The Center Islands

January 28, 2009

Santa Cruz Island

Santa Cruz has the largest human population in the archipelago, most of which (15,000 or so) live in the harbor town of Puerto Ayora. It is curious that Puerto Ayora has no deep-water docking facility, so we had to ride the zodiacs from the Polaris just as we have done for the uninhabited islands. Puerto Ayora is also the home of the Galapagos National Park Service and the Charles Darwin Research Station (CDRS). We spent the morning at the CDRS to learn about their highly successful giant tortoise breeding program. Starting with the last 11 males and 2 females on the Islands in 1960, the CDRS has successfully raised and returned about 1000 tortoises to the wild. In addition to the on-station breeding, the CDRS collects as many Giant tortoise eggs as possible from the re-introduced breeding populations for incubation and raising until the young tortoises are 4 years old. At that age they are large enough not to be meals for the islands’ rat populations and have become familiar with the plants they will eat on their new home islands, but they have to crawl over rocks and logs to get to the food and so develop their leg muscles. We were able to get relatively close to some of the adults in the captive breeding program, and had to clear a path for one who wanted to pass through our group. In the afternoon we took buses into the higher elevations of the island for lunch. Santa Cruz Island displays all of the 7 vegetation zones of the Galapagos, from the cactus, mostly a variety of prickly pear which takes the proportion of a small tree with a trunk up to 12 inches in diameter, and mangroves at sea level, to a forest at 1900 feet that is moist enough to support ground mosses, hanging lichens, orchids, and another hanging plant (epiphyte), related to the pineapple, which derives its moisture and nutrients from the atmosphere. The gardens around the restaurant looked tropical because of the elevation. Nearby were two volcanic pit craters, old calderas of nearly cylindrical shape. We descended to about 1000 feet where there is a mixture of forest and grassland, put on boots and ponchos, and walked among the giant tortoises which are migrating to lower elevations. They are slowly eating their way across a grass-covered valley. We could get to within about 6 feet of them to watch them. If we went any closer they tended to withdraw into their shells and wait out the disturbance. On the way back to Puerto Ayora we saw where logs from one variety tree are planted as fence posts, but take root and continue growing from there.

We were fairly tired from the walking on this day and skipped the local music and dancing in the ship’s lounge. During the night the ship sailed to the northern shore of Santa Cruz.

January 29, 2009

Santa Cruz Island and Santiago Island

The first activity today was a walk through the opuntia (giant prickly pear) and palo santo forest to look for the yellow/orange Galapagos giant land iguana. The palo santo tree has white bark and looks dead, but its sap is blood red where something has scratched the trunk. The sap from the tree is used for making the incense used in churches. The giant land iguana was reintroduced in the 1970’s after a pack of feral dogs killed about 500 of them, almost the entire population. This repopulation is another success of the Charles Darwin Research Center. As a bonus, the lagoon on near the trail showed us another 5 flamingos.
After lunch and sailing to the southwest corner of Santiago Island, we went on another snorkeling expedition. We think we have this figured out now, except for the fogging of Patti’s mask. We spent an incredible hour in the water, floating above the rocks near the shore. In the first five minutes we saw a whitetip reef shark! With no credible experience at judging size and distance underwater, we guessed the shark was 4 to 6 feet long and a comfortable 20 feet away. We passed over 5 or 6 large schools of fish, most of them yellowtailed surgeonfish, and others best described as guppies and goldfish. The other common fishes of the archipelago were in abundance, including, king angelfish, wrasses, grunts, hogfish, damselfish, parrotfish, and redtailed triggerfish, plus an occasional anemone and sea star. What appeared at first look to be a sea snake from directly above was actually a trumpetfish when from an angle we could see the eyes about ¼ the way from the front of its mouth. We were the last of our party to return to the zodiac.

Within a few minutes of returning to the Polaris we were back on zodiacs for a surface tour of the same area we snorkeled. The highlight of this ride was the colony of Galapagos penguins, about 15 of them, which we approached to within a few feet. They didn’t care, but we did! We were cruising among several islets, most of them cone-shaped, and offshoots of the main magma chamber that formed Santiago. Then it was back to the ship for a barbecue dinner, and preparing this blog.

Galapagos Fun Days 3 and 4

Monday January 26

Floreana Island

Floreana is a peaceful, rolling island dotted with numerous extinct volcanic cones amidst a variety of scrubby vegetation. Its colorful human history goes back almost two centuries and, at times, verges on the bizarre: from marooned whalers to prisoners and colonists, and from a toothless dentist to a self-proclaimed empress.
Our day began with a glass bottom boat ride to view the aquatic life off a small offshore volcanic cone named Champion Islet. We were able to see clearly king angel fish, a yellow tailed surgeon fish, a Creole fish, a parrot fish, several types of wrasse of magnificent orange color, sea stars of brilliant colors including a rare “chocolate chip” variety, and a giant sea turtle. We transferred to a zodiac and continued a tour around the islet where we saw hundreds of marine iguanas, sea lions with their pups and various marine birds indigenous to the Galapagos.
In the late afternoon, we headed to Punta Cormorant via zodiac. Ironically, there are no cormorants here; it is named after a boat wreck. We wet-landed (walked to the beach from the point we were dropped off in the bay) and walked along the olivine beach where the sand is tinted light green from the crushed olivine it contains. Next we walked down to a white-sand (or something that color) brackish lagoon where flamingos were feasting in a large saline pond. The walk continued down to a favorite nesting place of sea turtles where we saw the numerous sand bowls with flipper marks leading down to the water. We didn’t see any sea turtles on land, but did observe numerous ones in the water, waiting for dark to set in before returning to their nests.

Tuesday January 27

Isabela Island

Our day began extremely early this morning with an announcement that several schools of dolphins were playing in the surf next to the ship. They were magnificent and seemed to be showing off for us, jumping backwards and high into the air. As we rounded the north end of Isabela Island we could see many vents on the side of Ecuador volcano, as well as long and wide lava flows. We joined the Captain on the bridge at approximately 8:15 am to count down crossing the Equator. It was in waiting for this that we spotted two whales, although they were pretty far away. This was followed by an amazing zodiac ride along the cliffs of Punta Vicente Roca. We encountered swimming iguanas, sea lions, blue footed boobies, numerous huge sea turtles and penguins! We were cruising in the crescent-shaped caldera of Ecuador volcano. Whatever caused about half of the volcano to vanish left nearly vertical cliffs of ash varying in color from yellow to red to black, and laced with lava dikes. We also saw several whales spouting and swimming around the zodiac. The naturalist in our zodiac identified them as Brydes whales (a baleen whale about ¼ the size of a Blue whale) based on size and on their apparent interest in us. After a quick change, we headed out for the same cliffs for our first deep water snorkeling adventure. Deepwater means that we enter water that is deeper than we stand from the zodiac. The water was rather murky, but we still saw several fish and a sea lion. We need to practice snorkeling a few more times on this trip.

Fernandina Island

Fernandina is another imposing volcano rising to nearly 5,000 feet in elevation and has a history of erupting every few years (last in May of 2008) and is one of the most active volcanoes in the world. Our landing site this afternoon was Punta Espinosa where marine iguanas lie piled on top of each other and all around us (we had to step over them!). The landscape was astounding with dark black ropy lava containing swirls and fissures all around us. We saw sea lions lying about with iguanas sleeping along side them, thousands of bright red/orange/blue crabs, (all called Sally Golightly but in different stages of molting) and flightless cormorants. We have a breather now for an hour, followed by a recap of the day and dinner. Tonight’s presentation after that will be about the Charles Darwin Research Center which we will see tomorrow. We can’t wait!

Our Galapagos Adventure Begins

Saturday, January 24th

We began our journey at the Nomads hangar at 5:30 am. The flight was very smooth, although quite long. The one problem we encountered was in the Grand Caymen Island where there was some dispute about which fuel company was allowed to refuel the plane. After much posturing, a ride or two in an airline van by our pilots and the flight engineer standing under the wing observing the fuel transfer, we were on our way once more. The hour and a half it cost us in time caused considerable concern at our final destination. Our plane needed to fly in, drop us off and fly off the island of Baltra by dark since the the landing strip (and the building for that matter) has no lights. Sunset is at around 6 pm and we arrived at 5:30! It was dark by the time we made it through their customs with the attendants using flashlights to check off our names and passport numbers on a long typewritten list. That was followed by a 15 minute ride to the dock where we caught a Zodiak (aka rubber dingy) that took us in groups of 15 out to our ship the Polaris. Again, these rafts had no lights, so the tenders moved fast through the water splashing and bumping up to the side of the ship. We checked in, had orientation and a late dinner at 8 pm and finally settled into our cabins around 10 pm. For a day that started at 4:30 am, we were pooped! During the night we cruised to Espanola Island for the next day’s activities.

Sunday January 25th Espanola Island
To say this day was amazing is an understatement! The day began at 6 am with a wake up call from Carlos, our trip naturalist and leader. We had breakfast followed by a Zodiak ride to Punta Suarez where we hiked an awesome trail on boulders and stones, seeing the most astounding wildlife we have ever seen. We were greeted (literally) by sea lions, bright red/orange HUGE crabs, multicolored iguanas and reptiles, and birds only found here on the entire planet. It was hot and very humid but well worth the 3 hour trek. I was a little nervous since there are NO facilities on the island. You can take nothing onto the island and leave nothing behind.
We saw Nazca boobies in mass nestings, blue footed boobies with their chicks, iguanas sunning themselves on breezy cliff walls, magnificent cliffs with tidal swells blasting misty fountains high into the air through blow holes, lava lizards, mockingbirds, a pair of Galapagos hawks, and large-beaked cactus (aka Darwin) finches. There are not enough adjectives to describe what a glorious place this is.
After lunch, we visited another part of the island, Gardner Bay where we strolled along a dazzling white beach and used our new snorkel equipment in the shallow crystal clear aqua waters offshore. We had to step around and through the sea lions basking on the shore. The juveniles would swim right next to us, rolling and playing in the water while paying no attention to us whatsoever. This was a new experience for us—walking and swimming near large groups of reptiles, birds, and large mammals as a visitor to their world and not to a zoo. Shows how really insignificant we truly are in the big picture!

The skies were cloudy until about noon today and remained clear into the night. Tom was awed once again by the beauty of the southern Milky Way, a fond memory from our trip to Australia in 2001.
Tomorrow we spend the day around Floreana Island, with more opportunities to snorkel and to see the relatively rare green sand beaches made from olivine, a volcanic mineral. If we can wake up in time we’ll take a trip before breakfast to a site which served as a post office for ships in the days of sail.

Keep up with us as we travel through 2009!

                                                                  

                                            

First Stop  Galapagos Islands

January 24 - January 31, 2009

“It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent that survives. It is the one that is the most adaptable to change”. ~   Charles Darwin

The Galapagos Islands have often been referred to as a “laboratory of evolution”. It’s not surprising, then, that a young scientist named Charles Darwin found life on these islands to be so fascinating. Despite man’s intrusion there are species of flora and fauna in the Galapagos that cannot be found anywhere else on earth.

On this adventure Nomads will team with Lindblad Expeditions and National Geographic’s ship the Polaris.  

It will be our home base as we journey to the islands of Floreana, Isabela, Fernandina, Santa Cruz, Bartolome, Santiago, and Espanola.

We’ll learn about conservation efforts during a visit to the Charles Darwin Research Center; we’ll have the chance to swim with sea lions, explore caves and shorelines, and search the waters for dolphins and whales. On these enchanting islands we will be snorkeling with penguins and admire the giant tortoises which inspired the name Galapagos. We’ll see the famous Galapagos finches and make friends with blue-footed boobies.

We invite you to follow us with this blog and share our amazing adventures.