Galapagos Day 1: Isla San Cristobal

What an exciting day!! Justin and I awoke eager to set out on our last great adventure in Ecuador. A quick taxi ride to the airport, a relatively painless process to get through security, and we were sitting in the waiting area with an hour and a half to spare. (This, of course, was infinitely preferable to missing our flight). Fortunately for us, we overheard two people behind us talking about their upcoming cruise on the Princess of the Galapagos - our boat! They were Dee and Dave of Britain. It was a pleasure to spend the rest of the time chatting with them. Dee is a retired lady who takes two or three cool adventures a year, while Dave is a college aged guy who was taking his first adventure to South America. You'll see pics of them later. Before we knew it, we were on the plane heading off to the Galapagos!
We had a brief layover in Guayaquil, where, little did we know, we picked up several other future passengers of the Princess (and future friends). A few hours later we got our first glimpse of an island - Isla San Cristobal.
Within minutes we'd landed at the Aeropuerto Isla San Cristobal, Galapagos, Ecuador :)
When we got off, we were treated to a dousing with disinfectant by masked men and women (fears of swine influenza?), which gave me the opportunity to snap a photo of our cool plane.
Our naturalist guide, Enrique, was there to meet all of us on the other side, and after a three minute bus ride we were at the harbor where we'd board our boat.
It was quite a busy harbor as Monday is a prime day for beginning a cruise. The seals seemed to enjoy hanging out there as well.
A short dingy ride later we saw her - the Princess of Galapagos.
I have to admit that for a 16 passenger boat, she was a bit on the small side, but she was our boat - so pretty darn cool. We ended up with the room just underneath the flag on the top of the boat.
Our room was about the size of my closet back home in the states. We had about a two and a half feet of space between the door and the bunk beds - just enough room for one suitcase...barely. The bathroom was hysterically small...
But hey, that just created more adventure - risking life and limb to take a shower in a boat that's tossing and turning, what's more fun than that, lol. Okay, listening to Justin try to take a shower in a boat that's tossing and turning was probably more fun... He has a very dramatic vocabulary.
But the view from my top bunk was pretty amazing...so all in all, still pretty cool.
After a quick, but good lunch, by our soon to be best friend, Edi (the cook), we headed off to the beach for our first snorkeling adventure!
The beach was gorgeous!! I couldn't have been more thrilled.
Enrique, our guide, told us about the Sea Turtles, Lizards, Finches, Crabs, and Seals that we would be encountering, then off we went. Justin and I are in the process of developing our underwater cameras, so we'll probably do an underwater photo blog tomorrow. I was thrilled to get to swim with a turtle almost as big as I was (and about 400 pounds heavier...). It was truly delightful.
Justin also took some good pics of the local wildlife outside the water:
And of me conversing with a very nice seal...
And then we headed back home (errr...our temporary home), though I had to snap just a few more pics in the dimming light...
Beautiful beach:
The harbor:
And our Princess:

The day was completed with a two hour excursion to town that night with our new friends. A bit of pool, a bit of watching seals play on the beach, and we were ready to head back and crawl into our minuscule bunks for our first night on board.
A beautiful day, and a beautiful beginning of our journey.