We flew into San Cristobal from Quito late in the afternoon and met our guide for the week, John. Straight away we went to our boat, The Millennium. Throughout the last 12 weeks Marc has been telling everyone how much he was looking forward to using the jacuzzi which was in our room on the boat and so when John told him that it wasn’t working his face just fell! I had been telling him that it wasn’t really environmentally friendly anyway but he was still gutted!
The boat started its engines late in the night and we went to the island of Espagnola . It is the southernmost island of the Galapagos and following a successful programme to remove all the feral species, is the most pristine. In the morning we went to Gardner Bay which was a beautiful white sand beach. There were sea lions absolutely everywhere and they weren’t in the slightest bit fazed that we were there too. They very much reminded me of Marc. We have seen them on rocks and boats and the way they lie there looking so relaxed with one flipper hanging off and constantly shuffling another inch to get to that ultimate comfy position is just how Marc is when he is trying to get comfy on the settee!
Each colony of sea lions consists of a dominant male and from a few to 30 females with their young. The dominant male then spends much of his day swimming from one border of his territory to the other, defending it against the other males. As there are many males without colonies these surplus males congregate together in bachelor colonies.
We wandered along the beach for a bit and then put on all our snorkeling gear and got in the water. Marc and I have never snorkeled before and it took a few minutes to get used to, especially when sea lions would appear in front of you out of nowhere giving me quite a fright! It was wonderful swimming with the sea lions, they are as graceful in the water as they are clumsy on land. We swam around a rock about 200m off the beach and saw diamond stingrays, blue chin parrotfish, king angelfish and my favourite the yellow tailed surgeonfish. We saw huge shoals of them, they were a marvelous bright blue colour with a yellow tail and two darker blue stripes going down across its eyes.
In the afternoon we went to Punta Suarez on the western tip of the island. When we got off the boats it was hard to put your foot down without stepping on a crab or a marine iguana, they were everywhere! The crabs were mostly Sally Lightfoot crabs and were a reddish colour with bits of turquoise. We then saw our first blue footed booby. We have seen t-shirts in all the shops saying “I love boobies”, but so far Marc has resisted! We walked along the coastline and saw a yellow breasted heron, Nazca boobies, frigates, Galapagos doves, mockingbirds, yellow warblers, all kinds of finches, marine and land iguanas and waved albatrosses. We sat on the edge of the cliffs and watched the waves force their way up through a blowhole and create a huge 30ft spray which turned into a fine mist, it was beautiful. We then stood for ages mesmerized by the mating rituals of the albatross. It involved two of them circling their bills around each others bills making a clattering noise then one would stop and make a funny stuttering noise whilst the other shot his head and neck upright in the air honking. Then the bowing, bill clicking, bill circling, swaying and freezing, honking and whistling would start again! It was utterly fascinating to watch, apparently it goes on for a couple of hours. They weigh 5kg on average and have a wing span of up to 2.4m and is the largest bird in the islands. Espagnola has a flat surface for nesting and nearby sea cliffs from which to become airborne, they waddle up to the edge and simply drop off with wings outstretched!
From here the boat carried on to Floreana. I had to miss dinner that night as the boat was swaying so much I just couldn’t face it. I am definitely not suited to living on a boat! Marc on the other hand has adapted very well to living on a boat. He calls himself an old sea dog, swaying with the grace of a sea lion as he walks forward, using the movement of the boat to guide him to his next comfy seat. In the morning we went to Punta Cormorant, a beach near which there is a lake inhabited with flamingos. The flamingos were a really vivid bright shade of pink, quite unlike the pale coloured ones we had seen in Namibia. We then spent a while on another beach looking at the different types of crabs. The water here is the most beautiful turquoise colour I have ever seen, the beaches so white and the sand is so fine it is like flour, not grainy at all.
We then took a short 30 minute journey in the boat to Post Office Bay on the north side, where there was a sea lion, great blue heron and lots of crabs there to greet us. There is a custom for visitors here to place unstamped letters and postcards in the postbox and deliver free of charge any addressed to their own destinations. We looked through hundreds of postcards but didn’t find any addressed to people in St Albans or Belfast which was a pity, I think Marc is missing his postman job!
We put on our snorkeling gear again and spent the next hour and a half in the water. We saw some diamond stingrays, an octopus, pufferfish, steamer hogfish and best of all, sea turtles. It was magical, the rest of the group had gone further on so it was just Marc and me holding hands following a sea turtle round for at least 10 minutes. It knew we were there and seemed to slow down so we could swim with it and kept looking round at us. It was huge, about 1m long and 150kg and swam the same way I do, using its front legs whilst its back legs were just dead weights being dragged along behind not moving at all!
We got back on the boat and we made our way to Santa Cruz island with dolphins swimming just in front of the boat and diving in and out of the water. In the morning we went ashore at Puerto Ayora, the main town, and got on a bus to the highlands. We stopped off at a lava tube which is a natural underground tunnel. It was formed when lava flowed and a hard crust formed on the outside but when the lava stopped flowing a tunnel remained. It was about 4-5m wide and up to 15m high in some places. The one we saw was over 400m long. From here we went to see giant tortoises in the wild. We saw about 12 in total and could have stayed watching them for a long time. I was surprised how big they were and especially the size of their legs, they looked like an elephants legs, all dried out and wrinkly. The face was very cute, apparently when Steven Spielberg did ET he based how ET looked on the face of the giant tortoise and it really did look similar! It was interesting to just watch them plodding about and eating leaves. When anyone approached too quickly, they would hiss and draw back into their shells.
We then went to the Charles Darwin research centre where we saw Lonesome George and the breeding programme to boost the population of giant tortoises. The tortoises are repatriated to their home islands when they are about 4 years old (1.5kg). The population of them was depleted when whalers arrived in the 18th and 19th centuries and took them on board to have as meat and also to render their fat to use as oil. When goats were introduced to the island in the 1950’s and ate all the vegetation this further reduced the population. Lonesome George was found in 1972 and is the only surviving member of the Isla Pinta subspecies. He has lived with 2 females from Wolf volcano on Isabela island for the last 10-15 years who are the closest to his species in the hope of mating. We found out that one of the females has finally laid some eggs and that George is due to be a daddy by the end of the year!
The next morning we arrived in Santa Fe. We went on a trail and saw lots of wonderful tree cacti (opuntia cactus) some of which were 10m high. We also saw the Santa Fe land iguana which is found nowhere else in the world, lava lizards, pelicans and a hawk. After an hour or so we went back on board the boat and put on our snorkeling gear and snorkeled just off the boat. Marc did what he had always wanted to do and fell backwards off the edge of the panga (dingy), he looked quite the diver! We swam along a small island and again saw lots of wonderful fish, more yellow tailed surgeonfish, a lobster, lots of black striped salema, rainbow wrasse, giant damselfish and a reef cornetfish. The reef cornetfish was about 1.2m long and only about 5-10cm wide and darted about below us. We also saw orange cup coral and then the sea lions started playing with us. We stayed there for ages whilst they swam around us, popping up in front of our faces and then swimming off in the opposite direction, always getting so close but never colliding with us at any time.
We then had another huge lunch and a siesta and arrived at South Plaza island. Here we saw swallowtail gulls, a celp, a lava gull and marine and land iguanas. The marine iguana is the world’s only seagoing lizard and grazes on seaweed underwater. They spend hours basking in the sun to restore their internal temperature after diving in the water. They seemed to be everywhere draped over warm rocks, in rows facing the same way to maximize exposure to the sun and snort little puffs of spray into the air as they expel salt ingested during dives. They have scarlet and aqua tones highlighting their black skin., and looked scaly and wrinkly. The land iguana looks different from the marine iguanas as it is a yellow colour and has a spiny crest. They like to eat the pads and flowers of prickly pear cacti and when we where there we saw some fighting over a cactus that had been blown to the ground. It was hard to walk on the island without stepping on either an iguana, sea lion or lava lizard. The lava lizards are tiny compared to the iguanas, only about 10-15cm in length, and they are constantly scurrying across the rocks.
Although the island was tiny it was one of the most enjoyable islands, we took so many photos of the land iguanas it is just as well digital cameras were invented! The island was covered with sesuvium (carpet weed) which gave the ground a wonderful colour of green, and all kinds of shades of red and orange.
We travelled overnight to Rabida island which was a tiny island (5sq km) with dark red sand beaches, quite a contrast to the white floury beaches we had been on before. Here we saw pelicans nesting. The young had such a soft looking white downy covering and were very entertaining to watch. We saw one which had just woken up, first it stretched one wing out then the other and then it did a backwards lunge with one leg as if to stretch it out. It looked like it was doing some bizarre yoga pose! The pelicans catch their food by shallow plunge diving. We watched as they flew with their bill pointing downwards and then suddenly plunged into the water with a huge splash. When it surfaces it drains its distensible pouch of water and swallows the fish. The ones we watched seemed to be catching quite large fish as you could see the fish shape sticking out against the inside of the pouch! The pelicans fly so low across the water almost skimming the surface but never quite touching the waves.
We then went snorkeling and again saw many wonderful fish. It is always a struggle when we get back on board to try and remember what they all looked like and to then try and identify them all! This time we saw large banded blenny, creole fish, azure parrotfish, blue chin parrotfish, blue seastar and giant seastars, rainbow wrasse, white salema, a panemic horse conch and numerous others which we saw every time we went snorkeling. Marc dived down and picked up a blue seastar to show me. It was a bright blue on top and orange underneath and when he dropped it back down to the bottom it landed the wrong way up with the orange side on top. Instantly a small fish came along and pushed it with its lips and turned it the correct way up, it was amazing to watch. The two really special fish that we loved were the hieroglyphic hawkfish and the flag cabrilla. The hieroglyphic hawkfish was blue with darker blue bands and markings and was hiding amongst lava rocks, and the flag cabrilla was marked like an army camouflage, different shades of green in a patchy design.
After lunch we arrived in Santiago island also known as James island. We went to James Bay on the western side of the island which was a black sand beach. The rocks and lava pools there had hundreds of Sally Lightfoot crabs and of course there sea lions there. The sea lions are so inquisitive and playful, two of them were playing in the water at Marc’s feet. We went snorkeling and saw lots of fish as there was a large coral reef just off the shoreline. New fish we saw were panamic sergeant majors and bumphead parrotfish which was instantly recognizable by the bump on its head! We saw 7 sea turtles in total but spent most of our time in the water following one about. We watched it as it fed on a green moss like plant that grew on the coral, it didn’t look like it was worth it the small amounts it was nibbling as it was so huge, so it must have been tasty! It is such a joy to be swimming with sea turtles, they were less than a metre away and we swayed along with them in the currents. Seeing their shells and all the markings on it so close up and looking at them swimming is fascinating. When I booked this trip I mustn’t have read the trip notes too closely as I had no idea we would be snorkeling, I thought the snorkeling would be in our spare time and optional. Now that we have done it so many times I am glad that it was such a big part of our trip, it has been great to see such brightly coloured fish just doing their own thing whilst we watched and swam around them, and wonderful to swim with sea lions and sea turtles. I definitely wouldn’t have wanted to miss the snorkeling and it does give a complete picture of the Galapagos seeing all the marine life as well as all the plants, animals and birds.
The next morning we arrived in Bartolome island. It had a beautiful golden sand beach with a huge rock at the end of the cove called Pinnacle rock. We went on shore and took a path which led up to the 114m summit of the island through a lava landscape. The path was a wooden walkway to protect the island and as we walked along we saw a hawk perched on the handrail. We took lots of photos and then edged closer, took more photos and went closer still. It just wasn’t afraid of us at all and we got to within a metre of it and started to walk around it as it wasn’t moving! Unfortunately then a strong gust of wind blew and that made it fly away but it was wonderful being that close to it. The views from the top were fantastic, we could see for miles around. It was a very volcanic looking landscape, lava tunnels and cones and beautiful turquoise sea and golden beaches. We then went snorkeling for the last time and saw huge shoals of fish, there must have been thousands of them. We saw a shoal of Galapagos grunt, giant seastars, chocolate chip seastars (which look just how they sound!) and a pacific boxfish. The pacific boxfish was a brilliant blue colour with white spots on top and a yellow colour on its head, it was lovely to see. There were Galapagos penguins fishing around there and we saw some from the panga when we went to the beach but unfortunately didn’t see any when we were snorkeling – except for Marc! Whilst everyone was getting ready on the beach and I was further along taking photos of a blue heron that was at the waters edge Marc had got ready in record time and swum out to where we had spotted them. He watched it swim, emerge from the water, preen itself and then go into its home which was through a lava archway. We went back to the same spot later but had no luck spotting it again.
After lunch we arrived at Seymour island where magnificent frigatebirds and blue footed boobies are the main attractions. We saw both great frigatebirds and magnificent frigatebirds and saw males, females and chicks. The frigatebird is a large black bird with long wings, long hooked beaks and deeply forked tails. They are light for their size and they can scissor their forked tails in and out to maintain balance in flight. We saw frigatebirds courting when the male inflates his bright red gular sac to around the size of a football to attract a female. We also saw them fishing. They swoop down and quickly flicks its head down and up, picking up a fish from near the surface. Only its beak touches the water as it has to avoid getting tis plumage wet otherwise it may become waterlogged and drown as it only has a small preen gland that is insufficient to oil and waterproof their feathers fully. They are also known as pirate birds as they steal food from other seabirds.
We stayed on the island for a while and were mesmerized by a new born blue footed booby, except its feet were white, apparently they don’t turn blue until they are a few years old. It was covered with soft looking white fluffy feathers. When we see boobies with their young they are always sitting inside a white ring we found out that this is a ring of guano produced by the booby squirting excrement in all directions while incubating the egg for 40 days. We saw some nests where there were two young and one always looked stronger than the other. The first born chick is larger and stronger than the second as a result of hatching a few days earlier and so if food is scarce the first born will get more food (as the parents feed the larger chick first) and will outcompete them, causing them to starve. This is called ‘opportunisitic sibling murder’! The guano ring often coincides with what is an imaginary line within which parent-chick relationships are normal. If the chick should get out of the ring, it will not be treated as offspring nor be allowed back. Sometimes the older sibling exploits this in a situation where food is scarce and forces the younger one out of the ring whereupon it would be rejected!
On the way back to the jetty we saw a baby sea lion which was only 2-3 days old and then in the panga saw a fur seal moving off the rocks and going into the water. Then it was back on the boat for our last night on board which I am quite happy about, I will miss the Galapagos but not living on a boat!
We woke up early next morning after a very rough night at sea to go to Lobos Island (wolf island) before breakfast. We had a short walk round and saw lots of sea lions with adorable looking pups and watched the mating dance of the blue footed booby. It involved two of them kind of hopping from foot to foot slowly and deliberately as if they were dancing and the male made a funny whistling noise. We got back on the boat for breakfast and then had to go to the airport to catch our flight to Quito.
It has been a wonderful week we have spent here, to be able to see all the animals and birds so close up had been really special. I think of the birds my favourites were the frigatebird with its huge inflated red pouch and the albatrosses mating. We have so many photos it will be hard to sort through them all and try and cut it down to reasonable sized collection! It also hasn’t been as full of tourists as I thought it would be, it seems that the boats are all sailing on fixed itineraries and cannot deviate from that so this ensures there are never too many boats at one island.
So now our South American adventure is over and we are flying back to London tomorrow, it seems like a long time ago since we were last there. Peru and Ecuador have been better than we ever imagined they would be and we have only happy memories. We will have to come back some day and explore the rest of South America!
