Santa Cruz - Iguanas & Baby Sharks in Tortuga Bay (Galapagos Islands)

After our pre-booked 8-day Galapagostour we wanted to stay three more nights in Puerto Ayora. And today we wanted to spend our time with relaxing and doing nothing. Nothing is better than a beautiful beach 🙂

Day

of our Trip around the World

Table of contents

The road to Tortuga Bay

A few minutes walk from our Hotel Fiesta in Puerto Ayora is the entrance to Tortuga Bay.

Here you have to register at a small guardhouse (Galapagos Park Service) with your passport number, but admission is free. From the entrance of the Park Service to the beach, you walk a 2.5 km long path that winds through the vegetation.

The Tortuga Bay on Santa Cruz

The way to the beach

A cactus tree

The way to the beach

The Tortuga Bay on Santa Cruz

The wide beach of Tortuga Bay is really beautiful: soft white sand, turquoise blue water and also we had a bright blue sky.

The beach of Tortuga Bay

Marine iguanas on the beach

Tortuga Bay consists of 2 areas. Once there is the big beach, which you reach first and where you are not allowed to swim, because it is protected for wildlife. If you go beach but a bit to the right you reach a slightly smaller beach, where you can make yourself comfortable. Everywhere you can see the marine iguanas on the beach and also in the water.

Marine iguanas on the beach

Iguanas in the sea

We were looking for a place for our things and are right in the water with our snorkeling stuff. Unfortunately, however, the visibility on that day was very cloudy, so that after half an hour we are back on land and just soned.

Stranded baby sharks

After a few hours of relaxing, we wanted to go back towards the exit and suddenly saw a lot of small baby sharks in the shallow water on the main beach near the shore. A shark has even been washed so close to shore by a wave that it has not been able to get back into the water with its own strength. As soon as we got closer to him, the baby shark was fidgeting wildly and ripping open his mouth, we carefully tried to bring him closer to the water with our flip flops, which was also successful. The little one then swam happily around in the shallow water.

For us we went to the exit for 45 minutes in the blazing sun. Once at the hotel, we plunged into the cold pool to cool off and spent the rest of the afternoon in the deckchair (and in the shade).

All travelogues from Ecuador & Galapagos-Island

Our 10 days on the Galapagos Islands are definitely one of the highlights of our world tour. We enjoyed the magnificent Nataur and the fascinating animal world incredibly well. No matter if San Cristobal, Santa Cruz, Isabella, Floreana or North Seymour - every island is completely unique and there is always something new to discover.