Well this was the first hike that we actually got a little exercise on. The view was beautiful. After the hike we went sea kayaking. The weather has been great around 23 degrees each day. Most days there is very little downtime but today we had some fun jumping off the boat and swimming. At 6:30 we all gathered with the captain and toasted with champagne as we sailed across the Equator.

Every island is unique and I don't want to bore you with all the details. Each day brings something new. Our favourite experience today was swimming with the sea lions. They are so playful. If you blow bubbles, or somersault in the water they join in and twirl in and out. Like kids they never seem to tire of the game. We also followed an orca whale for some time which did some spectacular displays of it's tail for us. In the evening the crew performed for us. W...

We started off the day with a hike over lava fields on Isabella. Isabella is shaped like a sea horse and has five active volcanoes. Walking over black lava flows in Equatorial heat would give a new meaning to being hot but fortunately for us there was a sweet wind. We observed penguins, flamingos, turtles, sea lions, marine iguanas, flightless cormorants and the adorable Sally Lightfoot Crabs ( to name a few). Later we went snorkeling. Unreal! There is really n...

June 27 th The beginning of this blog entry is purely for those of my friends which enjoy "facts". I feel slightly dubious about the veracity of these after getting three different (quite) numbers on the population of Quito. However that being said here goes: • the world famous Panama hats are actually Ecuadorian. • Cayambe volcano at 5790 m above sea level is the only snow peak in the world that is on the equatorial line. • Cotopaxi volcano, at 5897 m is...

Hi! So after an hour and a half flight to Baltra Island, approximately 600 miles west over the Pacific Ocean, we disembarked and went through the formalities of entering Galapagos National Park. There is a $100 US entry fee per person. From there we took a short bus trip to catch a small ferry over the to island of Santa Cruz (there are 13 larger islands and 6 smaller islands). Of course Dwayne somehow missed the boat so that was a good laugh. It seems to ru...