We decided on a much slower pace for Friday, to skip some things and just relax.

But we still got up when they had coffee out at 6am and caught the tail end of the sunrise. We visited with some people for a bit, then went back to the cabin and I finished Thursday’s blog. We headed back up to breakfast after that.

We had moved again overnight and the scenery had changed all around us. This is the view to the back of the ship.

And at the front, you could see Isla Sombrero China, or the Chinese Hat. Or, Pizza Hut, as Ramiro was joking about. Clearly the name comes from the shape of the island. This is a tiny island off the coast of the much larger island of Santiago, which is really the island you’re seeing in the clip of the map below.

We continued to hang out until our first outing at 10:45am. We went up to the observation deck and I tried out the hammock. This was a new level of relaxation for me, just completely sucking all ambition out of me. A simple hammock in a lightly swaying boat? Give me a break. I rocked away listening to an audiobook on my headphones.

And of course, Ash got a photo.

At 10:45 we went down to get our activity in, which was a glass-bottom Zodiac boat ride. Because it’s covered and doesn’t fit under the back of the ship where we get on and off where the stairs are, we’re taken to it in a regular one and then we transfer by slipping over the side of one and into another, as the guys above are about to do.

The glass bottom! It’s pretty clear water so you can see fairly well.

Requisite selfie.

Everyone just looking down the whole time.

We saw lots (and lots) of star fish, above, and various schools of fish as seen below. Ramiro was our naturalist – that’s his bare feet you see 2 photos above standing on the glass rim, and told us a horrible story about how the star fish eat. I can’t even repeat it but something in the neighborhood of having no mouth and their stomachs come out and envelope what they’re going to take in. I said “sounds like a horror movie” to which he replied, “yes, they are truly monsters.” Lovely.

We went back to our room to drop off our life jackets when we returned and were greeted by Julianna, the Wellnesss Specialist who did the stretching the day before, and would also be doing my massage at 12:30pm. She gave me a robe with the above note which she was about to leave in our room (remember from day 1 – no locked doors): “Dear Steve, I’m confirming your massage. I will meet you at the spa at 12:30. Julianna.” The spa was a small cabin at the other end of our hallway so I wouldn’t even have far to go.

At 11:30am, Adriana, the naturalist who had helped me snorkel the day before, gave an interesting lecture on Charles Darwin. Makes me want to go find a biography and maybe read On the Origin of Species, which, if you don’t know, was heavily influenced by his Galapagos experience.

I left this a little early to make it to my 12:30 massage appointment on time. It was a good one and she spent a lot of time on my left thigh which was still all kinked up from that hike down from Machu Picchu to Agua Calientes on Sunday.

Ash had arranged for the crew to hold some lunch back for me. The main, above, was Andean roast chicken with a spicy rice and fried plantains.

The dessert was a rice pudding topped with whipped cream, caramel, chocolate flakes, and these dots of a cherry sauce. Ash knew I would like it and asked for two. He was right. Probably my favorite dessert of the whole trip.

This is Enrique, who had arranged the late lunch for me, and has been our waiter most of the trip since we usually sit in the same area.

Since we were eating so late we had the entire patio area to ourselves but ate inside so the crew could continue clearing out there. The ship had moved again. After lunch we went to part 2 of Ramiro’s photography class and learned a lot of great stuff. Whether we can break old habits will be another story.

The view out our cabin window changes typically twice a day – movement at lunch time and at night.

At 4:15, we took a ride to a lava field for a hike that Jonathan, the Expedition Leader, didn’t sell well at all. He was extra cautious about how uneven it would be, and how hot it would be, with suggestions around extra water, good shoes, don’t go if balance is a problem for you, etc. Like he was trying to talk you out of it. (He does an announcement about each activity 15 minutes before with reminders about what it is, what to take, etc.) And only two boats went over, just 20 people so less than half. But we really enjoyed it. This was probably my favorite hike because it was so different. And none of us that it was all that difficult.

But it was beautiful, like walking on another planet. This lava is from an eruption in 1897 – so ecologically seconds ago on an island that’s millions of years old. It expanded the island by like 20% at the time. There were so many different ways the lava cooled that impacted the way it looked, leaving lots of patterns you could identify over time.

This area had been cooled and then somehow collapsed leaving this sort of bed that Roberta, our naturalist on this trip, and one of the travelers, decided to lie on. Roberta encouraged others to do it but no one else took her up on it. Delaney, at 24, is the youngest in this group is pretty much game for anything.

Looking back, you see our boat on the far left, another boat to the right of center, and an interesting rock formation jutting up out of the edge of the land on the right. We’ll get very close to that later.

The hills are not black because they were pre 1897 and not impacted by the last flow. It had come around from the other side of the island where the volcano is, we actually never saw it. This is Santiago Island, the 3rd largest of the archipelago.

I’d seen a lizard when we first got off the Zodiac but no other life until about a mile in we saw some weeds.

By this point we had worked our way to older lava – all the red is dried ash from an eruption much longer ago. And more life had sprung up, but not much.

We turned back towards the water and came across more lava from the last eruption, and you can clearly see the line where it was stopped by the hills.

Ash taking photos of us taking photos. That’s Julissa on the left, a nurse we got to know way back at Machu Picchu.

We made it back to the Zodiac and then went for a ride along the coast line of the island to see what we could see. The big score of the day for this location would have been penguins. And on that front we did well, sighting 18 of them over about half a mile.

These were the first 3 we encountered. Galapagos penguins are the only ones that exist in the tropics, made possible by the cold water here which is one of the things that makes this region so unique.

You can see how close they let us get.

This group of 4 was the second siting. Below is a zoomed shot.

We made our way around to that big flat rock and actually went into that little cove, then around it towards a beach area.

This little guy was molting and not happy to see us. Roberta said it’s a very uncomfortable process where they can’t get in the water for 3 weeks. He kept turning from us like he didn’t want to be seen so I was lucky to get this shot.

The beach was covered in crabs.

The last penguin we focused on before we made our way back.

It was about 5:40 and the sun was starting to go down. That’s our ship right of center.

That’s the 2nd group of us on the left (10 to a boat) and this gives you an idea of how big that rock is.

Dinner was amberjack fish with wonderful mashed potatoes and grilled asparagus. We both had it.

A white chocolate mousse with a strawberry coating, blackberry sauce, and passion fruit caviar.

At 8:45pm, Adriana did a star-gazing lesson on the observation deck. It was the first night that was clear enough to see anything. I didn’t think my iPhone could capture much but it did a decent job.

I couldn’t tell what I was capturing since I couldn’t see anything through my camera screen, it was pitch black.

As always, the big dipper was the clearest thing in the sky.

Not a bad way to end a relaxing day. Today is our last full day on the tour and they’ve promised us quite a show as far as animals go, so will see how all that goes.