The youngest island, Isla Fernandina

Wednesday May 29^th  (afternoon)

During lunch, the Nemo navigated across the channel to Espinoza Point on Isla Fernandina, where we went for a walk on the the youngest island of the archipelago, Isla Fernandina. It is still rising out of the sea.

 

 

 

The engine from an old ship was lying well above the sea level, the result of a recent uplift

 

The bright orange Sally lightfoot crabs were also numerous on the rocks, with some males fighting. The dark grey young crabs were inconspicuous against the lava.

Tiny hermit crabs were also abundant at the edge of the rock pools. An eagle ray was swimming in the shallows.

We watched the marine iguanas swim ashore after their morning feeding session on the green algae at low tide.


They dragged themselves ashore and flopped down onto the warm rocks or sand, or even on top of other iguanas to rewarm themselves. They were aggregated into huge masses, and did not budge when we walked within feet of them.

 

 

 

 

The iguanas lay their eggs in the soft sand above the high tide, so we had to keep to a marked trail on the low tide sand.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sea lions were also everywhere, basking on the rocks, sand or lolling in the water. One cub suckled from mum only feet away from us.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 Back on the boat, it was time for another snorkel, but several of us opted to stay aboard after an energetic day and catch up on photo editing and diaries.

 

 

 

Before dinner we raised anchor and headed off into the sunset across the northern tip of Isabela, shaped like the head of seahorse, for an overnight south-west run to Isla Santiago. We crossed the equator at 1945 hr and back again later that evening. The stars were magnificent, with the Big Dipper and the pole star in the north and the Southern cross and Scorpio in the south.

 

 

 

In Darwin's footsteps

Wednesday May 29^th

 

 

We continued north along the shore of Isabela to Tagus Cove, a lovely sheltered cove where the Charles Darwin’s ship, Beagle, also anchored in 1835.

 

 

The soft cliffs all around were covered with graffiti carved by past visitors, until forbidden in about 1975.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We followed Mr Darwin's footsteps up to a turquoise crater lake, which he was disappointed to find was also brackish - connected to the sea through small channels in the rocks, too small for animals to pass through. Darwin’s finches were foraging for insects under the bark of the incense trees and black carpenter bees bore holes in the dead branches for their solitary nests. Apart from the carptenter bees,large painted locusts were about the only other conspicuous insect.

  

 

 

 

 

We continued around the lake and up through the loose lava scree onto the ridge, ending on top of an eroded splatter cone. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

From there, we could see Darwin Volcano's far slope and a view down to the other side of the island.

 

Diego in discussion with Drew (with b ack to the view) and Holly

 

We headed back down to the cove. While the rest of the passengers went for a panga ride, Drew and I paddled kayaks along the shore. It was good to be able to go close inshore to see the yellow and orange encrusting sponges, sea anemones, urchins and three different sea stars. The different wavy layers of laval flows were clearly visible on the cliffs and were eroded into lovely wind caves, or perhaps they were laval tubes. One large laval tube forming a cave at sea level was occupied by a pair of Galápagos penguins. Nearby were a nesting heron and a family of flightless cormorants. Sea lions lounged on the rocks or frolicked in the water. Then it was time for a vigorous paddle back to the Nemo.

 

 

 

We changed into our bathers and wetsuits and went back out for a snorkel under the cliffs. The water was very cold which probably accounted for the rich variety of fish (yellow and orange blotched harlequin wrasse, bumphead Mexican hog fish and several other wrasse, porcupine fish, large schools of tiny rainbow wrasse and large Peruvian grunts with a prominent lateral line).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A large turtle surfaced right beside me.  

 

 

 

Drew was back in the panga and I was just about to escape the cold water when we saw a pair of penguins swimming around.

 

 

 

 

 

They were wonderful to watch, weaving around snapping up fish and foraging in the weed, flying around so gracefully underwater, up to the surface for a breath, then down again leaving a stream of bubbles in their wake.

 

 

 

I had really been hoping to see penguins 'flying' underwater as I have never seen them underwater before.

 

 

 

 (Sadly this was the swan song for my underwater camera, that had been fogging up for some time, until its electronics finally sucumbed to the seawater. Fortunately I was still able to download my photos when I got home)

 

We really appreciated the hot soup with lunch as we all tried to raise our core body temperatures after snorkelling in the cold Humbolt Current.

Isabella, Island of young Volcanos

Tuesday May 28^th

Andrew and I woke just before dawn and went on deck to watch the sunrise gradually light up the small volcano and cinder cones on the shore as we rounded southern Isabela Island.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 We anchored for breakfast in Punta Moreno, beside the barquentine Mary Jane (I remember that was one of the boats we could have toured on but her timetable did not match ours; I did not see her set any sails anyway!).

 

A panga trip showed us mounds of the largest species of marine iguanas basking on the rocks, warming up after their diving, and our first Galápagos penguin. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Donning our wetsuits for snorkelling off the beach

 

 

On a deep water snorkel nearby, we saw some giant turtles and a young sea lion frolicking around us. Some black, longspined Centrostephanus urchins looked threatening, alongside lots of smaller, short spined green urchins.

 

 

 

 

 

  

We continued motoring north to Punta Urbina. Here the panga took us ashore, where we walked over really young volcanic deposits, with lots of flow patterns and lava tubes formed by the low silica viscous lava (I was very glad of my hiking boots). The viscous lava flows also accounted for the flat profile of the shield volcanoes.

Diego giving us a lecture on lava formations

 

 

 

 

 

The early colonisers of the lava were some lava cactus and ferns. The mangroves fringing the shore eventually produce soil from their leaf fall.

 

 

 

The volcanoes were shrouded in clouds that provide the plants water. The fine cactus spines are adapted to condense the mist. As the lava cools, it forms large cracks and cavities between the layers which collapse into caves and collect water in oases.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Most pools are connected to the sea, so they are brackish and support brine shrimps which are the main food of flamingos. Flamingos start off white then get pinker as they feed on the pink shrimp.

 

Other pools were full of fish as well as sharks and turtles.

 

Sea turtle nest and tracksup the beach

After lunch back on Nemo, our panga took us to a black sand beach for a ‘wet’ landing in the shallows– shoes and socks in hand.

 

Sea turtles lay their eggs in nests at the back of the beach. 

 

A giant tortoisem walked straight towards us along the trail, so we had to give way.

 

We walked on a sandy trail past wild manzanilla trees and tall, yellow-flowering hibiscus cotton bushes, finding some land iguanas and tortoises in the shade. A Galápagos hawk was perched across an open field. Apparently the hawks and flightless cormorants have unusual mating systems - polyandrous (many males) instead of the more usual polygynous (many females).

 

Back at the beach we went for another snorkel along the shore, finding lots of turtles grazing on the seaweed, completely unafraid of us. I saw much more seaweed here than I had seen in other areas, perhaps due to the cooler water and more nutrients, more like Tasmania.

 

I searched the seaweed for the Pacific seahorse, Hippocampus ingens, the only seahorse on the west side of the Pacific, but in vain.

 

 

Charles Darwin Research Centre, Isla Santa Cruz

 After lunch back on the Nemo, and a short siesta, Diego took us around the Darwin Research Centre's tortoise breeding program. The research centre was set in a garden of native plants with names tags that A and I found interesting.

 

 

Its main aim is to breed the different giant tortoise species from all the various islands, especially those with depauperate populations. Sadly some species have already gone extinct.

 

 

 

 

 All tortoise eggs are incubated at 27^o or 29^oC to produce males or females respectively. The baby tortoises are reared i captivity until about five years old, when they are large enough not to be killed by rats when released into the wild.

 

One-year-old babies

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We saw young and old tortoises from at least three islands, with different shaped shells. The Governor of the Islands told Darwin that he could tell which island the tortoises came from by the shape of their shell. Islands where the tortoises had to graze on tall shrubs favoured saddle-shaped shells that allowed the tortoises to crane their necks up high (see below).

 

Early seafarers used to catch thousands of the slow tortoises as a source of fresh meat,since they could survive for up to a year stored upside down in the hold of their ship - no animal ethics in those days! 

 

One big enclosure was a retirement home for old tortoises from private captivity.

 

 

 

 

There was a memorial to Lonesome George, the last of the Pinta Island species, who died in July 2012. He was probably over 100 years old and would not breed with any females from other islands.

 

 

 

 

 

His taxidermied remains are due to be returned to the Centre this year.

 

 

 

Galapagos giant tortoises have been sent to zoos all around the world in the past but no longer. Apparently Sydney zoo has a very old tortoise, and we recently saw some in Melbourne zoo.

 

We also had our first good view of a mockingbird (Santa Cruz species).

In addition to the variations in tortoise shell shape, and the finchs' bills, it was also the small variations in mockingbird plumage on different islands that got Darwin thinking about natural variations in populations and survival of those best adapted to their environment. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And the little lava lizards were basking on the rocks (about 15 cm long), like our skinks. This one is a female who is shedding her skin. For a change, the females are brighter coloured than the males: females have an orange head and neck while the males are dull grey. 

 

 

Santa Cruz is one of the older Galápagos Islands.  It is an extinct shield volcano, whose shape reminded Drew of Cheju Island in Korea, and its extinct Halla-San volcano. The southern side of Santa Cruz is relatively well vegetated.  After passing two small craters near the summit, the north side is very dry, with vegetation dominated by a prickly-pear type of cactus and Palo Santo trees (which exude incense.

 

We were left to our own devices for the rest of the afternoon, our only chance for the week to go shopping (window shopping for Jenny and me while Andrew checked onto the Internet). Later we learned it was also the only chance between weekly voyages for the crew to have some shore-time. At about 9:30 the crew returned to the ship and we headed south west to the southern tip of Isabela Island. We motored off into a lovely moonlit night and ‘navigated’ overnight for nine hours to Isabella Island.