FLIGHT AND VIP LOUNGE ...NOT A BUS IN SIGHTSo up at 5.15am early doors with little sleep as I was too excited last night to sleep haha - we got a taxi to the airport where we met our "rep" who checked in our bags and gave us our boarding cards and told us we had access to the VIP lounge !!!!!!!! WOO HOO we only had about 25 mins till our flight took off - there was no tea as usual so we opted for some premium Johnnie Walker whisky, Marc had his straight mine with coke, some canopies and another whisky and we were on our flight.

What a weird feeling it was - we hadn't been on a plane in what felt like forever its bus bus bus - not only did we get inflight movies but breakfast too woo hoo - the flight was around 3 hours it stopped in Guayquill to pick up more people then with the 1 hour behind time difference we landed in sunny roasting hot humid Galapagos at 10am, gone was the rain and cold of Quito hehe.
 

ONBOARD THE GALAVEN YATCH
Fortunately our group for the boat was young people too - 14 I think in total half of them were French and didnt speak English so it was half in half and a good bunch of people .

We were on the bus for 5 mins transfer to the boat - at the dock to meet us was loads of sea lions just sitting about, giant crabs and these huge birds, only on the island 5 mins and already seeing stuff - Love it !!

We get to our boat short briefing of the days activities and show to our cabin, we had a double bed with a single bunk above but it was our private room with AC & bathroom - it was immaculate with super amazing fluffy pillow AND a great shower - that never happens in a hostel room its either good shower or good bed haha.

The boat was sooo nice - it totally lived up to the brochure pics - we were delighted couldn't fault a thing.  
After a 3 course lunch which again was delicious - so nice not to be eating in hole in the wall's hehe unlimited food is bad though - Marc and I love our food too much LOL  

 

 

NORTH SEYMOUR ISLAND
So for the afternoon we were off for a walk on the island - the boat had small "zodiacs" wee speedboats to take you off the big boat to the islands .
 
North Seymour was formed by a series of submarine lavas containing layers of sediment that were uplifted by tectonic activity. The island is characterized by its arid vegetation zone. The animals you can see here are Sea Lions, Blue-footed Boobies, Frigate birds, land & marine iguanas.

We were greeted off the zodiac but several sea lions who clearly were not afraid of us, with literally a few steps getting off the boat we had our first Iguana, for the next 2 hours every 5 steps you seen something new - the iguanas didnt more away you had to be careful not to stand on them whilst you were looking at something else - you were so close it was unreal - these guys were sooo cool.

There are loads of birds here too ones called boobys, every time the guide said the word in his accent it still made me giggle haha easily amused - the other super cool birds are Frigates, they have red bits under their beaks and the can puff this up huge when they are trying to mate - look at the pics below its incredible - they have a wingspan of around 2 .3m and make this crazy clicking noise when they are puffed up.  

There was loads of seals and sea lions too again so friendly and didn't run away - we love this kinda stuff its amazing to see so many animals in their natural enviroment.

 

OUR FIRST SLEEP ON THE BOAT 
Back to the boat for some snack and some free time before briefing at 6.30pm for tomorrows activities and then it was time for dinner, again tons of yummy food we stuffed our faces - alcohol on the boat was 4 times the price of it on the island so we didn't bother. We spent some time up on the top of the boat - you can relax in the sun loungers and watch the sunset and has a nice area at the back to sit out too - the weather was just perfect.

Slept like utter logs the bed and pillows and the slow movement of the boat rocked us to sleep about 9pm haha zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

 
This is the boat for pics 
http://www.galapagosislands.com/mid-range-cruises/galaven-i/galaven_i-pictures.html