10 days/ 9 nights, Santa Cruz and Floreana Island
NATURE & CULTURE
The island of Santa Cruz is located at the heart of the Galapagos archipelago. It consists of an older lava plateau with a few tuff cones in the northeast and a younger central shield volcano, which rises to a height of 864m. A fascinating geological peculiarity in the highlands of the island is a network of lava tunnels, some of which are several hundred meters long. The island owes its high species richness to the finely graded vegetation zones, which range from the humid-cool highlands to the dry coastal zone. Santa Cruz is the most populated of the islands and the starting point for most day diving tours. The world famous dive site Gordon Rocks can be reached exclusively from there, as well as other wonderful dive sites at Seymour, Mosquera, Daphne, Bartolome, Floreana…
Santa Cruz is connected to Floreana Island by speedboat ferries. Floreana is the southernmost island of the Galapagos archipelago and is made up of a series of parasitic cones. It has highlands with high rainfall and otherwise dry lowlands vegetation. Floreana is the only island that has two sources of fresh water, which made the island particularly attractive for settlement attempts in the history of the archipelago. Pirate caves and legendary places like the Post Office Bay give the island a mystical atmosphere in addition to its beautiful flora and fauna. Especially the human history of the archipelago is in the foreground when visiting this island. Ironically, with only about 180 inhabitants, Floreana is the least populated of the four inhabited islands today. A visit here still gives an authentic impression of hermit life on an island in the middle of the Pacific Ocean.
Our Nature & Culture program is particularly close to our hearts, as it not only introduces the visitor to the beauty and uniqueness of Galapagos nature, both above and below the water, but also gives space to its people, their activities and stories. And there is no better place than Floreana Island to experience the adventurous settlement of the archipelago. Visiting this inhabited but in terms of tourism rather isolated island requires well coordinated logistics, which is why we can offer this package with priority arrival on a Thursday.
Day 1
ARRIVAL AT BALTRA AIRPORT/ VISITOR SITES AROUND PUERTO AYORA
Your driver will be waiting for you upon arrival at Baltra Airport (GPS) and will take you to your hotel in Puerto Ayora. The transfer from the airport to the town takes about 1.5 hours.
Depending on your arrival time, you will have enough time to explore some of the area around Puerto Ayora.
Enjoy the afternoon visiting the majestic 800m long sandy beach Tortuga Bay (approx. 3-4 hours) to observe wading birds, Galapagos marine iguanas, sea lions, and many other animals, or get to know the coastal zone of Santa Cruz better with a walk to the water-filled rift of Las Grietas (approx. 2 hours) for snorkeling. Also an informative visit to the Charles Darwin Research Station (approx. 2 hours) with the breeding station of the Galapagos Giant Tortoises might be of your interest.
There are several places worth visiting around our small town, so you are spoiled for choice. A visit to Tortuga Bay beach is free of charge, at Las Grietas and the research station, you have to pay USD 10 per person on site for a group tour. All visitor sites, as part of the National Park, close around 5:00 pm.
You won't have time to visit all the places, but at the end of the trip you will have free time again to do things on your own.
Between 03:00 - 06:00 p.m. you should come to our dive center to prepare for the next day’s diving tour.
Good to know
We will be happy to organize a private naturalist guide for you if you prefer to explore the visitor sites around Puerto Ayora in company!

Day 2
DIVING MOSQUERA SOUTH & DAPHNE
The tour begins with pick-up from the hotel at 08:00 a.m. and a 45-minute drive to the Itabaca Canal in the north of Santa Cruz. There you will board the boat that will take you to the dive sites.
Mosquera is located 25 minutes from the Itabaca Channel. It is a flat islet, product of an uplift of the main volcano (Santa Cruz). On the surface you can see the sandy islet with its rocky outlines on the east side, home to a large colony of sea lions.
Before the actual dive, you do a short check dive (checking the weighting, the equipment in general and the basic dive skills) in a quiet spot near the actual dive site. Furthermore, the course of the upcoming dive is explained to them, as well as important local signs for communication under water.
The current at Mosquera South is moderate to strong, yet beginners can dive there. The diver will find a large sloping reef of 5 meters. The rocky topography goes down to 18m depth and is home to black corals and mollusk invertebrates. At the end of the reef there is a submarine rift that drops to 30m. The platform is an ideal place for a cleaning station for hammerhead sharks. Other animals to be expected at this site are Galapagos sharks, whitetip sharks, stingrays, eagle rays, golden rays, mobulas, garden eels, green turtles, sea lions, Galapagos grunts, snappers, trigger fish, trumpet fish, parrot fish, spiny dogfish, bonito tuna, Pacific sierra, steel pompanos, and Galapagos grouper.
After the first dive you have a one-hour surface interval with snacks and drinks on board, and then cruise to the second dive site, Daphne Minor. The course of the upcoming dive is explained to you.
At Daphne Minor currents range from moderate to strong, and the dive site is suitable for all experience levels. There is a small cave at the beginning of the dive where whitetip sharks rest and playful sea lions enjoy interacting with divers (this is not a cave dive!). Daphne has two different topographies, on one side even platforms with small caves and on the other side a deep wall full of black corals; seahorses can be found here as well. Almost the whole island is full of gorgonians, sponges and corals, so the dive is very colorful. Animals to be expected are Galapagos sharks, white tip sharks, hammerhead sharks, stingrays, mobulas, sea lions, green turtles, bonito tuna, trumpet fish, parrot fish, Galapagos groupers, snappers, Galapagos grunts, surgeonfish, spiny mackerels, rainbow runners, steel pompanos, barracudas, macro life like seahorses, Galapagos blennies, blueband gobies, longnose tufted basses, coral tufted basses, lizardfish and frogfish.
After this dive, we will have a delicious hot lunch on board and head back to the Itabaca Channel, where the drivers will be waiting to take you back to your hotel in Puerto Ayora.

Day 3
SANTA CRUZ HIGHLAND VISIT & COFFEE FARM
Around 08:00 in the morning your naturalist guide will pick you up from the hotel and you'll head off through the different microclimate zones into the highlands of Santa Cruz Island. The highlands are mostly cloudy, rainfalls are not uncommon. This is obviously reflected in the lush, green vegetation that contrasts with the dry coastline. Cool air with high humidity provides a nice respite from the heat down in Puerto Ayora.
The first stop is at the twin craters “Los Gemelos”. These collapsed twin craters were formed when the island was still an active volcano. The area is one of the few where the endemic Scalesia forest is almost intact. Some finch species and the Galapagos dove live here.
Afterwards you continue your way to one of the ranches where you see the Galapagos giant tortoises in their natural habitat. The tortoises do not live there in a fenced area, but are instead attracted by ponds in the pastures so that visitors can get a good look at them. A pleasure for people and for animals that can leave the enclosure at any time to continue on their way. Occasionally we also see the native pintail duck as and coots.
The area where the tortoises live is crisscrossed with underground lava tunnels. These tunnels are formed in the heart of huge lava flows and show you the violence of magma as if frozen in time. With a bit of luck you will see a sleeping Galapagos owl, appreciating the retreating darkness of the tunnels.
At the end of the walk, enjoy a delicious lunch with a view of the grazing tortoises. Afterwards, the tour continues to a Galapagos coffee farm.
Learn more about the approaches to sustainability on the islands, about local cultivation and processing techniques, and enjoy the wonderful coffee in its natural surroundings. You undertake a short hike through the coffee plants next to a variety of endemic plants like Scalesias, Guayabillos, Galapagos Croton, and White Wild Coffee. No monocultures, each bean hand selected!
The special climatic conditions of the archipelago make it possible to produce coffee at 200-300m above sea level in a quality that is normally found in the heights of the Central and South American Andes. Add the aromas of millions of years old lava rock and the trees and shrubs surrounding the coffee plants for a taste not to be missed!
At the end of the walk there is, of course, a coffee tasting, which brings the day's tour to a perfect close. Then we return to the hotel at Puerto Ayora, where we arrive at around 04:00 PM.

Day 4
LAND EXCURSION TO NORTH SEYMOUR ISLAND
Depending on the operator, the tour starts between 07:00 - 08:00 AM with pick-up from the hotel and a 45-minute drive to the Itabaca Canal, where you change to the yacht.
Lying just to the north of Baltra, North Seymour, the so-called bird island, is a low island consisting of uplifted submarine lava.
The dry landing is already rich in wildlife: sea Lions, swallow-tailed gulls, lava gulls, tropicbirds, brown noddy terns, and pelicans. After a short climb over the “pillow lavas” the rest of the trail is flat and easy to walk.
The trail is a large loop. If you walk the path clockwise, you walk first along the coast and pass through a wide expanse of sand crisscrossed by trails of marine iguanas and land iguanas. Some of the best waves on the islands hit a rocky beach to your left; young sea lions often surf here with the islands of Daphne major and minor in the background. Magnificent frigate birds and blue-footed boobies nest on this beautiful island so you have to move carefully. The Incense Trees here are an endemic species and during the dry season they look quite dead, but after the rains in February, they turn green almost overnight. Other endemic plants include opuntia cactus, croton, castela, and Galápagos carpetweed.
After this impressive tour, lunch is served on board the ship and the journey continues to the nearby Bachas Beach which is located on the north coast of Santa Cruz Island.
Bachas Beach is a beautiful, approx. 1 km of dazzling white sandy beach with shallow turquoise blue water. The landing is wet. You step from the Zodiac into the shallow waters of the bay.
The beach serves as a nesting place for sea turtles and behind the first dune is a lagoon that is frequented by flamingos and patillos. It is a good place to observe migratory birds. When snorkeling, you often come across turtles, rays and various reef fish.
After refreshments on board, you navigate back to the canal and from there take the car to Puerto Ayora. You arrive at the hotel around 04:00 PM.

Day 5
DIVING FLOREANA AND ARRIVAL AT PUERTO VELASCO IBARRA
This morning, please pack a bag with the things you will need for the next 2 days on Floreana and take it with you on the diving tour. The rest of your luggage will be safely stored at the hotel to which you will return after the stay on Floreana. The pick up is at 07:30 AM from the hotel.
Floreana is located 1.5 - 2 hours voyage south of Santa Cruz; the trip starts from the main pier of Puerto Ayora.
The first dive takes place at Champion Islet. Your guide will explain the exact dive profile to you.
At the beginning of the dive there is a semi-vertical wall where the current splits around the islet which is home to a very large population of Galapagos sea lions. It is one of the most colorful dive sites due to the amount of black coral, gorgonians and sponges that live attached to the wall. In front of it occasionally huge schools of salema fish gather, a very special experience to swim into such a school that hugs you around. The dive zigzags between the wall and the sea to spot larger pelagics like the Galapagos shark. Constant companions on this dive are reef fish such as triggerfish, harlequin wrasse, and snappers.
After the first dive you have a one-hour surface interval with snacks and drinks on board, and cruise to the second dive site Punta Cormorant.
Punta Cormorant has a sandy and rocky bottom that goes from 6 meters following a platform type profile that gets deeper. Many reef fish like barberfish, blennies, and puffer fish surround the diver. Moray eels and octopus can be found in small cavities, and mobulas, stingrays, and marbled rays are found on small platforms. and about 18-20m it’s the only place with the possibility of finding the red-lipped batfish resting in the sand (especially in the cold season). At the end of the dive sea lions playfully join the divers in the water.
After the dives, you will have lunch on board and change for the onward journey. One of the dive guides will accompany you to Floreana as your naturalist guide. You leave the other divers and are picked up by a small boat at the dive site, which takes you and your guide to Puerto Velasco Ibarra. The journey takes about 30 minutes, and arrival in the village is at around 02:00 PM.
In Puerto Velazco Ibarra, from the pier to the accommodations it is a 10-minute walk along the Black Beach coast.
The village with its tranquility and simplicity is a sharp contrast to lively Puerto Ayora on Santa Cruz. There are only a few grocery stores and restaurants, which open almost exclusively on reservation or by prior notice. Your guide and the host of your accommodation will of course be happy to help you with these arrangements.
Enjoy the natural atmosphere and stroll along sandy paths between beach morning glory, solstices and various succulents to the beautiful Lobería. In the afternoon, the sun will already be low over the sea in front of you, bathing the coast in a warm and contrasting light, which also creates spectacular impressions when snorkeling among green turtles. The colorful marine iguanas Floreanas and sea lions are permanent inhabitants of this bay.
Don't forget to write a postcard to your beloved ones in the evening for the following day!
Good to know
For travelers on budget there is no permanent accompaniment of a guide for the Floreana part of the trip, the program differs slightly from the description.

Photo by: Centro Comunitario Floreana CECFLOR
Day 6
HIKING TO POST OFFICE BAY
The day starts early, at 07:00 AM the car with your guide comes to pick you up and takes you to the highlands, to Cerro Alieri. There the 3-hour hike begins downhill through the different microclimates of the island to Post Office Bay.
The trail leads you through incense trees, parkinsonias, lantana and other dry shrubs. Galapagos columnar cacti and tree opuntias also characterize the landscape. 2 endemic species of composite flowers, Scalesia villosa and the yellow-blossoming lecocarpus pinnatifidus catch the eye. The coastal vegetation consists of beach bindweed and sundews alongside various succulents such as Scaevola plumierl, sesuvias and the endemic Nolana galapagensis.
You will encounter various subspecies of Darwin's finch, as well as frigate birds and blue-footed boobies. Sea lions and marine iguanas live on the coast. Flamingos can also be seen close to the bay, depending on the weather and season. The beaches of Floreana are among the most important nesting sites for the protected green turtle, which is why you need to be particularly careful during the nesting season (November - January).
Your guide will not only explain details about the flora and fauna, but also about the settlement history of Floreana and the islands in general. Floreana, with its freshwater springs, played a central role in this.
Post Office Bay owes its name to a wooden barrel with a long tradition. The post office set up by English whalers appeared on navigators' charts as early as 1793. Every ship that left the Galapgos took with it the messages intended for places on its route and deposited messages intended for the islanders. This tradition continues to this day. You are also invited to leave your postcard there! In addition, there are underground lava tunnels at Post Office Bay that lead down to sea level. An impressive passage at the end of which you can even swim!
After this fantastic visit, the trail continues for about 30 minutes to the Baroness's house, another milestone in the history of the settlement. In 1932, a drama between German settlers took place on Floreana that made it into the international media at the time. The self-proclaimed "Baroness" was part of these mysterious events.
The path continues briefly to Bahia de la Olla, where a boat with fresh lunch is waiting for you. Before taking the boat back across the water to Puerto Velasco Ibarra, however, you can walk up to the Baroness's lookout point to get a beautiful panoramic view of the entire bay.
On the way back by boat, there is the opportunity to snorkel in the bay “Luz del Dia” which the Galapagos penguins also frequent from time to time. About 30 minutes are planned for this activity, but this is handled flexibly depending on how long the previous activities took.
The tour ends at the main pier in Puerto Velasco Ibarra around 03:00 PM.

Day 7
HIGHLANDS OF FLOREANA/ FERRY FROM FLOREANA TO SANTA CRUZ ISLAND
At 08:00 AM you set off by car with your guide towards the highlands of Floreana, the so-called Asilo de Paz, the first place of human settlement on the island.
The path to the pirate caves and freshwater springs leads through lush vegetation which is regularly grazed by Galapagos tortoises. The fate of the Floreana giant tortoise species is strongly linked to human activities since our very first arrivals on the island. The settlement history of the islands comes to life in the guide’s stories about this special place. Times when the island was only criss-corssed by narrow paths (like the one you took the day before to Post Office Bay) and when the way from the water source to the beach meant a whole day’s walk.
After a walk of about 1.5 hours, you continue on to the farm of a long-established settler family to learn about their way of life and work on the island and to enjoy a delicious lunch of home-produced food.
You then head back to the coast to collect the luggage and travel back to Santa Cruz by speedboat. Departure is at 03:00 PM and arrival on Santa Cruz Island is at around 05:00 PM. Your driver will be waiting for you at the pier to take you to your hotel.

Day 8
DIVING BARTOLOME AND COUSIN ROCKS
Today you go diving again, but in a completely different corner of the archipelago, at Bartolome and Cousins Rock. Pick up for today's day dives is at 08:00 AM from the hotel and you travel by car to the Itabaca Channel, where you board the boat.
At Bartolome, a huge sandy/rocky platform is located at about 10 meters depth where most of the time is spent. It is a protected area with a great variety of fish like stone scorpion fish, flounders, grunts, snappers, Galapagos groupers, hogfish, jacks and echinoderms like starfish. At the edge of this platform are underwater cliffs which start at about 15 meters depth and offer good chances to observe pelagic species.
After the dive, during the surface interval, the boat will approach the famous pinnacle rock to watch out for the endemic Galapagos penguin, the second smallest penguin in the world and the only one that lives on the equator. Of course, there are also snacks and good conversations about the animals seen. We continue to the second dive site, Cousins Rock.
At the beginning of the dive there is a shallow platform where you can play with sea lions and observe e.g. stingrays and octupus. At the end of the platform is an underwater reef with a wall where turtles and white tip sharks rest; black coral and seahorses live in the niches. If you love macro life, this is the dive site for you. Here you can find one of the most colorful topographies with a variety of gorgonians, sponges and tunicates. Pelagic species like eagle rays, golden rays or manta rays (cold season) can be seen at the end of the reef.
After this dive, we will have a delicious hot lunch on board and head back to the Itabaca Channel, where the drivers will be waiting to take you back to your hotel in Puerto Ayora.

Day 9
CHOCOLATE MANUFACTORY & FREE TIME
Besides coffee, Cocoa is maybe the most typical product for Central and South America. Cocoa production in Galapagos is still in its infancy, but the islands have already found their chocolatier: Juan Daniel Navarro offers insights into his sweet craft. In his small store in Puerto Ayora, he makes wonderful treats with in-house chocolate recipes (the cacao is sourced from mainland Ecuador) and local ingredients such as Galapagos sea salt, lemongrass and toasted coconut. Be part of the making of small chocolate turtles, snacking included!
A nice, short stop (approx. 1 hour), which also offers the perfect opportunity to pick up souvenirs for your loved ones at home.
The rest of the day is at your free disposal.
Make the most of your time and visit the places you didn't have time for on your arrival day (such as Tortuga Bay, or Las Grietas), or spend the time relaxing in the village with a good meal, wine or cocktails.

Day 10
DEPARTURE DAY
It is time to say goodbye. Your driver will pick you up at your hotel 3 1/2 hours before departure and accompany you to Baltra Airport (GPS).
What’s included in our Packages?

- 9 nights accommodation with breakfast
- Professional and bilingual (Spanish/English) guidance from the National Park Galapagos on all tours: PADI instructors for the diving tours and naturalist guides for the land and snorkel excursions.
- 6 dives on 3 days with complete dive gear
- Snorkel equipment (mask, snorkel, fins) on the day tours to uninhabited islands and on the tour to Post Office Bay.
- Towel services on all tours with water activities
- Hot lunch, snacks and beverages on all full-day tours
- All transfers (airport hotel/ harbour hotel)
- Taxes
- Credit card fees
- Airfare Galapagos Quito/Guayaquil
- National Park Galapagos entrance fee
- Transition Control Card (TCT)
- Lunch on arrival day and day 9
- Dinner
- Dive Computer (not mandatory for day diving tours, all regulators come with a pressure and a depth gauge, the dive guide measures the bottom time, temperature etc. for the group)
- Tips
Pricing
Pricing plans for the tour package
Standard
From $2,650 /pp
Comfort
From $3,330 /pp
Superior
From $3,700 /pp
*All prices including taxes and credit card fees
Frequently asked questions
Meet our sales team
All locals, all divers and with many years of experience in the tourism business in Galapagos.
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Lisa
Sales Agent
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Jessica
Sales Agent
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Sabine
Sales Agent
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Virginia
Sales Agent