February 2026

Around 5:30 a.m. we entered the caldera of Genovesa Island. This is all that is left of a shield volcano now flooded by the sea and large enough to accommodate many ships near the rim where the water is shallower to allow anchors to be dropped. Again visits were time limited and also the numbers […]

Today we started at sunrise with a panga ride to the red beaches (mostly iron oxide) of Rabida Island. When disembarking, we were greeted by sea lions, whilst across the vegetation-covered berm was a saltwater lagoon with a colony of American/Caribbean Flamingos engaged in feeding with their heads in the water. Alongside were White- cheeked

We left Baltra Island well after dark and journeyed overnight to Santiago Island. Here is a complicated mass of ash and spatter cones and blocks of tephra now being eroded by the sea in addition to differential weathering along the guano spattered cliff sections. We witnessed this in Buccaneer Cove on the northwest coast of

We repositioned overnight across the Equator to Baltra Island. During the afternoon we travelled by panga to Las Bachas beach. This amazing ‘organic’ white beach consisted of eroded shells and coral linking tephra headlands and backed by lechos trees, mangroves and lagoons which are the feeding grounds and home to flamingos, great blue herons, black

Having crossed from Santa Cruz overnight, at 6:00 a.m. we dropped anchor off the island of Floreana – the smallest of the inhabited islands with a population of around 200 people. A panga cruise took us around a bay west of Punta Cormorant. Here the lava flows had either slowly cooled or reached the sea

After an overnight journey anchored off the harbour at Puerto Ayora on Santa Cruz Island. The highlands of the island have a rich variety of plant life – dense forests including the local lechoso trees, orchids and mistletoe, sugar cane, cacao, coffee and bananas. The first visit was to the Charles Darwin Research Station opened

We arrived at Punta Vicente Isabela at 06:00 after an overnight crossing of this part of the Pacific and at midnight the Equator taking us into the Southern Hemisphere. We took a panga (dinghy) cruise along the coastline where we saw the remains, following a destructive collapse of the Volcan Ecuador. A caldera is formed

Today we flew from Quito to the islands and at lunchtime embarked upon the MS Santa Cruz II and moved to a remote part of Santa Cruz Island for our introduction to the area. The Galapagos Islands were formed by volcanic activity around 10 – 3 million years ago. In geological terms they are very

Quito’s Equatorial position meant that sunrise was at 5:56 a.m. and a sunset expected at 6:05 p.m. and varies very little over the year. The apparent movement of the sun between the two Tropics mean that shadows are short. The view from the hotel room and the tour bus journey showed the geographical and morphological

The following morning we embarked upon a 5,948 mile journey to Quito. The Great Circle Route to South America crosses the Atlantic so far from land that this is only spotted when reaching the Caribbean. We landed at the World’s highest capital city at 9,350 feet in thick cloud and heavy rain before transferring to