Cannundrums: James Bay, Santiago Island

After Espinoza Point and Urbina Bay, James Bay on Santiago Island was my third favorite place. James Bay is a large bay on the northwest coast of Santiago. In the morning we were scheduled to visit Espumilla Beach at the north end of James Bay. In the afternoon we were scheduled to visit Egas Port at the south end of James Bay. Espumilla Beach is a beautiful white sand beach with beautiful green trees right up to the beach. There is an inland hiking trail we were scheduled to take to a seasonal lagoon that often has flamingos. However, the tide was too high and our naturalist decided it was too dangerous to land, so she scheduled more snorkeling. After the poor snorkeling the day before Judy and I decided to stay on the boat. Awhile later we got word from the naturalist that if I wanted to go out on the panga, they would take me out to look for birds. I jumped at that. The panga driver got me great views of striated herons, nearly had me touching a blue-footed booby, then as a group we went further north along the coast in the pangas and saw our only Galapagos fur seals, lots more blue-footed boobies, lots of Galapagos sea lions and swallow-tailed gulls. It was a marvelous excursion - out best panga excursion.

Brown noddy

Frigatebirds flying over the snorkelers.

Galapagos brown pelican.

Galapagos fur seals.

Galapagos hawk

Galapago sea lion

Striated (lava) heron

Marine iguana

Striated (lava) herons - juvenile

Swallow-tailed gulls

Swallow-tailed gull (juvenile)

Blue-footed booby

That afternoon we shifted down to Egas Port at the south end of James Bay. It was a beautiful black sand beach.

The red line locates James Bay and the beaches at each end.

Judy and I went out snorkeling and had by far our best snorkeling experience. We saw lots of sea lions, a huge whitetip reef shark and lots of other colorful fish. Afterwards we took a hike out over a lava flow, to the south and were caught in a drenching downpour. I didn't take out my camera, but we saw lots of marine iguanas and sea lions and some yellow-crowned night herons.