On the island of San Cristobál there are ample offers for tours. On a drive across the island we were able to visit the lagoon in the highlands, the giant tortoises and Puerto Chino. Now we would like to take a boat tour around the island. We have the opportunity to have two special experiences.

First: you can see the island from all sides. Only a tiny fraction of San Cristóbal is inhabited. The rest is wilderness and inaccessible.

Secondly: on a rock off the island there is a chance to see hammerhead sharks while snorkeling. I want to take the chance and Sara also dares to come with Leon.

Tips and costs for the Galapagos Islands can be found on this page.

At 7 am we meet at the port with the small group and the guide. A water taxi takes us to the boat. It’s not really big, even if we were told that it was, and the nutshell isn’t comfortable when cruising the Pacific either. But it works.

The first stage takes an hour and a half across the ocean to Bahía Rosa Blanca, so-called because the bay was shaped like a white rose to World War II pilots.

Sara and Leon stay behind on the white beach while I head out to the bay with the group and my snorkeling gear. We see blue-footed boobies breeding on the jagged lava rocks until we reach the bay after a short hike. Then it goes into the water. Right at the beginning I see a big ray gliding across the ground. Near the rocks I see a lot of small colorful fish and also big colorful parrot fish.

Just before I want to leave the bay, I swim into a group of white tip reef sharks. The white tips cannot be overlooked. This is where they apparently rest before going out hunting at night. I count seventeen of the predatory fish in one pile.

Next stop is Punta Pitt. At this point we circled half of the island and watched the rugged volcanic landscape from afar.

On the picturesque rocks we see gannets, both blue and red. Maybe there are purple ones too, but they hide.

We have lunch of fish and rice and end up on a beach. This time I stay on the boat with Sara while the others explore the country. Dozens of puffer fish circle around the boat and pounce on scraps of food thrown at them by the boat boy.

Then we see two sea turtles swimming next to us and I spontaneously throw myself into the water to swim with them.

Seeing the turtles up close is incredible and impressive. I have hardly seen an animal that makes such a dignified impression. The large sea turtles glide gently through the shallow water, occasionally poking their heads out of the water to breathe. Suddenly I have a large shadow next to me. A shark. A big shark. That’s not a sleek whitetip reef shark, that’s a different caliber. I later learn that this is the color-inverted form, which is a blacktip shark.

We continue by boat along the coast. Small craters form a landscape as if dozens of dwarf volcanoes had erupted side by side. A small waterfall falls into the sea. It continues around the island. We soon reached our destination. The place where we will go swimming in the high seas and hope to see giant hammerhead sharks. Soon we’ll be at Kicker Rock.