The government of Ecuador has recently launched its "Observatorio Turistico" for Galapagos.  The program intends to provide all kinds of official data on tourism in Galapagos, from arrival numbers, hotels, ships and other related information.  It also includes reports on the industry in the islands.   A review of the live-aboard cruise ships contained in the database provides us with the first reliable complete (we assume...) list of ships in the islands, by ship size and category.    We've started many comments in our TripAdvisor replies with "Of the approximately 65 ships that ply Galapagos waters...." - well, now we have some harder numbers to help us.  Here they are:

74 live-aboard cruise ships, of which:

• 5 are for scuba diving trips only (all 16 passengers)
• 7 (fewer than 16 passengers)
• 44 (16 passengers)
• 7 (17 - 22 passengers)
• 5 (23-48 passengers)
• 6 (49 - 100 passengers)

So, excluding the scuba ships, we can now say that 69 ships are licensed for live-aboard tourism cruises in the islands.  Of these:

• 64% of which are 16 passenger ships
• 17% carry fewer than 16 passengers
• 19% carry more than 16 passengers.

Assuming they were all sailing at the same time, and at full capacity, visitors to the Galapagos islands would be distributed on ships as follows:

• fewer than 16 passengers:   78  (4%)
• 16 passengers ships:    784  (45%)
• 17 - 22 passengers ships:   138 (8%)
• 23-48 passengers ships:  204 (12%)
• 49 - 100 passengers ships:  556 (31%)