Tortuga Bay and Seymour Island

Getting to Tortuga Bay can be accessed by water taxi ($10.00 each) or a caliente hike from Puerto Ayora. Only 3.5 km from our place but man oh man with mid 30C temps and high humidity it was a scorcher. Thank goodness parts of the mosaic brick path had a few shady sections. The first white sand beach is recommended for surfers while the second is protected by a bay and ideal for swimming, snorkeling, and kayaking. Off with the runners and socks for the final beach walk to our destination, one of the most beautiful beaches on the island of Santa Cruz. The guide books were spot on!

This bay has lava columns and small cliffs surrounded by cacti and mangroves. What a contrasting combination of visuals by the sea! We enjoyed our swim and Steve went out to deeper depths to explore the waters and get some fitness in. He spotted a sea turtle and a few fish while I took pictures and listened to all the Spanish jabber from the latino tourists. Leaving the area we passed a large group marine Iguanas basking in the sun or coming in from their swim. These prehistoric creatures are mostly charcoal black almost disappearing when hangin out on the lava rock! Steve says in the water they look like mini alligators on the prowl. I would freak, he is much braver than I or will EVER be!

Woke to a downpour rain with some flooding in the streets! Here they make the best of what's given as I watched one lady use the powerful stream of rainwater coming from an upper deck drain pipe to power wash her motorbike, LOL. Kids played and cooled off like our kids on open fire hydrant day. How simple life can be!

On Steve's dive day they took a 2 hour boat ride to Seymour Island with quite an international group of divers from Germany, Italy, France, and Argentina. Underwater he colours were bland without much coral due to the cold water currents. However there were white tip, hammerhead and galapagos sharks, mantas, rays, eels, garden snakes, and a variety of fish. During Steve's dive he had to deal with a leaky mask, a BCD that leaked which shortened his dive time, plus a broken depth gauge that made his 3 minute safety stop at 5 meters challenging without any visual references other than the surface. Albatross dive center was even recommended in Lonely Planet, my husband doesn't recommend them.

It was a good day for Steve to be away as I awoke with a nasty cold! I drank what felt like gallons of tea, took numerous drops of oil of oregano,  ate a big bowl of chicken noodle soup for lunch, and had a lemon neo citron for night time sleep. The next morning I was a new girl feeling much better. Spent the day hanging around the hostal and connected with our awesome computer savy son-inlaw Chris to work on our violated computer. It too was feeling down and had crashed like me. He was able to do repairs and clean it up from his home/office in Vernon. Neato bonito!