Galapagos Islands - Bird paradise?

Our boat - The Golondrina I
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The Galapagos are quite magnificent and a must for the avid nature lover. The best way to experience the Islands is taking a boat and island hopping for several days or even a couple of weeks.

We had a really great time and our boat was in a way a lot better than we expected. We were met at the airport by our guide, taken to our boat and after being served lunch headed out for our first island. There were a few other people on the boat already and they had been touring the South side of the Galapagos Islands. Everyone kind of has different arrangements and so we along with others that arrived with us were starting with the North Islands. We were the only ones on a 5 day 4 night tour, though to be honest  Korak and I both felt that it  gave us a sufficient insiders look into the untouched beauty of nature.

Our guide Louis on Baltra - North Seymour
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First stop Baltra-North Seymour, then Genovesa (about 8 hour boat ride from all the other isalnds), Bartolome - Bachas and finished up in Porta Ayora which is their main town. There we got a tour of the Charles Darwin Stations and also the Highlands (twin craters) the next day.

We saw a lot though often there was a sort of barreness to volcanic rocks and the few species that are able to survive there. To truly appreciate the beauty you have to be there and no amount of words here can convey that. Hopefully the pictures will help appreciate a liitle of what the place has to offer.

A seal hanging out in a very uncomfortable seeming position (on the dock as we were getting on our boat)
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The Galapagos are home to a variety of unique and endemic animal and bird life. Probably the best known is the giant tortoise but also marine and sea iguanas, lava lizards and geckos. The marine lifeincludes lots of sealions, fur seals and Galapagos penguins (we didn´t get to see those). Probably the most famous birds of the Islands are the red footed, blue footed and masked boobies. Finches (Darwin´s finches) are abundant and have been used to study evolution. Due to the fact that these islands have remained uninhabited for the most part (97% has been designed National Park as well as the waters around the archipelago) the animals have failed to develop a natural fear of man. This means that we got to be within less than a foot of the birds.

Land iguana just hanging out. Galapagos animals are known for their total lack of fear of humans due to minimal contact.
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On two occassions we were dropped off on the sandy shores to snorkel and even got to do one dive. Got to see swiiming sea turtles and lots of cool underwater life. Had hammer head sharks swimming around the boat at one point and our dive master yelling to Korak to jump in. They both did, I decided to sit that one out.

Word of warning - stack up on sun screen. Figuring I never burn anyway I was fairly lackadaisical in my approach and lived to regret it for several days. Hopefully you can´t tell from the pictures as my big sunglasses protected me partially leaving me with the opposite of dual black eye....It was quite awful.