A first-person travel vlog (YouTube video) by Nate and Kara Buchanan documenting day two of a Galapagos cruise. The transcript describes snorkeling and boat excursions around Punta Vicente Roca, Fernandina and nearby points, emphasizing close wildlife encounters (sea lions, sea turtles, penguins, stingrays, orcas, sharks, iguanas) and on-ship logistics (dinghies, naturalist Jaime, camera issues). The tone is excited and awe-filled, focused on experience and wildlife observation rather than technical detail.
Chapters
Today is day two in the Galapagos aboard the natural Paradise. Last night, we sailed 10 hours to Punta Vicenta Roca.
We slept very well for being on a moving boat. It was very comfortable. And then we woke up and had the most delicious breakfast and got straight on the dingies for a boat ride. It was the coolest boat ride we've ever taken.
The mask booby is the white one is taking off from the cliff of Punta Vicente Roca.
We saw so many animals.
I've never seen so much wildlife in my life. And, like, nothing was afraid of you. Sea lions coming right up to the boat. Sea turtles that were just, like, swimming beside the boat.
Iguanas everywhere. Penguins. Like, we'd be taking pictures of the penguins and be like, oh, there's a turtle. Oh, there's a sea lion. It was just hectic. It was awesome. You guys are right by our boat.
And more species of birds than I will ever remember.
Our naturalist on the boat, Jaime, is so fun because he gets so excited about every single animal. It's just contagious. And he's been doing this for 25 years.
Yeah. And he still has his phone out. Taking pictures of, like, everything we see is really cool. Yeah.
Sam.
It was an incredible start to the morning.
And now we get about an hour break on the boat before we get back on the dinghies. But this time, we get to jump in and swim with animals.
So we had a slight catastrophe yesterday. The GoPro Hero 5, which is supposed to be completely waterproof without a case. Ours is apparently not. About halfway through snorkeling yesterday, the screen went black. I thought it had just died. Came back, opened it up. There was water inside. We haven't been able to revive it yet. We do have it sitting in rice, hoping that it's gonna back on, but there are other people on the trip that have cameras, so we'll try to steal some of their footage and give you a peek of what it's like underwater. Let's go snorkel. Just to fill you in on our route so far, yesterday we flew into the island of Baltra, and then we stopped at Dragon Hill, and that's where we did the snorkeling and saw the massive land iguanas. Then last night, we sailed 10 hours above the equator, then back across the east equator, and now we are in Basinto Roca Point.
Incredible.
Hola.
I literally don't even know how to begin to describe, like, the last hour of our life.
That is the best snorkeling I could have Ever imagined. Where do you want to start?
That's, like, the best anything I've ever done. We should start at the very beginning. So we get taken out to the point of this rock, and we jump in the water. As soon as we jump in the water, we're surrounded by, like, three or four sea lions.
So I'm already freaking out. And then we hear the people on the boat yelling.
Where is it?
So everybody looks up.
We were swimming in the water with two orcas. With two orca. Killer killer whales. I didn't actually, like, see them underwater. I just saw their fins, but they were, like, really close.
So I heard the guy yell whale. So I'm like, where? Like, freaking out. And I look over at Nate and I. And I see it behind me just, like.
Jump out of the water and back in. So I still can't talk. And Nate's like, where? And then by the time I could speak, it was next to us. I saw it one more time kind of come out of the water and go back under. So that was just mind blowing. I could have just gotten back in the boat right then, probably. But then there was more.
We keep going. So, like, we're swimming with sea otters, we see a sea turtle. Then we see, like, hundreds of stingrays swimming beneath us all together. I got to dive down and, like, swim right away above 100 golden stingrays.
We had a moment.
Yeah, it was amazing. That was incredible. Did you see that? That was like, another one of those magical moments, like, at Marisha's, when I got to swim down with the dolphins. Literally. Like, I don't 50, 100 sea turtles.
Oh, at least.
But to. It got to the point at the end where, like, we weren't even pointing them out to each other anymore because we had seen so many, and they.
Are so unfazed by people. Like, we would just be swimming right next to them, and, like, you wouldn't be swimming anymore, and the tide would kind of bring you in and out. Like, with the turtle, you just felt like you were.
Yeah, for, like, five minutes, I just sat there. Like, me and a turtle, like, five feet apart, just, like, getting taken by the tide.
It was magical. I mean, there's no way it gets any better than that.
We could literally, like, leave the Galapagos right now, and I would be content.
I still can't believe it actually happened. We came back to coffee and some snacks, and now we get to relax into lunch.
Also, like, keep being distracted because there's this sea otter right out here just, like, Floating on its side, doing something really weird.
Oh, my gosh. Oh, my gosh.
Just hanging out. So we started our snorkel all the way over here at the point, and then we went all the way around the island into the cave. That's where we saw the stingrays. And then literally swam, like, all the way over here.
Amazing.
Perfect. Thank you so much. This looks so good.
Lunch on the roof was so much fun. The food tasted better than it looked. And then we just drove two hours south to the island of Fernandina. And it's raining pretty hard right now, but it's okay because we're about to go snorkeling.
Well, I'm really glad we made ourselves get out in the rain and go snorkeling. It rained the entire time, but it was actually kind of cool, like, with the rain beating down on your back while you were swimming. We saw two sharks. That was probably the highlight for me. That was absolutely crazy. Penguins. A penguin. Lots of turtles. Sea lions. A sea lion eating a fish. Like, we just saw that from, like, far, way above the water. But it was a great snorkel. We were all really cold. When we got back, they had hot chocolate ready for us, and then we took that straight to the hot tub upstairs. And now that we're all dried off, we're gonna go hiking on this island behind me in the rain.
This is so weird. It's like an iguana graveyard. Like, there's hundreds of live ones laying around, but there's also, like, at least 20 iguana skeletons just spread out across the rocks. Apparently, this is where all the old ones hang out, and then they die and just decompose here around the rest of them. It's really weird.
Not interested.
I love that. Another one behind.
Yeah, that's the little baby. Where's mommy? Fishing.
So that's.
So that's.
Sam.
This is so crazy. We figured out that the male is really mad at the female. She was biting on him. Apparently, the males don't retaliate.
Baby's nursing on the mommy.
Sounded like, he joked.
So that's.
This has been so awesome. It finally quit raining, and we have just been, like, walking with sea lions and hundreds of iguanas. This is what I pictured the guapago speak like, getting to be, like, five feet away from a mom nursing its baby, trying to get attacked by the dad.
Such a good. Not a bad way to end the day. Not a bad way to end. Like, one of the best days of my life. Like, if you take into account everything that happened from snorkeling with orca wells, turtles, penguins, and everything else you snorkel with to the height. Getting to be, like five feet away from sea lions. Yeah. One of the best days of my life with one of the most beautiful sunsets.
Let's keep join your cruise for tomorrow's great adventure here.
