wild south photography
DAY 1 Quito
Arrival to the main city of Ecuador 1 day before flying to Baltra Island, our first destination in Galapagos.
We will spend the first night at this historic and colonial city full of color and places where to taste the best coffee and chocolates in the world.
DAY 2 Quito/ Baltra Island
We'll be leaving Quito early in the morning and flying to Baltra Island where a member of our catamaran will be waiting for us and after a short bus drive we'll reach the port and board our catamaran. After a welcome conversation with the captain and our biologist, we will set everything in the cabins and start our trip.
After a short 30 minutes navigation we reach Bachas beach where we'll have the first chance to photograph flamingos and other birds on the beach.
During the night we will navigate to our next destination.
DAY 3 Bachas beach/ Plaza Sur Island/ Santa Fe Island
Plaza Sur it's a small island where we will have the chance to photograph the giant yellow terrestrial iguana and other birds surrounded by enormous cactus and depending on the month of the year, covered by red vegetation.
Going back to the catamaran we'll have something to drink and after a 2 hours navigation we will arrive to Santa Fe island, 2 hours after having lunch and a short zodiac boat drive, we'll have the first chance to practice snorkeling. By the end of the afternoon we'll go for a walk into the island. With the sun set behind us we'll go back to the boat and start our night navigation to the next island.
DAY 4 Santa Fe Island / San Cristobal Island
Arriving very early in the morning before the sunrise we will approach to the Kicker Rock, an outstanding massive vertical rock located in front of San Cristobal island. This small island is the home of different birds such as frigate, nazca bobby and blue feet bobby among others. But what will really worth about arriving early to this place is the snorkeling close to the walls that get lost deep into the ocean, we'll swim with sea lions, black tip sharks, turtles, rays and if we are lucky with hammer head sharks. After almost 2 hours we'll go back to the catamaran for some drinks and start approaching San Cristobal island, we will have a nice lunch and then we'll visit one of the beautiful beaches of the area, white sand and turquoise water will invite us to relax and photograph the blue feet bobby's diving for food among other species.
By the end of the day and after a great dinner on board we'll start moving to the next destination.
DAY 5 San Cristobal Island (Wolf Island) / Española Island (Punta Suarez)/ Gardner Bay
This is a special place due to the Galapagos Albatross nesting area from the end of April to late November. This is the only albatross that habits at the tropic and out from the nesting season it hang around the Peruvian, Colombian and Ecuadorian coasts, with its almost 3 meters wingspan this bird can live 80 years. But this part of the island also is home for blue feet bobbys, Nazca bobbys, Galapagos hawk and thousands of iguanas among other species.
After spending hours photographing these incredible birds and place we'll move to Bahia Gardner where we'll have lunch in front of a fantastic beach with white and soft sand and turquoise water, these waters will offer the chance to snorkel with hammer head sharks if we are lucky.
By late afternoon the Galapagos sea lions will host us on the beach before going back to the catamaran for dinner and navigating to the next island.
DAY 6 Española Island / Gardner Bay/ Santa Cruz Island
After 6 hours (during the night) we will arrive to Ayora Port in Santa Cruz Island, this is the main town of the Galapagos area, Its really warm, colored, nice and with kind people. After breakfast we'll go inland to visit a private farm where wild giant turtles hang around lending us to photograph them, these are massive turtles with more than 150 years, its a fantastic experience if you think that these animals are here before any human even imagen about the existence of these islands. There is also a turtle reproductive farm where biologists study and preserve the turtles.
We will have lunch at some nice place in town and then going back to the catamaran we will navigate to The Post Office Bay at Floreana Island 3 is hours away, flamingos and other birds are part of the wildlife of this particular island with a nice story to be told during the trip.
DAY 7 Floreana Island (Post Office Bay) / Bartolome Island
After 7 hours night navigation we'll arrive to this fantastic landscape area, this island is a huge volcano, it's the youngest of the Galapagos Islands, amazing frozen lava shapes, volcanoes cones and the Pináculo rock are part of this stunning reminder of our planet power.
We will walk through different areas and snorkel in the transparent waters looking for the Galapagos penguin and other creatures.
DAY 8 Bartolome Island/ Baltra Island
The final day we will have breakfast and head back to Baltra Island port, after saying goodbye to the crew a bus will leave us at the airport to catch our flight back to Quito where we'll spend our last night enjoying a nice dinner.
Day 9 Quito / Home
After breakfast we'll leave the hotel towards the international airport to fly back home.
CAMERA EQUIPMENT
In terms of camera gear then the longest lens you have will be needed (300mm with converter as a minimum really and 500mm + ideal) along with tripod. You will definitely want some shorter lenses for the array of landscape opportunities (70-200mm and 24-70mm say) and a set of polarizing and grad filters will be good too if you have them and are used to working with them. You will need storage devices for the array of images you’ll build up and a laptop for viewing these on the evenings can be both sociable and also good for critiquing purposes.