Iguana Crossing looks quite lovely - new since we were there I think. I couldn't find a website for it - I assume it's walking distance to town?

Re books - we read the following (took the first one with us)

Galapagos - A Natural History
http://www.amazon.com/dp/1895176409?...P10AVR8Z1946Q&

The Voyage of the Beagle (Darwin)
http://www.amazon.com/dp/014043268X?...W9VGNCPGQ9WE7&

The Beak of the Finch (Weiner) - Fantastic, not to be missed
http://www.amazon.com/dp/067973337X?...ZPQWDTT8PAFXR&

My Father's Island (Angermeyer) - Amazon has some used copies - it's an utterly charming book about the family who opened up much of the current day travel to Galapagos
http://www.amazon.com/Fathers-Island...0488727&sr=1-2


Re fins - we didn't travel with our own fins - the boat supplied them (non booty type) - all our water entries were from a boat.

On Isabela be sure to take the trip to the Caldera - the horse ride up is a blast!

You definitely shouldn't feel bad about taking a land based tour, boats leave their mark on the environment too. There isn't any way you can go to the islands that doesn't impact them in some way, and NOT going has an impact too. If there were no tourism, it's likely that over fishing would be a much bigger problem. Limits placed on both tourism and fishing are needed to at least keep the damage to a minimum.

I found that the Scopace pills worked better for me than the patch, and unlike the patch, the amount can be adjusted (even without going on a boat your husband may run into a day when he'll need something :).

I second 'Beak of the Finch'. Fascinating stuff. And it makes it more interesting when you see the finches (you'll see some at the airport on Baltra).

We snorkeled from all three. Turtles, sea lions, and all manner of fish can be seen in shallow water from the beach; we snorkeled with white tipped reef sharks at Pinnacle point from a panga, but it's within swimming distance from shore.
Have a great trip!

Regarding your question about bird/nature guides--I checked out a lot of guides from our local library and got a sense of what fit my style. I bought Wildlife of the Galapagos: http://www.amazon.com/Wildlife-Galap...d_bxgy_b_img_c. It is small--slips into a pocket easily--and has a nice balance of photos and text. (I know nothing about fish, so I didn't mind that it doesn't cover fish. For them, I mostly just pointed to my husband and murmured "Pretty!" underwater. The boat had a good book on fish IDs, so we looked at it after each snorkeling. Plus, we had a retired marine biologist on the cruise. Between him and the naturalist, more than you'd ever need to know about fish was available at all times.) Honestly, though, you really don't necessarily need one with you on the outings. Except for the smaller songbirds (e.g., finches), most of the wildlife basically just sit there and look at you. Identification, again except for the finches, is pretty much a snap. And the naturalist guide will spot and identify everything that you can't. I mostly used the book before the trip and in the evenings on the cruise, making notes so I'd remember what we'd seen and photographed that day.

Tina
trip report at http://galapagos2009.wordpress.com/

Thanks folks.

Momlyn--you mentioned that you snorkeled from 3 islands. Which ones? We will be able to get to two inhabited islands (Santa Cruz, Isabela) and two of the following four uninhabited islands: Plazas, Seymour, Bartolome or Santa Fe. Do you have suggestions as to which one of the four uninhabited islands?

We snorkeled with penguins at both Bartolome and Seymour, but in neither location were there dozens of penguins underwater...just one or two swimming by occasionally.

...And I second Elizabeth's endorsement about snorkeling with sea lions - they were much more fun and willing to interact.

Correction: In addition to Bartolome, I think it was Fernandina or Rabida where we snorkeled with penguins...not Seymour.