Muelle Tijeretas Snorkeling Guide, San Cristobal Island [Rated + Reviewed]

Rating: 🤿 🤿 🤿 🤿 

Playful sea lions and swimming marine iguanas at a free shore site earn this a confident 4 snorkel masks out of 5.

Galapagos Snorkeling Rating System

For anyone new here, this is the scoring system I use across every snorkeling site review.

From our amazing San Cristobal Airbnb, the walk took approximately 25 minutes. The route takes you through the Interpretation Center, onto a boardwalk.

After walking through the Intrepretation Center, we followed a stone pathway through lava rock and cacti. It is well marked with arrows and involves gentle ups and downs. Easy to navigate.

There is some shade at the start of the walk but it opens up to full sun for most of it. Sunscreen, a hat, and plenty of water are essential.

Scattered benches line the path and offer shade breaks. Use them.

Hours: Free entry (quick sign-at the Intrepretation Center), 6 am – 6 pm, but go early.

The most important tip for Muelle Tijeretas: arrive early. On our first visit we arrived at 8:45 AM and had the platform almost entirely to ourselves, with only one other couple just leaving. By 11:30 AM when we left it was noticeably more crowded.

On our second visit we arrived at 8:30 AM and left at 12:30 PM, and the difference in crowd levels between arrival and departure was significant both times.

As we snorkeled across the Galapagos, some sites are best explored at low tide for ideal conditions, like Concha de Perla, Los Tuneles, and Las Tintoreras on Isabela.

I am not sure if this applies to Muelle Tijeretas as much.

What I can tell you is that we snorkeled this site at low tide in the mornings, and had perfect conditions both times.

Mornings in general tend to be better than afternoons for snorkeling, since winds can pick up later in the day. Combine an early morning with low tide if you can, and you should be in great shape.

Muelle Tijeretas is a rocky cove with excellent visibility thanks to the rock bottom rather than sand. Here is how to navigate it for the best experience.

Right side (as you face the water): This is where the most action happens, by far. Follow the rocks out to the outer point. Little caves with schools of black-striped salemas along the way are where sea lions like to duck in and out, playing and exploring.

We saw the marine iguanas on the rocks right beside the entry platform later in the morning,

Middle: Less eventful. We saw the occasional sea lion passing through or a sleeping turtle on the bottom.

Left side: Snorkel along the reef shelf here. Quieter than the right side but still productive with big schools of yellowtail sergeants and the occasional turtle.

A fun detail: Occasionally a tour boat drops snorkelers into the cove, and the sea lions like to welcome the new arrivals and swim under the boat.

The platform at Muelle Tijeretas is a large double platform reached by stone steps. You gear up here, then take a few additional lava rock steps down into the water.

Sea lions claim the entry steps for naps. They will not move for you. Do not try to push past them. Just wait. This is their platform before it is yours.

My husband learned this lesson the hard way.

He tried to quietly tiptoe past a sleeping sea lion to get into the water, thinking he was being sneaky. The sea lion clearly did not agree.

It snapped its head up and let out one sharp, loud bark that basically translated to back off, buddy, I am taking my nap.

Haha, lesson learned. Sea lions are the boss.

By late morning, people also sit on the steps. Combined with napping sea lions, getting in and out with fins on requires patience by the time the crowds build up.

The best exit point is the large rock all the way to the left as you face land. Clean and easy, assuming nobody else has claimed it.

What to wear: If you are planning a whole morning of snorkeling like we did, wear a rash guard and swim leggings.

The sun in the Galapagos is unlike anything else I have experienced. Intense and unforgiving.

We ALWAYS bring our own gear. Here is all the snorkeling gear I personally brought to the Galapagos (and that I’ve tested over 87+ snorkeling sites!).

Sea Lions

The headline act.

Sea lions at Muelle Tijeretas are playful, curious, and completely unbothered by your presence. They blow bubbles, spin upside down, whip around you in tight circles, and stare you down with enormous dark eyes from inches away.

So much personality!

One of the most special wildlife experiences of our entire trip happened right here, repeatedly, for free.

Yes, I’ve included a ton of sea lion photos in this blog post! Each one has so much personality that I could not bring myself to delete a single shot.

If you are curious what I use to capture moments like this underwater, here is my favorite underwater camera I used in the Galapagos.

They also love to play with things, and nibble.

My husband wears Scubapro Go Sport fins with orange accents, and the sea lions were endlessly curious about them, repeatedly trying to nibble at his fins while he swam (seen in the photos below!).

This tracks with other things I have seen. I have come across YouTube videos of sea lions playfully pulling on a whitetip reef shark’s tail, just messing with it for no reason, and even swimming around with an eel in its mouth like a toy.

It is the marine equivalent of that one sibling who will not stop harassing their brother or sister just because they can.

They are so entertaining!

We genuinely did not expect to snorkel with marine iguanas. I thought that only happened on a remote western islands cruise.

Muelle Tijeretas proved us completely wrong. We later saw them swimming again at Concha de Perla on Isabela Island, so this turned out to be more common than we realized (or maybe we were just lucky? I don’t know?).

We watched two marine iguanas sun themselves on the rocks to the right of the entry platform as you face the water, then dive into the water once warmed up.

They swim with their arms and legs flat against their bodies while their tail sweeps side to side like a rudder.

Then they dive down and scrape and eat algae off underwater rocks with their prehistoric-looking claws.

Watching a marine iguana swim is like watching a tiny dinosaur take up the activity for the first time. Genuinely surreal.

Fish

So many fish, so many photos. Here is what we spotted across both visits.

• Bait balls of Black-striped Salemas gathered around the little sea caves
• Parrotfish, Mexican Hogfish, and schools of Yellowtail Surgeonfish
• One Pufferfish
• Giant Hawkfish
• Panamic Fanged Blenny

The last two were incredibly colorful fish I never would have spotted on my own since they blend in so well with the rocks and coral.

My husband is my water safari guide on every trip, he has an eagle eye for spotting things I swim right past, and he found both of these.

We spotted a Giant Hawkfish again later in the trip at Devil’s Crown, tucked motionless in the coral with those almost hieroglyphic cobalt blue markings. I mistook that one for a moray eel. They are masters of hiding in plain sight!

Other Wildlife Spotted Across Two Visits

• Blue Sea Star
• Panamic Horse Conch
• Orange Cup Coral and Slate Pencil Urchin
• A few turtles resting on the sea floor and swimming around.

We had even closer encounters with turtles later at Bahia Rosa Blanca during the Kicker Rock 360 Tour and La Loberia, so if turtles are a priority for you, those stops deliver even more.

• Arrive early. The difference in crowd levels by late morning is significant.
• The walk from town takes about 25 minutes with very little shade. Bring water, a hat, and sunscreen.
• Bring your own snorkel gear. Nothing beats a mask that actually fits your face like a glove. Here are my favorite masks after decades of testing.
• Snorkel the right side first for the most consistent wildlife activity.
• Wait patiently for sea lions to move off the entry steps. They will not move for you.
• The large rock on the far left is your best exit point if it is open.
• Watch behind and beside you in the water, not just in front. Sea lions approach from every direction.

Muelle Tijeretas is one of the best free shore snorkel sites in the Galapagos, and we say that as snorkelers who have explored reefs across multiple continents.

The sea lions alone justify the trip. The marine iguanas swimming is a genuine bonus most visitors do not expect.

We snorkeled it twice during our time on San Cristobal and the second visit was just as magical as the first.

If you are staying nearby, go early, go often, and let the sea lions decide how the morning unfolds. They always do.

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Questions about our snorkeling experience at Muelle Tijeretas?

Let me know in the comments below!