rare – and risotto, with grilled zucchini and carrots.

I had pork tenderloin with rice and black beans, and the same vegetables.

Passion fruit cheesecake for dessert.

So yes, I do have internet here. There’s a free version which they said would not be good if you needed to upload photos. Well, duh. There were 5mbps and 10mbps options up from that; I chose the 5 and that was more than fine. Faster than anything I’ve had on this entire trip. Happy to be in business!

Yesterday is a full day starting at 6:15am. We’re not going to do everything – it’s still vacation and we’d like to relax a bit here and there! – but come back to see how it went.