Galapagos Islands - Day 4 - 8

Day 4 - Arrived at Espanola Island (Hood Island) overnight.  We rose to find a gently raised island with rocky hillets and mostly dormant shrubs giving it a desert appearance.  The black rocks on shore contrasted with the white sandy beach which layed many sea lions.

Beside our little Beluga was the large National Geographic catamaran was moored.  This catamaran can take up to 100 passengers.  Darwin said that it would be too costly to modify the engine to make it compliant with the new clean fuel laws.

Two activities today - the first is to walk along the sandy beach looking out for marine iguanas looking red from eating algae and finches ( we saw 3 types) and lava lizards.  The second activity was to snorkel off a little island off from the bay.  We saw lots of fishes and a few rays.  The water was a little cooler and the sky was a little overcast.

While we were on the beach several panga loads of National Geographic passengers came along.  Some of the passengers looked quite out of place. 

There are over 2000 tortoises breeding naturally but they were on the other side of the island and we were not allowed to walk there.  At one stage there were only 14 left.  Then they brought in a male tortoise from a US zoo to help re-populate the number of tortoise and increase the gene pool.  He is over 100 years old now. 

In the afternoon, we went back for another walk on the island. the landing point was quite rocky.  We had to timed our panga landing in between other pangas from other boats.  During this walk we saw red/aqua iguanas.  These iguanas can dive 15 - 18m to find their favourite algae.  We saw lots of adult and young iguanas.  We also saw where they laid their eggs.  We got into trouble when we did not quite put our feet at the right spots and almost stepped on some nest.  These iguanas lay about between 4 - 8 eggs.

The sea lions were amusing as usual.

We also saw a Galapagos hawk in the distance.  Lucky for us, he sat there in the tree for a long time.

We saw a nice blow hole, breding nasca boobies, blue-footed boobies and one heron.

Day 5 - Santa Cruz

We had a better night as we sailed earlier and arrived at Santa Cruz around midnight and moored there.  So when we got up we were at Puerto Ayora.  It was a lovely view with lots of boats and a tall ship. 

This is the day where 10 more passengers joined the cruise.  They were Nick & Kelly from New York and 8 Chileans all members of the same family.  The Chileans were celebrating Fernado I birthday.  It was his 81 birthday.  They were extremely nice people.  As a matter of fact, everyone just got along which made the cruise especially memorable.

In the morning after Nick and Kelly joined us, we took a panga ride to Puerto Ayora and went to the Charles Darwin Research Centre.  Here we saw Lonesome George - the last of the saddle back tortoise from Pinta Island.  Numerous attempts have been made to bred but no luck so far.  We saw lots of babies of different species.  When they are 6 months old, they are about a side plate size and a dinner plate size at 12 months.  At 3 years, they can be returned to their natural environment because they can withdraw their heads and legs and be safe from predators. 

Darwin told us that the rangers do go and collect the tortoise eggs to help imrprove the population.  A tortoise can lay between 15 - 25 eggs.  When they collect the eggs, they have to mark the top of each egg every careful and place them in the right position in the incubator.  Depending on the temperature during incubation, they can get male or female babies.  When the temperature is higher they get females, however if it got too high, they get males.  There is a band of temperature for males and another for females.

The Chileans joined us after lunch.  In the afternoon we went to the highlands to see giant tortoises.  The Santa Cruz highland tortoises have grown huge roaming around the lush paddocks.  There are heaps of introduced species of trees and shrubs.  The tortoises do not seem to mind,  They are happy munching away.  Their droppings are rather large chunks of undigested rolls of grass.  Males have huge elephantine tails that move from side to side as they move.  Their penises are close to the end of their tails so the bigger that better.  If a female does not fancy a male, she goes close to a tree so that he cannot clamber on top.

Males can weight up to 300 kgs and like to wallow in mud.

These tortoises will travel down to the lowlands to mate and lay their eggs.  They will walk 2 - 3 days to get down to the lowlands.  Basically around the clock to get to their destination without stopping.

After seeing the tortoises we went to see the lava caves which were nearly.  The lava caves were very large, you could walk upright most of the way.  It was only at the end where you had to bend down.  It was very wet and slippery.

Day 6 - Santiago Island
First outing was a walk.  It was pouring with rain.  We walked around a small lake and up a lava ridge which was very lush. We saw lots of incense trees, lots of finches, yellow wobblers, galapagos hawk, lava lizards, ruddy turn stones (migratory birds from the northern hemisphere).  Along the beach we saw over 80 fresh turtle tracks and we also saw a female turtle laying one the sand.  Later on she swam back to the water.

The afternoon a snorkel from the beach.  When we got to the beach we saw 2 galapagos penguins sitting on the rocks.  We snorkelled among many fishes.  It was great expect for me being swept up into the rocks and got scratches on my bum and ankle.  Ivona had some scartches to her hand when she tried to hold onto some rocks.

Later on in the afternoon we went for a walk on the lava rocks.  It was still very hot even though it was nearly 5:00pm.  Fernando I slipped and had a few cuts on his hand.  The lava formations were just amazing. We were there mainly to see the various lava formation.

Day 7 - Genovesa Island

We crossed the equator last night and we will be crossing it again.  There was a lot of sailing to get there.

The view was a crescent shaped entry.  The island itself was the rim of a volcano and quite steep. 

Morning walk along the beach along a creek where we saw lots of red-footed boobies, nasca boobies, blue-footed boobies, herons drying their wings, baby frigate birds waiting for their parents to feed them.  It was a hot morning.  After the walk we snorkelled off the beach and saw more fishes.

Afternoon we snorkelled off the panga in deeper waters.  We saw fur seals and a shoal of hammerhead sharks and lots of fishes.  It was super.  On our way back to the boat, we saw several mantra rays swimming around with their wings out of the water.  They were huge.

In the late afternoon, we took another walk and saw more boobies, frigate birds with their red pouch puffed up.  During this walk we also saw short earred owls.  They were just sitting waiting for their oppotunity to eat a sea petrel.  During the panga ride we also way a few tropic birds that had trouble landing back at their nests because of their long tails.  One bird had to try 8 times before he succeeded.

Given that this is the last night, we had a farewell cocktail with rest of the crew.  They were all dressed up.  It was nice but sad.  We had to pack up so we are ready to leave.

Day 8

We had an early start at 6:00 am to go to Black Turtle Cove to see sharks and turtles.  We went to the coast near red mangroves.  We saw sharks, rays, bonitos, puff fishes plus others.  The most unique thing was to see a pair of mating turtles. Darwin that the males are usually 50% smaller than the females.  In this case, the male was 25% smaller which made it almost impossible for him to succeed.  He was too small to mount the female turtle.  It was all very nice.

Then it was back at the boat for breakfast.

The boat moored at Baltra.  It was panga ride to the jetty and then a bus ride to the airport. 

The airport was rather chaotic with people everywhere.  It was very hot and confusing but we managed to get on the right plane to Guayaquil ready for the next adventure.