6-Day Galapagos Islands Adventure: Diving, Hiking and Snorkeling

After arriving to Baltra Airport from your flight to Quito, you will be transported to Puerto Ayora where your hotel is located. On this day, it is recommended that you spend the afternoon visiting the Charles Darwin Station. Here, you can get plenty of information about the Galapagos Islands and this is a free activity. Before dinner, your dive master will meet you in your hotel to organize everything related with your next two days of diving.

Day 2:

After breakfast, your guide will take you to Mosquera Islet, an easily accessed scuba diving site. Mosquera is located between North Seymour and Baltra. The maximum depth for this dive site is 30 meters with currents generally mild. This site is famous for the sea lions that come and play during the dive and sharks, turtles, rays, barracudas and tropical fish are common in this area.

Day 3:

On this day, you will dive at Bartolome and Cousins which offers terraced steps that descend to 30 meters before dropping down to a Sandy bottom at 40 meters. The steps are covered with soft black coral, and are an excellent place to find the Pacific Seahorse. You can find white tipped reef sharks, green sea turtles and large moray eels near the overhangs from some of the steps. You can also encounter schools of barracuda and other reef fish. Manta rays and hammerheads can often be seen off the steps in the blue.

Day 4:

Today you will have some free time in the morning that you can choose to spend at Torutga Bay. This is a white sand beach where you can see marine iguanas and also go kayaking. You can also spot Tintoreras sharks along the coast. After lunch at around 12:30pm, you will be picked up from your hotel in Puerto Ayora to take a speed boat to Isabela (2 hours). Here, you will visit the Flamingo Lagoon and spend a relaxing night.

Day 5

Early in the morning after breakfast, you will hike the Sierra Negra Volcano which is located 13 miles from Port Villamil and has the second largest volcanic crater in the world. Then, you will go to Volcan Chico where you can feel the warmth of the ground, which is proof of the volcano’s activity. You will enjoy a box lunch before returning to the hotel to take some rest. Later in the day, you can go snorkeling or swimming at Concha Perla and admire the colorful fish, sea urchins, starfish, sea lions, or even sea turtles.

Early in the morning you will take the speedboat to go back to Puerto Ayora. You will enjoy a quick breakfast and then head to the airport to catch your flight back to Quito.