25th Oct - Floreana to Santa Cruz

Up earlier than usual as it was the last day. Plus the crew wanted to get to Punto Ayora as quickly as possible as it's their only night off every week and they wanted to spend as much time as possible on shore. No fault.

First we went to the oldest postbox in South America. No stamps needed, the trick here is that the next visitors to this spot take your postcard and hand-deliver it to your home address. I'm sceptical but left a postcard there anyway. Took our only group photo of the tour, we decided to go Japanese-style.

Mushi Mushi!!

Then we went down another lava cave. This was great. Only walked about 200m along and it was dark and silent. When we turned off flashlights, it was just pitch black. Our eyes had nothing to work with to adjust. Fun.

Looks like I'm lost in the dark. I'm not really, the whole group was there!

See? Here I am with Hester and Jamie!

Went for a walk then but it was v dull. Flamingo pond with no flamingos is apparently meant to be the highlight! Walked to a nice beach though and mooched around. Then watched some crabs mating, then back to the boat. I decided to opt out of the snorkelling today, I'd have to jump from the little boat and apparently there would be v strong currents. Not good. Plus only a few were going and the rest were going to laze around the boat. Sounded good to me! When the lads came back they said that it was just as well I didn't go as the current was ridiculous and v little to see! So a good call!

Crab sex. Oh yeah!

Lunch at around 12, then we set sail for the final stop Punto Ayora. I spent the afternoon trying not to get sick and copying the best photos from everyone else's memory card.

At one stage a pretty alarming siren went off. I was hopeful that this wasn't a fire siren because we were in the middle of the ocean and I've explained already that I'm not the strongest swimmer in the world! Thankfully it was just to let us know that dolphins were around. 3 of them up the front at one stage swimming along with the boat. Superb. Here's a video of one of them milling around:



They're an amazing animal. Katja got this photo of one of them:

Landed in Puerto Ayora and had our final dinner on board. Delicious as ever and there were goodbye speeches and emotional scenes with the crew. In fairness to the cook, he had a tiny kitchen to work with and cooked up 21 different meals - usually with more than one course - for 15 staff and passengers over the week. He was a bit choked up when we praised him! All good stuff. We then went into the town and had a few drinks, 2 for 1 Caiprinhias in the pub we went to like! I was up for staying out for a good while, but one of the girls, Jamie, had a panic attack about losing her wallet and it killed the mood a smidgen! We were all back on board before midnight.

Enjoying a well-deserved drink. Before the wallet panic obviously.