Nearly everyday of the trip started with breakfast at 7am, followed by a landing on one of the islands at 8. The island trips normally lasted about 2 hours, but the time flew by thanks to shear number of different (and unbelievably tame) animals, and our fantastic guide, Juan. We would normally squeeze a snorkelling session in before lunch (check out the underwater photos at the end of the post) before heading onto our second location in the afternoon. The island visits were via panga boats and were either dry landings (normally a small pier, but sometimes just a rock!), wet landings (jumping out of the boat on a beach before the next wave hits you!) or panga rides around the mangroves.

We were lucky enough to encounter (sometimes within touching distance); Sei Whales, Dolphins (2 types) Penguins, White Tipped Reef Sharks, Galapagos Sharks, Sea Turtles, Sea Lions, Seals, Giant Tortoises, Lonesome George, Marine Iguanas (the black ones) Land Iguanas (the orange ones) Lava Lizards, Frigate birds (pirates), Blue Footed Boobies (and their chicks), Nazca Boobies, Lava Herons, Galapagos Hawks, Darwins Finches, and a whole host of others! There was also the interesting flora and fauna which has had to adapt to the various volcanic landscapes.

Apart from all the above we also got to venture down massive Lava tunnels, where Juan would tell us gruesome stories from the human history of the Galapagos (in the pitch dark!) We visited the oldest post office on the islands (over 200 years old) where the postcards don’t even require stamps, and I got to play a part in the Galapagos “2nd Division” football league, helping the Samba team ensure victory! All of the other 12 guests on board were great company and we thoroughly enjoyed the hospitality of the great crew and capitano!

In an attempt to keep this post fairly brief I have left out many of the great memories (maybe I will write a proper round up at some point). And here are the photos (warning, there are 60 photos in the “best of” slide show, and 43 in the underwater slide show).

The “Best Of” Photos:

Underwater Photos:

1. The event just wasn’t long enough! Although i did manage to say hi to alot of the people i find inspiring in this industry, there were soooo many other interesting people i wanted to talk to, but didnt have the time. To be fair, i would be surprised if anyone had the stamina make it through more than 2 (and a bit) action packed days, so not sure how to get around that one!
2. Far too many interesting seminars! I managed to get along to all of the allotted time slots, and still only saw half the talks i was interested in! Again, to be fair, alot of the sessions were recorded, so looking forward to catching them when they appear online.
3. Having to wait one year for the next A4u event! But this shouldn’t be a problem for most people, as they can attend the A4u Amsterdam event! (but i’m going be on another continent )
4. OK, i’m going to stop now… this event was amazing! It’s no good trying to pretent otherwise.

So here are my highlights from the A4Uexpo.

Seminars:

I won’t go into detail on every session i attended, but just to say i didnt find any of them boring! Highlights:

1. Yoast, and his SEO for WordPress presentation. Fantastic! I made so many notes, i don’t even know where to begin! He has made the slides available here.
2. Million Dollar Blogging Strategies, by Al Carlton. A great presentation from an inspiring blogger. The room was packed, and Al answered loads of great questions at the end.
3. So, you don’t do travel? – A great session where Sunshine.co.uk revealed their new amazing looking wordpress tool, Sunpress. Something i am definitely going to look into in the upcoming weeks. It was great that they gave a live demonstration of how it worked.
4. Internal (get the slides here (thanks Roy!)) & External linking strategies – Great! I have loads of notes to work through.
5. Seo, PPC, & competitor analysis tools uncovered – Again, a very helpful session, with loads of things that i need to implement in the upcoming weeks.

Networking:

I didn’t make it to the ICE party on the final night, but by all accounts it was superb. I did manage to attend both the Ignite, and the Thames Cruise, which were both fantastic! I got to talk to loads of people, drink loads of free beer, and eat lots of tasty snacks. I thought both events were superbly well organised.

I would like to say a big thank you to Matthew Wood and his team for a truly amazing couple of days.

Pictures:

Here are my photos:

I didn’t really have time to take many snapshots, so if you are interested in seeing some great photos, then check out the bandannas here, and some great photos below.