Pandemic or not, cruising is still the best way to see the Galapagos Islands

It was surely only 19th-century prudishness that prevented the collective noun for boobies being something rather more descriptive. Instead, we’ve been left with congress – a congress of boobies. Perhaps that’s not the worst alternative, but as I watched 200 or so blue-footed boobies splash into the Pacific, I wasn’t so much thinking about collective nouns as feeling pity for the doomed sardines below.

On land, the blue-footed booby seems made for derision – clumsy, goofy, almost as laughable as the penguin. All of this is forgotten when they’re in the air, though, and especially when they’re hunting. Doubly so when they’re doing it as a congress. Fishing en masse is fairly common behaviour for the blue-footed booby, but as I watched them perforate the surface of the Pacific just off Santa Cruz Island in the Galapagos, something much rarer was bobbing on the horizon: a functioning cruise ship.

Ecoventura’s luxury vessel Theory is far more than functional, but with the world only just beginning to think about a more hopeful future, it was one of only three ships sailing the archipelago. In an ordinary year, it would be one of around 100. While for the 15 passengers it was the first cruise since last March, Captain Jhon Feijoo and his crew had become very familiar with their ship. They locked down on board, which perhaps sounds like a hardship, but the captain shrugged it off.

“I used to work on big ships in Asia and be on for six months, so this wasn’t so new for me,” he told me. “The Covid-19 restrictions have taken more adjustment. The first couple of days were quite strange, because it was hard to connect with the guests. But as the days passed in this beautiful natural paradise, I felt we shared something special.”

I agreed – the Galapagos Islands are one of the world’s rare destinations that seem worth the extra expense and logistical challenges of travelling when confidence is low and concern high. Cruising is the best way to see most of the islands and so, with precautions, it seemed like a reasonable risk. Owing to a series of outbreaks that saw ships branded “plague vessels” during the early stages of the pandemic, cruising’s road to recovery is one of the toughest across the travel industry. I’d seen the challenges myself: the last ship I’d been on became one of the unlucky ones after I disembarked. Crew I had sailed with were held at anchor off Montevideo for several weeks as the virus spread.