July 18, 2010 – Photo of the Week: “The Beach on Bartolome Island”

Bartolome Island is one of the Galapagos Islands we visited on our recent South America holiday. It is one of the most beautiful, most famous, and one of the youngest islands in the Galapagos archipelago. It was named after Sir Batholemew James Sulivan, who was a naturalist and a good friend of Charles Darwin.

It’s not a big island, as its total land area is 1.2 km². Its beauty and diversity make up for its size, though. There isn’t a whole lot of vegetation on the island, but the island has an extinct volcano and an assortment of red, orange, green and black rock formations.

On this photo you will notice the soft yellow sandy beach that I snorkeled from, and enjoyed seeing fish in the turquoise waters. If you snorkel out to Pinnacle Rock you can swim with the Galapagos penguins, sea lions and if you’re lucky, sea turtles, white-tipped sharks, black-tipped sharks and stingrays.

Pinnacle Rock is a large black rock that is actually a tuff cone. It was also used as a target during World War II, and it is the rocky formation on the right hand side of this photo.

I really enjoyed my time snorkeling and photographing the sea lions and penguins during my visit to Bartolome. But you’ll be able to see those pictures at a later time… 🙂

Bartolome was memorable and beautiful, and I hope you think so too!

Until next week…

To view: The Beach on Bartolome Island