Bartolome Island Tour

From Santa Cruz, Galapagos

The Bartolome Island Tour is the most iconic tour you can do on the Galapagos islands.

You will go on a gorgeous sailing ship starting at Santa Cruz island, passing through the Daphne islands, and arrive at the beautiful Bartolomé island, almost an islet from Santiago island.

With luck, you might spot some penguins as we did and then you go snorkel on one of the paradisiac beaches in the near.

Bartolome Island Tour: General Details

This tour can only be done with a tour agency:

• Highlights: The viewpoint on top of Bartolomé island to the Playa Dorada beach, The Pinnacle Rock, Penguins spotting, and snorkeling.
• Starting time: 5:30 - 7:00 am (depends on the agency)
• Duration: Full day.
• Price: 200$ USD.
• Agency/Guide: Galapagos Dreams.

Bartolome Island Tour: Curiosities

The name of the island comes from Charles Darwin’s friend Bartholomew James Sullivan who was the principal surveyor and second lieutenant aboard the HMS Beagle.

Bartolomé is a volcanic tuff islet on the east side of Santiago island.

It is the most photographed place in the Galapagos archipelago.

The most iconic part of the island is the Pinnacle Rock.

According to the official Galapagos Conservancy website, the Pinnacle Rock is a volcanic cone, it was formed when magma was expelled from an underwater volcano; the sea cooled the hot lava, which then exploded, only to come together and form this huge rock made up of many thin layers of basalt”

American airmen troops used the pinnacle as a target during WWII.

It is one of the younger islands in the Galapagos archipelago.

The Pinnacle Rock appeared in the movie Master and Commander, with Russel Crowe.

The pools at Bartolomé island

How To Do the Bartolome Island Tour?

You have to book the tour with a travel agency. I booked with Galapagos Dreams and they picked me up at my hotel at 6 am.

Yes, 6 am. If you come to the Galapagos and don’t want to spend your entire day at the beach, expect the tours to start around that time.

Especially diving tours and tours that you need to drive a long way so they can start, like this one.

The van picks you up and some other people in the other hotels and drives all the way through the island until it reaches the Itabaca Channel, from where the ferries to Baltra island depart, the boats to the diving spots, and the one to Bartolomé.

Make Sure to Reserve Your Spot for a Bartolome Island Tour

Map of Bartolome Island’s tour

What to Bring to the Bartolome Island Tour?

Clothing & Accessories:

• Tshirt: Breathable Tshirt (Tech or Merino), or a Lycra
• Jacket: Waterproof Jacket
• Shorts: Shorts, and  Swimming Clothes
• Shoes: Hiking Shoes, and Flip Flops
• Hat: Cap
• Sunglasses
• Dry-fast Towel
• Earth Pak Waterproof Dry Bag
• Change of Clothes

Useful Extras:

• GoPro/Camera
• First-Aid Kit - Extra Sea Sickness Medication and Mosquito Repellent:
• Sunscreen 50 SPF
• Food / Snacks
• Thermos or Water-filtering Bottle

Check out my complete guide on What’s in My Backpack - From photography gear, and clothing for Hiking, Mountaineering, Scuba Diving, Rainforest, and City-Street Photography.

My Experience on the Bartolome Island Tour

This was my fifth day on Santa Cruz island, I had already seen most of the island and I was almost fully recovered from my food poisoning from two days ago.

This is therefore the third island I visited on the Galapagos and I was based in Santa Cruz so it was a Full Day tour.

Here I leave you with the other attractions you can find on the gorgeous Santa Cruz island. You can also check my other adventures in Ecuador.

The idilic landscape of Bartolomé island

The Sailing Ship Experience

After picking me up at 5:30h we went to pick up some other people at their hotels and we drove off for 1 hour to Itabaca Channel.

Once we got there we got on a  rubber boat that took us to our big sailing ship.

Inside we were greeted by the crew and started the trip to Bartolomé Island.

As soon as we got in we left our shoes in a container, dropped our backpacks and went for breakfast inside the ship.

One hour after starting the trip we passed through Daphne Mayor and Daphne Minor islands.

Two hours later we reached Bartolomé Island. It is a 3-hour ride. There wasn’t much wind so we didn’t use the sails.

On the way, you can go to the front of the ship and observe, together with the guide, jumping manta rays, turtles, many different birds, and flying fishes.

Our guide was specially trained in spotting wildlife which was great.

Once we arrived at Bartolomé Island we went down from the ship to the same rubber boat from the start and we were dropped at a little port full of Grapsus Grapsus orange crabs.

The beginning of the sailing trip

The front of the ship

The crew having a snack in the interior of the ship

Daphne Mayor and Minor islands on the way to Bartolomé Island

People sunbathing on the deck of our ship

The first sight of Bartolomé island

Bartolomé island’s cone where the viewpoint stands (if you look carefully you can see the wooden stairs to reach it)

The views right after stepping out of the rubber boat.

Detail of the pool and the pinnacle rock at the distance

A volcanic cone on Bartolome Island

Bartolomé island desolated landscape

The Pinnacle Rock

Exploring Bartolome Island

Once we arrived at the island we immediately spotted a lonely penguin swimming around and many orange crabs, what a delight.

The main attraction on this island is the viewpoint at the top of the island but for me the entire environment is unbelievable.

You are dropped on a volcanic desertic yellow-brownish landscape surrounded by blue-turquoise water full of colorful crabs and white moss-like plants.

Then we started climbing to the viewpoint and the guide starts explaining to us about these incredibly resistant plants and some cacti that live with almost no water.

It’s a really arid landscape so it’s impressive that there’s life at all on the island. We could spot some lava lizards too.

Along the way, you see volcanic cones, or collapsed ones, and lava tunnels. He told us when he was young and there weren’t many restrictions in Galapagos he could go inside these volcanic cones with his friends and clients.

He showed us that most of the rocks you see look quite big and heavy but are actually very light.

After climbing for let’s say half an hour with stops we arrived at the viewpoint and stood there appreciating and taking some photos.

You could see from up there how huge Santiago island is in the background and it has a much different landscape than Bartolomé.

It’s very green and it had had a quite “recent” eruption so you could see the lava flow on its shores.

Then it was time to go down and do some snorkeling.

Spotting penguins as soon as we arrived to the little pier.

The pool, ships and Santiago island at the distance

A lava cactus on the desolated Bartolome island

The wooden stairs that lead you to the viewpoint

The view from the viewpoint in Bartolome Island

Me at the viewpoint in Bartolome Island

Santiago island

Santiago Island

Snorkeling Around the Island and the Return to Santa Cruz

And to conclude our tour we went snorkeling between Bartolomé and Santiago islands.

We saw so much life, comparable to a scuba dive day really.

There were multiple black and whitetip reef sharks, huge schools of fish, turtles, many many gorgeous starfish, and penguins.

There was a cave with four or five sleeping blacktip reef sharks, there were many king angelfish and yellow-tailed surgeon fish, some puffer fish, incredible really.

The coolest and most unexpected thing I saw while snorkeling was the lava tunnels underwater.

That I had never seen, even scuba diving. Amazing, it looked like man-made structures.

And that was it, after snorkeling, we went back to the boat and had again a 3-hour journey back to Santa Cruz. This was by far one of the coolest tours I have done on the Galapagos. Totally worth the money.

Black tip reef shark hidden inside a school of fish

Lava tunnel formations inside the water

One last goodbye selfie of the entire group

A sea of starfish around Bartolome Island

A huge school of fish

A white tip reef shark underneath the waters of Bartolome Island

Spotted some penguins chilling on the rocks above water (can you see them?)

An ancient collapsed lava tunnel underwater

The goodbye to the Pinnacle Rock

What about you, have you already done the Bartolomé Island full-day tour? Leave me a comment down here if you have and what was your opinion.

Thanks for reading through and I hope you have fun on this tour!

I’ll drop a couple of my other favorite photos from the tour down below, enjoy!

Photo Gallery

The Sailing Ship Experience

Exploring Bartolome Island

Snorkeling Around the Island, and the Return to Santa Cruz