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We had another early start today (6.40am) for a day trip to San Christóbal island. We got a quick breakfast (bread and marmalade) from a cafe before heading to the pier to meet our guide. There was about 16 of us on the boat, the guide told us there were four seats at the top so Browny and I headed up there thinking Eddy and Nathan would follow. Unfortunately another couple grabbed the places (these turned out to be the most annoying couple on the trip, we couldn't work out if they had recently met or were just completely oblivious to everyone else around). Anyway we had a good view from the top and spotted a couple of sealions bobbing around and a fin which could have been from a shark or big fish. As the journey went on we started getting splashed and by the end we looked as if we had been swimming alongside the boat whilst everyone else below was bone dry! Eddy and Nathan found it hilarious, luckily it wasn't cold once we were off the boat and we had brought spare clothes which we changed into.
The first part of the itinerary was a walk along the coast, where we saw loads of black and red Sally Lightfoot crabs (named by English seafarers), birds and sealions (there are no seals on the Galapagos islands - the difference is sealions have ears), iguanas and small lizards. It was quite windy walking along the coast however the weather changes very rapidly over here and there were bursts of sunshine. We walked back the same way to the beach and put on our wetsuits to go snorkelling! We were really glad that we brought our own snorkels and just hired wetsuits. We snorkelled with sealions and large turtles and also saw little fish and some bigger white fish. It was quite rocky and the visibility wasn't great but overall it was really fun and a good first experience of snorkelling! There was one hairy moment when my snorkel was tilted back instead of straight up which meant I kept breathing In water but other than that no problems. The sealions were really playful and at one point one of them came up and nudged my leg from behind which scared me! Nathan took his underwater camera and has some good photos. A young boy from our trip was playing with one of the sealions, which concerned us slightly as we heard their bites can be nasty! However he was fearless and quick to jump out of the way so no harm was done and it did seem like the sealion was just being friendly.
After snorkelling we took another walk to see a lake, which we were told we would be ok in flip flops in- however when we got off the bus it was raining so the grassy path was incredibly wet and slippery and the weather made it very hard to see (cloudy and drizzly). Once again we were the inappropriately dressed ones but it wasn't actually cold and we had fun sliding back down the hill and trying not to fall over.
Lunch was much needed, Eddy and I had our standard chicken and rice and Nathan and browny had fish with fried plantain. For starters we had soup with cheese which was interesting but we were just glad of something warm. Our main course came with cold chips but we were hungry enough to eat them. For dessert we had bananas straight from the tree which were nice and sweet.
After lunch we went to a beach nearby which was a lovely walk through vegetation seeing lizards and birds. The water was much clearer at this beach and very relaxing, we didn't snorkel here but just chilled and saw more black and red crabs. At this point Browny realised she had left her bag with passport and all her money in at the restaurant so hurried back to get it!
After vowing not to sit on the top of the boat on the way home, the four of us all ended up on top however we were lucky on the way back we didn't get wet. We even saw the fins of some Whales which made it worth while. We were incredibly windswept and hungry by this point though, and arriving back at Puerto Ayora we couldn't wait to get home and shower. We finally met the fourth person in our dorm, Clarissa from Argentina who told us about her diving experiences on the Galapagos. We invited her out for dinner however we all must have been more tired than we thought as after showering we fell asleep unintentionally, leaving Nathan to go to town on his own to get dinner! He went back to the pizza place that we went to before.
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