Tortuga Bay is a beautiful beach on the island of Santa Cruz on the Galapagos Islands. The beach is reached by a fairly-long walkway from the main town of Puerto Ayora.
As we exited the walkway, we were deposited on a huge sandy beach called Playa Brava, and as beautiful as it is, the waters are too rough there for swimming, so in order to swim and play in the water, we had to walk even further, until reaching a cove called Playa Mansa that is perfect for swimming and kayaking.
Despite the long walk, we managed to go to this beach twice during our five-day stay. The first time was after we spent the morning hanging out with tortoises, so we didn’t get there until fairly late (plus we didn’t realize how long the walk would be), so it wasn’t too crowded, but we weren’t there long before someone came around to tell us the beach was closing and we had to leave.
Luckily, we were there long enough to spot plenty of marine iguanas, a baby shark and a ray hiding in the sand in the shallow water.
After the glimpse we got of the beach, we knew we would try to make it back again.
A few days later, we headed out early in the morning to get back to the beach. We hoped the walk wouldn’t feel quite so long going in the morning instead of after a long day of walking, but it was still pretty far.
We got to our calm bay and decided to rent a kayak.
We split up and took turns on the kayak, with C, L and N going out first. They came back after about half an hour to report that they had spotted a sea turtle! I was super excited, and A and I (along with L again) headed out on the kayak in search of our own sea turtle.
We spent some time searching for sharks, and checking out some pelicans and blue-footed boobies we had spotted on the shoreline. Finally, in the center of the bay, we spotted what we thought might have been a sea turtle. We carefully and slowly headed towards it, and were rewarded with an up-close sighting!
The sea turtle even swam underneath us. It was so magical to see it up close!
After some more searching for sea turtles (and spotting one a little further away that we couldn’t get closer to), we saw something flip out of the water, and realized there was a big eagle ray. We got a bit closer and could see it swimming under the water.
Our time was up on the kayak and we headed back to the beach for some sand castle building.
Eventually, I got restless and rented a single kayak for an hour to head out by myself. I was dying to see more marine animals!
I had scoped out the map provided by the kayak rental company and saw where the sharks were supposed to be (on the edge of the bay in the mangroves). I paddled a bit and thought I saw a shark pretty much right away, but it swam away from me and towards the middle of the bay, so I continued along the edge. I didn’t see anything else, but ran into someone who asked if I had seen anything and when I mentioned I thought I saw one back behind me, she rushed over to that spot and was hanging out there for a while. Based on that, I figured that the sharks were hard to spot and that there was indeed one around there, so after she left I headed back. I got lucky and spotted a few (or the same one a few times) really close to my kayak. These sharks are actually pretty small, but still cool to watch.
After a bit, I headed back to the open part of the bay in search of some of the elusive sea turtles. It was very peaceful floating out there, just me and the kayak. I did spot a sea turtle a few times in the distance, but never got as close as I did with A and L.
After my peaceful hour of solo kayaking, it was approaching lunchtime and the sun was coming out from behind the clouds, heating things up quite a bit, so we decided to head back. On the way back, we stopped at a spot near the big part of Tortuga bay and saw tons and tons of marine iguanas, including some adorable little ones.
We also got a great view of a little cove with big waves hitting it, where both marine iguanas and sea turtles were playing in the waves! It was amazing, and the only time we actually saw marine iguanas in the water!
