Swimming with Sealions

  Santa Fe Island, Galápagos, Ecuador Wednesday, December 9, 2015

The highlight of our stay on Santa Cruz has to be this day trip we took to the island of Santa Fe. An uninhabited island (by humans at least) to the east of Santa Cruz. Sabah had suggested this when he finally realised we were not going to fork out for a second cruise and we are absolutely delighted that we did. We loved it. The day started with a 45 minute boat trip which got us both soaking wet. The destination of Santa Fe can only be a day excursion as there is no accommodation on the island and you can't step onto it either. Everything here is protected. But what you can do is snorkel on the surrounding water. The water is not as warm as it was in Thailand but certainly warmer than it would be in England and it didn’t feel too cold once you were in. We snorkelled in one area first which was lovely but not so amazing (we have just been too spoilt over the last 5 years we think). Then we sailed around a bit further to a sheltered bay. This is what we had been waiting for…Santa Fe is home to a large colony of sea lions. Friendly sea lions whom, once you are in the water with them, love to swim around you and play with you. It is mainly the youngsters that do this and we were quite glad about that as you soon realise just how big the adult ones are and just how fast they are too. We were there for over half an hour and it was almost nonstop fun. The sea lions didn’t adhere to the 2m rule and were all over us at some point. Bryan made a great video in which you can see how close they came and us trying to get further away so we don’t touch them. As it turned out, despite all the fantastic things we did on our visit to Galapagos, this remains our firm favourite experience. We could have stayed with them all day and it was sad to leave them behind. A must for your bucket list without any doubt... The day continued with a lovely lunch on the boat and then we sailed back to Santa Cruz and a remote beach on the east coast. Here we snorkelled again and this was a first for Jody - with sharks! Baby ones admittedly but this was the first time she had ever seen any in the water close up (and it was not to be her last either...) Today was brilliant. All of it was really enjoyable But those sea lions stole our hearts.   [gallery columns="4" ids="12829,12840,12850,12855,12862,12872,12884,12894,12900,12914,12927,12937,12947,12958,12964,12972,12983,12993,13003,13015,13026,13040,13047,13056,13064,13073,13079,13091,13096,13102,13111,13118,13124,13129,13135,13140,13144,13147,13149,13154,13159"]