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Galapagos with Kids. Day 5: Pink Turtles and playing with sea lions.

Every day something new awaited us to amaze us. It was simply impossible to be bored. The morning of day 5 we boarded the zodiacs for our landing point on Fernandina Island.

Fernandina is the westernmost island in the Galapagos and it’s the youngest island as well. It’s really just a huge volcano. It’s also home to fantastic animals, notably one of the largest colonies of marine iguanas. The amazing thing about these animals is that they are everywhere on Fernandina – all over the beach, covering the rocks, everywhere! They blend in so well with the landscape that sometimes you are almost upon them before you realise that the “rock” is moving and living – as it ‘s home to literally hundreds of iguanas.

Walking along the beach we saw a little sea-lion pup walking to his mother – we were amazed – it never occurred to me that sea lions could actually walk, but they do! Other sights included seeing a whole dolphin skeleton, examining a hermit crab – which don’t own their own shells but “steal” other shells to live in, and we spent a good half hour watching huge pink turtles in a river.

There was no doubt that we were on safari – the best safari I had ever been for sure!

After our hike we went snorkeling, and once again we were joined by a playful sea-lion – it was hard not to keep laughing from pure joy as the animal literally played games with us for the whole time we were in the water.

PS I plan great trips to the Galapagos for families. Click here for more info.