After North Seymour the ship sailed to Sullivan Bay, Santiago during lunch. We were not here to see animals, but volcanoes. I did not even know there were volcanoes in the Galapagos. But there are, so the afternoon hike was to cross some not-too-recent lava flows. This hike is the first to be rated “Challenging”.

Now, my father was in the Navy. Thus I have lived in Hawaii for several years while growing up, and visited it as an adult. I feel I have seen what I’ve needed to see about volcanoes. In addition my knees were telling me that perhaps I have had enough hiking for two days. So I took this afternoon off and decided to show you the ship. I’ll start from the bottom up.

Here’s a top view of the dock. The Zodiac revs up and pushes its bow into the dock to make a stable platform for passengers to enter/exit. Two crew assist from the ship and the guide assists from the Zodiac. You can see the hydraulic pistons on both sides. They lift the dock and fold it against the ship when it is moving.

The Silver Origin has two types of Zodiac: the Heavy Duty Mk 4 (driver at the rear, sits 12) and Heavy Duty Mk 5 (driver in the middle, sits 15).

Inside from the dock is the “Base Camp”, a ready room where passengers wait for the Lead Guide to assign groups to individual guides and then enter the Zodiacs. Considering you can have wet tourists walking thru here it looks very safari-museum-like. The reception desk is also down here.

One deck up is the Explorer’s Lounge, which is where we receive our next-day’s-plan briefings and other presentations. There is a 3×3 big TV in the front and supporting single TVs along the side. The sun was coming in at an annoying angle so the shadows aren’t great. The image is also a little wavy in the middle because I suck with panoramic pictures on my phone. There is a piano at the front and a bar at the back, because they know us explorers well.

Across from the Lounge is the restaurant, simply called “The Restaurant”. No reservations needed. The room in the back is used when the meal has a buffet element.

Above are two decks of cabins and then the top deck with the open-air Grill. Note the glass sliding-door walls that allow for views but blocks the wind. In the evenings reservations are needed.

There is open lounge area on the top deck to the back of the ship. Yes. “Aft”. I know. It’s where I took the pictures of the dock. There is a 4-person spa but no pool.

I think the ship is wonderfully decorated. I’ll talk about the cabin in another post.