Bay Tour in Santa Cruz

Tour de Bahia (Half-Day Tour or DIY)

The Bay Tour in Santa Cruz island lets you see all the incredible water and lava-rock formations that exist on this island and a lot of its flora and fauna.

All of this in just a half-day tour.

You will snorkel with lots of tropical fish and hopefully, turtles and baby sharks, visit and swim at Las Grietas canyon, and watch the beautiful Love Channel, between other places.

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Bay Tour in Santa Cruz: General Details

This tour can be done with any agency or by yourself but it’s a bit trickier. I recommend you to do it with Galapagos Dreams they were super professional and friendly.

Tour Highlights: Love Channel, Las Grietas, Playa de Los Perros, Las Tintoreras.
Tour Duration: Around 4 hours of duration.
Tour Price: Around 40-50$ USD .
Tour Agency: Galapagos Dreams.

How To Do The Bay Tour in Santa Cruz?

To do the Bay tour you can actually do it in two different ways, by yourself or with a tour.

By yourself, you can only go to Las Grietas and Playa de los Alemanes. First, you need to rent a taxi boat at Muelle Acuario that leaves you on a small pier right at the exit of Puerto Ayora’s harbour. Then you need to walk for a few minutes to Playa de los Alemanes, which is where the hotel Finch Bay stands. Then you need to hike to Las Grietas for another 10-15minutes. You reach a registration desk and then walk for another 10-15 mins with a guide. Then you have to make your way back to the pier and take another taxi-boat back to Puerto Ayora.

As always I would advise you to do the exploration by yourself to save money and find the places with fewer people, but you won’t save time, and time in the Galapagos is expensive.

If you go by yourself, to enter Las Grietas you need to pay $10 USD (with an obligatory guide), the water taxis cost you roughly 1$ USD per ride and per person, and you will need to rent snorkel equipment (on the tour it is included, as is the food).

The second option is a tour. I again recommend you book it with the company Galapagos Dreams. Ask them at the reception where you need to go or if someone will pick you up.

Make Sure to Reserve Your Spot for a Bay Tour

What to Bring to The Bay Tour in Santa Cruz?

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
Mosquito Repellent: The beaches on the Galapagos islands, especially at sunset, have a lot of mosquitos and usually also horseflies or “Tabanos” as they are called in Spanish and they are silent and leave you with a huge unpleasant swollen bite.
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 Bay Tour in Santa Cruz

I booked the tour at my hotel, as I did with the Highlands Tour, then I went onto the pier and the tour started. There were around 10 people on the boat, mostly locals and also a German family.

The tour first takes you to do some birdwatching on the rocky wall on the right side of the pier at Academy Bay, followed by a bit of snorkeling, then it takes you to see the Love Channel, the Playa de Los Perros, and Las Tintoreras (blue on the map), and finally, it takes you to Las Grietas (green on the map) before taking you back to Puerto Ayora.

Update 2026: I went again in January this year and did the DIY Las Grietas option (description after the Tour experience below)

Discovering the Lover's Channel

Once the tour started we went to do some flora and fauna observation on the rock formation on the right side of the pier.

There the guide showed us the endemic flora of the island like the opuntia cactus on the top, explained to us how this place was formed, and showed us some orange beautiful crabs and some greyish birds and at a distance a couple of blue-footed boobies.

After we went to the middle of the Academy Bay to try and see some Galápagos sharks, he threw a shoe into the water and the sharks moved close by.

Then we moved a bit further and did some snorkeling, we saw many starfish and colorful fish. When on the boat the guide gave us some fruits to eat.

After that, we went ashore next to a beautiful beach (perhaps with the low tide it’s possible to sunbathe there if you come with a taxi-boat), and after 20 meters you can already see the gorgeous Love Channel on your right.

Unfortunately swimming here is not allowed on the tour (perhaps if you come alone it is)

After a couple of photos, we had to continue to Playa de Los Perros.

Playa de Los Perros Beach, and Las Tintoreras

After the Love Channel, the guide took us on an earthy path onto the Playa de Los Perros beach, on the way you see some Opuntias cacti and perhaps some lava lizards. It’s a short 5-minute walk to the beach maximum.

Once at the “beach”, you can take some photos and try to spot some marine iguanas on the rocks, but that’s about it. There is almost no sand next to the water. Perhaps it was low tide and it’s better at high tide. Try to come here by yourself and check the tides first.

Then we moved back to the Love Channel and when we arrived there we took a right turn to go see the Las Tintoreras pools.

Here in theory you can see baby black tip reef sharks that in the Galapagos are called Tintoreras. Unfortunately, we saw none, for the water was too muddy.

After Las Tintoreras we went back to the boat which took us to the area where Las Grietas canyon is located.

Exploring Las Grietas

Once the boat dropped us the guide told us to memorize the way back to the pier in case one would get lost or confuse our group with another.

We then went on a straight paved path, passing through some houses and some rivers with cacti and a lagoon, and finally arrived at a viewpoint where we could see the canyon, beautiful!

There were already some people swimming down there. We moved down the steps and went into the water.

I recommend you ask the guide if you can bring the snorkel gear from the boat with you as it would have been appreciated here, the rock formations underwater are amazing and there are some little fish too. Definitely bring your GoPro with you.

I swam a bit further to see the entire area, the guide told us we had like 20 minutes inside and I might have run out of time on the second section so after exploring some underwater tunnels I swam fast back to the start.

They were building another wooden path to the second section when I was there so perhaps in the future you have more time and can explore better this gorgeous place.

And that’s about it after Las Grietas we went back to Puerto Ayora and the Bay Tour in Santa Cruz was over.

What about you, have you already done the Bay Tour on Santa Cruz island? If you have please leave me a comment down here with 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!

The 2026 DIY Experience

Together with my mother and my wife, we took a water taxi from the Muelle Acuario pier, not the main pier, the one on its right (when you’re looking to the sea). The taxi drove us to a small pier just 5 mins from Puerto Ayora, and we walked our way to Playa de los Alemanes, where Finch Bay Hotel stands.

We snorkelled a bit and saw some baby reef sharks, ducks, and other birds and my wife and I continued on foot to Las Grietas, this part of the activity is where it merges with the official Bay Tour, you pass through some salt lakes, register yourself with the park next to a small café, they appoint a naturalist guide for you for 10$ and continue to the canyon where you can swim.

It’s all controlled; you can’t stay more than x amount of time, but if you’re by yourself, I believe you have more freedom. Our guide didn’t push us out, as the guide from the group near us did to them.

*I dropped some photos from this 2026 experience at the end of this post.

Photo Gallery

Discovering the Lover's Channel

Playa de Los Perros Beach, and Las Tintoreras

Exploring Las Grietas

The 2026 Experience

From the Taxi-boat to the Playa de los Alemanes

From Playa de los Alemanes to Las Grietas

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