Arrive at Baltra Airport and transfer in. Pay your Galapagos National Park entrance fee (unless pre-paid) and inspect your luggage. A guide meets you, assists in collecting your luggage, and escorts you on a short bus ride to the harbor. Climb aboard the yacht Solaris. Greet the crew and the captain, and they assign your cabins. Enjoy your first lunch aboard.

Santa Cruz offers excellent opportunities for viewing wild Galapagos giant tortoises, roaming through pastures in the agricultural zone and in the transition zone of the adjacent El Chato Tortoise Reserve.

While you sleep, the ship navigates to the western island of Isabela, the largest of the archipelago, and one of its youngest, at 1 million years old. Your first visit here is the offshore islet of Tintoreras, remarkable for its breeding colony of large marine iguanas (each member measures up to 1.5 m/5 ft!). Snorkel opportunities are excellent, as the site features a unique tidal channel with clear, turquoise waters, allowing you to swim alongside playful sea lions, marine turtles, marine iguanas, sting rays, and white-tip sharks. Also, you have one of the best chances to see the only tropical penguin in the world.

Afterward, enjoy a tour of the Sierra Negra volcano. Bring a backpack with hiking & water shoes, sunglasses, a hat, sunscreen, and a light rain jacket. Sierra Negra is the only major volcano on Isabela whose crater regions are currently open to tourism. Its impressive caldera of 10 km wide is the largest of the Galapagos Islands. The route followed is approximately 16 km long, and it rewards you with dramatic geological and ecological contrasts.

Start today’s tour to Sierra Negra by boarding a local chiva ride (open truck with wooden benches) leading from Puerto Villamil to the National Park Entrance. After crossing a barren lava flow with cacti and passing a flamingo lagoon, the main road leads through Isabela's surprisingly lush agricultural highlands. While gaining altitude, no less than five vegetation zones pass. A trail along the rim of Sierra Negra Volcano leads to a viewpoint where you can try to grasp the incomprehensive dimensions of its caldera (clear weather is unpredictable, but thanks to prevailing winds fog usually tends to dissolve on approach). Songbirds accompany you along the way, harmonizing the steaming volcanic landscapes.

Disembark the cruise in the afternoon and explore Black Turtle Cove from the dinghy. This place exemplifies how mangroves alter the marine environment to create a rich and unique habitat. Three mangrove species crowd the area from the shore out into the lagoon, reaching almost a mile inland. Drift through quiet waters in the zodiac, where you are likely to see spotted eagle rays swimming in a diamond formation. White-tipped reef sharks slip beneath the boat, and Pacific green turtles come to the surface for air.

Navigate to the northwest coast of Isabela during the night. Find the Sierra Negra and Cerro Azul volcanoes. Disembark at Punta Moreno and follow a trail along a solidified black lava flow to reach a complex of tidal lagoons. In the waters, observe sharks and marine turtles. Spot various bird species, including flamingos around the lakes and mangroves. Enjoy a favorite excursion that combines the opportunity to see coastal species with a hike through stunning landscapes.

Later, visit Espinoza Point, Fernandina’s only terrestrial visitors' site, and witness some bizarre animal species, products of natural selection. The figurehead, the emblematic flightless cormorant, inhabits exclusively the remote west of the Galapagos and can be considered the ‘holy grail of evolution’. This bird loses its ability to fly but becomes an agile marine hunter. Also, appreciate the almost unworldly views with the dominating cone of Volcán La Cumbre as a spectacular backdrop. The narrow headland you walk along marks the end of a lava tongue that reaches the coast and solidifies upon contact with the water.

Start your morning visit with a dinghy ride along the island's cliffs. This gives you a good chance to spot the endemic Galapagos penguin, the only one of its species living in the tropics. From the landing dock, take a 30-minute hike along the trail to the top of the cliff, where you can observe the iconic Darwin Lake. Look carefully at all the graffiti on the surrounding rocks—pirates, whalers, and buccaneers wrote them in past centuries. Back at the coast, pick a kayak to explore this paradisiacal coastal environment.

During lunch, navigate across the Bolivar Channel for a final visit to Isabela island. Enter a dark cave below a spectacular arch, where roaring echoes of the waves accompany you. Just around the corner, the collapsed amphitheater of the Ecuador volcano offers an impressive view. The calmer waters of the coves are well-protected against the ocean swell and are a fairly cold, but great place for snorkeling amongst various species of sharks, penguins, puffer fish, and even seahorses!

The beautiful volcanic islet of Bartolomé is among the youngest of the islands and, on a geological scale, was just recently born out of the fire. Although it looks deserted at first sight, Bartholomew offers some of the wildest landscapes and best panoramas of the entire archipelago. To enjoy the postcard view of the idyllic “Pinnacle Bay” you will have to climb the stairs to the viewpoint on top of the island (114 m/375 ft). Enter a dramatic world of threatening (though extinguished) nearby spatter cones, craters, and lightweight lava droplets that have been spewed out by fiery fountains. The summit trail is also ideal for witnessing how scanty pioneer vegetation, such as lava cactus, struggles to take root in the bare virgin lava fields.

The arrival in Sullivan Bay is like a moon landing. The desolate, sprawling fields seem to be out of this planet, therefore this island is very popular among photographers and geologists. The last eruption here occurred in 1897 and covered the bay with Pahoehoe lava flows, which are characterized by smooth, gently undulating, or broadly hummocky surfaces. The beach nearby has clear, shallow waters that invite you to snorkel, and if you venture to deeper waters, generous marine life can be found (like some Galapagos penguins on the rocks!). Moreover, Pacific green turtles, whitetip reef sharks (careless about humans), Galapagos sea lions, and rays are likely to make an appearance.

Dragon Hill hosts two key species that are not too commonly distributed throughout the islands: Galapagos land iguanas and American flamingos. Climb a hill with giant opuntia cacti where these animals feed and breed. This is a very photogenic spot as well, with breathtaking panoramas over the bay and towards an intriguing steep volcanic spout of red lava that overlooks the area. Dragon Hill has become popular because of its picturesque saline lagoons behind the beach, which contain minerals, algae, and shrimp that attract an abundance of seabirds.

Seymour is an uplifted (as opposed to volcanic) island and therefore is generally flat and strewn with boulders. There are good nesting sites here for a large population of magnificent frigate birds. Blue-footed boobies perform their courtship dance in the more open areas and swallow-tailed gulls perch on the cliff edges. Despite the tremendous surf that can pound the outer shore, sea lions haul out onto the beach and can be found bodysurfing.

The last visit is to Bachas beach. Two conjunct beaches, with soft white sand, make it a favorite nesting site for sea turtles. There is a small brackish water lagoon behind the first beach, where occasionally it is possible to observe flamingos and other coastal birds, such as black-necked stilts and whimbrels. The second beach is longer, and it has two old barges that were abandoned during the Second World War when the USA used this Island as a strategic point to protect the Panama Channel.

Disembark and then transfer from Baltra to the dock in Puerto Ayora.