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Thanks, George, for the information. How much freedom do you get on one of these cruises? Are you able to get up and out for peak hour photography in the morning?

James



James,

Freedom is a relative word here. There is quite a bit of sailing time between the islands so the way the boats work it is they sail from island to island at night and spend the days at each island. The Ecuadoran government has very strict rules about tours and each boat visiting an island must be accompanied by one or more government certified naturalists. Tours of the islands themselves are strictly scheduled for each boat so there is a specific amount of time each tour group gets at a particular area (usually the time is sufficient to see everything). You are not allowed to leave the tour on your own at any of the islands where there is wildlife. The naturalists however understand about photographers and while you are with the tour group they make sure you get plenty of opportunities to get pics. The only time you get "free" time in on the populated islands, Santa Cruz and San Cristobal where there are "shopping" opportunities.

And to answer your question directly, no you do not get the freedom to take advantage of peak lighting times, especially in the mornings. Most of the time in the morning you are on the boat during dawn hours which makes it impossible to use a tripod for the low light pre sunrise shots. On our smaller schooner there was usually way too much ocean motion to get low light pics. There were just a couple of times at sunset when we were on dry land so not too many sunset shots either. I'm not sure if there might not be some tours expressly for photographers that you might want to look into. I didn't see any when I was booking our trip.

You might want to check out my travel pics from our trip at
http://www.lamsonfamily.com/Public/Galleries/Galapagos/index.htm

Last edited by glamson; 11/18/07 02:03 PM.
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