Last updated on January 29th, 2017
I swam with baby sea lions during my Espanola Island day tour with Scuba Eden. I paid $180, most of that was probably for the gas and park permit. The round-trip by boat to Espanola from San Cristobal was about 4 hours. Make sure to watch the video below and see the cute baby sea lions.
Scuba Eden also offers diving there, but it’s $240 and is only one dive.
I few months before I arrived, you were only allowed to visit Espanola Island via a cruise. Now you can do day tours. It’s still 100% Galapagos National Park, so you can’t sleep overnight on the island.
There were about 12 of us including the crew.
We snorkelled when we first arrived to Espanola Island.
I wore a wetsuit, which was my first and last time wearing a wetsuit while snorkelling in The Galapagos. I had my GoPro with me and I found it hard to dive with a GoPro and wetsuit. I’m not the greatest diver while holding a GoPro in one hand. I have become better since.
I saw enough schools of fish. You know the cool marine fish with the colors that appear to glow in the aqua tinted water; a few sea turtles and a stingray, too.
But the best part was the baby sea lions playing with us while we snorkelled along the rocky lava shore.
I also went in to a cave which produced stunning silhouettes of the snorkellers. Of course the baby sea lions followed us into the cave.
After the snorkel we went on a hike. I noticed the marina iguanas and lava lizards on Espanola Island had more red coloration to them compared to San Cristobal. I’m not the first man that noticed the difference between the animals on The Galapagos Islands.
One of the main reasons I wanted to visit Espanola Island was to see the waved albatross. They are not found on the other islands in The Galapagos. It’s the main breeding ground of the entire population of waved albatrosses. I can understand why Espanola Island is 100% national park.
Hola Parceros,
I’m the founder of Aperlust. I enjoy web development and SEO and am into snowboarding and linguistics. In my spare time, you can find me destroying my opponents in chess across the globe.
