Busy Days aboard the Majestic

our boat, the Majestic

The Majestic is one of the newer of the 85 boats operating in the Galapagos Islands.  The cabins are very small, as is true on most boats and the downstairs cabins have long portholes you can’t see out of unless you stand on the bed.  Bad design.  All the cabins are the same size, 183 square feet, but one, ours is about 215 square feet because it is at the far front of the boat—still very small.  Fortunately, we travel with only carry-on luggage, so even a small space is ok for us.

In panga getting ready to snorkel

We chose the Majestic because it’s very small—only 8 cabins, so 16 passengers at the most.  Other boats carry from 48 to 150 people, which means you go ashore in groups but have little flexibility about how much time you spend anywhere because the next group from your boat must follow you.  We also liked the routes the Majestic has planned for this year which provide us the opportunity to see all the islands.

This is now our third day aboard, of the 14 we’ll spend touring the Galapagos.  So far, days have begun quite early with either a snorkeling trip in these sparkling clear waters of the Pacific or a walk on shore on one of the islands seeing a wide variety of birds and animals.  Midday you’re back on the boat for lunch and a nap or chance to relax for 2 hours before heading out again for the afternoon activity—visiting a beach or walking across an island, kayaking, snorkeling or two of the above.

great snorkeling around these rocks off coast of Floreanna Island

 

The snorkeling is quite beautiful.  Today, I saw a cong eel, a long, narrow, silvery, almost transparent fish.  We swam with 4 sea lions who wanted to play with us.  I lingered over the largest school of fish I’ve ever seen.  At first I thought it was a huge mass of seaweed, but then it revealed its masses of small fish all bundled together, thousands of them.  There are schools of larger fish, dusty blue in color with brilliant lemon yellow tails and 2 black stripes running down their necks.  My favorite is a deep black fish, about 4 to 6 inches long, with a bright white stripe running down both sides near its head, yellow fins and tail and luminescent stripes of purple on its back and around its tail.  Breathtaking.  Other fish show off their gorgeous colors as you swim above them.

Walking trips have been very easy and full of wonderful things to see.  I’ll write more about the birds and reptiles and their mating and nesting habits in a future blog.

After our second or third outing of the day, we get a chance to shower before hearing the plans for the next day and enjoying quite a good dinner.