Why so many Galapagos naturalist cruises?

[DazedAndConfuzed]

Not exactly dive related, but I was wondering why there are so many Galapagos naturalist cruises but so few dive liveaboards.

I understand the popularity of the liveaboards, given that there is very little place like Darwin and Wolf for scuba diving, but not sure why there are so many naturalist cruises where people just walk around and see tortoises, birds, sea lions, iguanas? And that's for 7 days. I could understand paying a grand or two to do that stuff, but $5-$6k? Couldn't those things be observed anywhere else? Is topside of Galapagos island that revered as a naturalist site that people go that much out of the way to see it? I thought can see similar stuff during land excursions while on those hawaii mega cruises.

 

[theduckguru]

Bragging rights that you have been to the Galap.

 

[DazedAndConfuzed]

LOL,

Somebody heard we were heading there, then contacted another friend who contacted their sibling who was there on a naturalist cruise to see what helpful info they could provide us. They forwarded the pictures they took and we see lots of pictures of sea lions, iguanas, tortoises, crabs, birds, etc (and them next to those animals..to show proof that these aren't postcards, but were actually there...plus them snorkeling??? Is that a suppose to be a memorable event worthy of so many pix?) Granted we see the same things over and over on dives, but there is always the sense of adventure involved during diving that makes even repeated dives exciting.