Probably one of the main highlights of my year traveling, and something I’d been looking forward to hugely!!

I arrived in Galapagos and was the last to board our 16 person boat with a younger German chap. The sales lady had led me to believe that I was probably going to have to share my cabin with this guy as we were had booked last minute, which after mixed dorms of ten people I was fine with. Actually there was only 15 of us and I lucked out with one of the biggest rooms on my own, massive result! We were a mix of Amercian, French, German, Welsh, Colombian, Peruvian, Nicaraguan, Mexican and me. The boat was not one of newer swankier luxury class, but more than comfortable with a great crew and most importantly a super chef! Our guide was brilliant, very passionate about his job, his homeland and the conservation of the wildlife and fauna. He also really enjoyed the snorkelling so whenever we went he came to and knew exactly were to find the sharks etc. The trip for most of us was for seven nights, but five only had four nights at which point just two got on so we were down to 12. Everyday we had a full itinerary usually starting with breakfast around 7pm, two stops on land and two opportunities to go snorkelling.

I would say that if you are booking a Galapagos trip and you don’t think you’ll go snorkelling to pick your boat carefully. Of the 15 of us, 11 of us were my age or younger and loved the snorkelling, but the two elder couples were quite a bit elder and were not interested. Which was fine, but whilst we were out snorkelling they had to just stay on the boat. The itinerary of where and when our boat went was controlled by the Galapagos and our captain couldn’t decide to change the plan. It meant that we were rarely at a beach, on an island, or snorkelling anywhere with more than 2 other boats. Also for a few of the islands the walking at times was a little challenging for some of the older clients as its over craggy uneven lava and boulders so sometimes they wouldn’t join us for the walking either. Whilst our boat was more than comfortable for us, on a luxury boat you’d have a lot more common spaces and areas to relax……so really check the boats features and itinerary to make sure it’s right for you. I think us younger people enjoyed the trip twice as much as the others because we got to see and do so much more. We were really lucky with the weather as its rainy season and apart from the last day had full sunshine for the most part, it was really hot! Ended up buying SPF 80!

I won’t go into the detail of what we saw and did each day, hopefully the photos can do the talking but I’ve included the white board summary list of what we did see, the only things we didn’t see that we might of was hammer head sharks, dolphins and killer whales. I had a brilliant week, saw so much, totally loved the snorkelling, wished to hell I’d had a waterproof camera! Our guide Johan was really great, and had a lovely bunch of people on the boat! Definitely worth the money….if your thinking of going…GO!!