Galapagos Islands and Ecuador --18 April -29 April 2015
Part 1--the Galapagos Islands
Visiting the Galapagos: the good and the bad
On a Tuesday in April, the time became free unexpectedly for me to go to the Galapagos and I arranged the whole trip in two and half days and flew out to Quito on the Friday. I had done all the research beforehand so I knew what I wanted to do.
The Galapagos Islands are on everybody's bucket list these days and so I felt I couldn't not go. The problem is that everyone else has the same idea. Tourism has increased from under 18,000 in 1980 to over 200,000 last year. A surprising number of the tourists –almost a third--are from mainland Ecuador.
Access to the islands, which are located 1000 kilometres east of the South American coast is now very much under the control of the Ecuadorian National Parks Service and tourists can only visit 3% of the islands. And you cannot go anywhere without a guide, so independent exploration, usually my preference, is off the agenda. While this is quite understandable, considering the fragility of the environment and the uniqueness of the plant and animal life, it does mean that you follow the same route as all the other tourists.
And as a result you as a tourist are kept on a very tight leash and really don't get to see a lot of the things that you read about or see in David Attenborough specials. Boats are allotted an itinerary and they must stick to it. There are strict rules on approaching animals, when you do actually see any. Tourists must be accompanied at all times by a guide accredited by the Parks Service and so you feel rather like you are part of a herd of cattle sometimes.
However, the Parks Service is to be highly commended that they have planned each tour boat's itinerary so that you are never at the same spot at the same time as another boat, so that you do get a bit of the sense of isolation that is what makes the Galapagos unique. That is quite a feat when there are over 200,000 tourists per year all wanting to visit the same 3% of the islands which are open to the public. And the passengers on each boat expects to do two or three outings a day, including zodiac cruises, hiking, snorkeling, wildlife viewing, swimming off the beaches, kayaking.
If you are considering a trip you need to decide a couple of things before you go. First what size of boat to you want to go on, or indeed if you want to go on a boat at all. Second are you going to focus on the eastern islands or the western islands.
Initially you might think that going on a small boat with, say, 14 passengers would be ideal, but there are disadvantages. The primary one is that you will only have one guide on such a boat and so you will not have the benefit of the wide range of knowledge and specialist expertise of a range of guides on the larger boats.
This is very important since as mentioned above you are not allowed to go anywhere without a Park Service accredited guide so what you see and learn will be limited by what your guides know and choose to show you. Also if you go on one of the cheaper boats you are likely to get a lower standard of guide (there are three categories accredited by the Park Service) because they will be paid less.
And so, like it or not, you will get a better experience on a larger more expensive ship—we had 8 guides, all excellent and experts in their own specialist fields.
I have heard of some people who have chosen a land based visit staying in one of the two towns in the Galapagos (Puerto Ayora on Santa Cruz island and Puerto Baqueirizo Moreno on San Cristobal) which is usually cheaper since you only take pay-as-you-go day trips in smaller boats going to particular destinations. For the young person who wants to party and do pub crawls I suppose this has its attractions, but you won’t get to see very much of the Galapagos.
Also –and most importantly in my opinion—both these islands are in the eastern half of the Galapagos and so do not have the stark dramatic landscapes and strange wildlife of the western islands (see below for how the eastern and western islands differ). A day trip from Santa Cruz or San Cristobal to the fascinating eastern islands is not likely to be practical. That said, if all you are interested in is the giant tortoises then San Cristobal and Santa Cruz are the places to be.
If you are booking a boat trip, in my opinion you need to take a 7 day one. There are 3 and 4 day ones but frankly I can’t see how you can do the place any justice at all in such a short time. Ideally one should spend 14 days and “do” both the eastern islands and the western islands. If you only have the time and money for 7 days (like me) then certainly you should go to the western islands, including the newest volcanic ones of Isabella and Fernandina , which have the most interesting wildlife and terrain.
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| On change-over day at the beginning and end of each 7 day excursion, this is the scene in the bay nearest the airport! Note the different sizes of boats. |
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| Our ship, the Silver Galapagos |
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| Dinner on deck |
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| Kayak expeditions |
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| Our ship with one of the strange rock formations, common throughout the Galapagos Islands, in the background and the black lava rock in the foreground. |
Why are the islands there?
The geology of the Galapagos is fascinating and immediately evident even to those who have no interest in the subject—but I do, and since this is my blog bear with me or skip this part! The islands are 1000 miles from the mainland of Ecuador (to which the Galapagos Islands belong), right on the equator. They are quite recently formed, geologically speaking, the newest island began less than a million years old and the oldest about 50 million. To put that in perspective, the dinosaurs died out 65 million years ago.
And the islands are still being formed. A few have actually already been eroded away back into the ocean. They are all volcanic, but not as the result of the collision of the tectonic plates which is what usually produces volcanic action, such as the Pacific" Ring of Fire" which produces volcanoes and earthquakes all down the west coast of North and South America and throughout the Pacific Islands and South East Asia and the volcanoes of New Zealand "Mount Doom" from Lord of the Rings.
Instead, the Galapagos Islands were formed because the earth's crust at that point is weaker and so the magma from deep inside the planet can push through the crust and escape in a stream of molten lava. These are called "hot spots".
To add to this geological mix, the movement of the Nazca tectonic plate from west to east over this Galapagos “hot spot” towards the coast of South America, continually carries the islands of the Galapagos eastwards leaving behind the hot spot.
In a million years or so (the blink of an eye, geologically speaking) another island is formed at the hot spot and in turn it is moved eastward on the Nazca conveyor belt. Each of the older islands --in other words those which have been carried eastwards is gradually eroded down by wind , ocean currents and rain and eventually that island will disappear beneath the ocean long before the plate reaches the South American coast.
Thus the Galapagos Islands that are furthest east like San Cristobal are old, flatter and with more vegetation and their volcanic craters are overgrown with vegetation. Whereas the islands furthest west like Fernandina and Isabella are still black, barren and rugged with clearly visible volcanic cones and craters and vast fields of lava and limited vegetation---mangrove seems to be the first to take hold and it thrives in the brackish pools near the shoreline and has aerial roots so the lack of deep soil is no obstacle.
The newest islands like Fernandina still have active volcanoes. Although we were told that no eruptions were imminent, a couple of weeks after I got back to the UK one of them did erupt on Isabella and nearly wiped out a flock of flamingos that had made their home in one of the pools near its base!
There are two kinds of lava, with Polynesian names: Aa and Pahoehoe. Aa is aptly named because it is very sharp (Ah Ah! If you step on it barefoot). Pahoehoe is smooth and ropey. Much of the cliffs which seem so solid are actually made of relatively soft tufa and pumice made of volcanic ash. This is ideal for the birds who can burrow out nests on the cliff face quite easily. Also it is eroded easily by waves creating caves where turtles and fish can swim in the calm protected water and sea anemones and sea stars and barnacles and spiders can make their homes on the cave walls.
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| Landing and hiking up the lava slope of Bartolme island, just of the shore of the island of Santiago, one of the newer, western islands. |
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| A pelican finds what must be a very uncomfortable resting spot on the sharp lava.Note the grey moss on the lava--this is the beginning of vegetation which will gradually take root in the lava cracks and eventually cover it. |
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| Note the orange Sally Lightfoot crabs on the lava |
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| A rather fine cactus had managed to take root in the bleak lava rubble |
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| Me at the top of Bartolome Island with the lava fields behind me. You can notice a little bit of the green mangrove in the centre of the picture --mangrove are the first substantial greenery to grow on the lava at the edge of the water where their aerial roots allow them to establish themselves in the silt of bays of still salt water. The black field of lava on the neighbouring island of Santiago which is reach to water's edge at the back left was not there when Darwin stood on this spot--it is a new lava flow since 1895. |
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| note the "ropey" lava which is called pahoehoe |
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| Note the pahoehoe lava which the mangrove is gradually creeping over. |
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| Vegetation is gradually finding footholds in pools in low-lying lava |
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| Did you notice the marine iguana? (lower centre) |
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| Tiny sign of life in the lava. A fern grows in a protected crevice |
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| We walked through this mangrove to get to our zodiac in a protected inlet. You can still see the lava clearly in the foreground and middle background. |
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| A typical coastal bay with vegetation gradually growing over the slopes of lava and the jagged rock formations tumbling along the coast. Many of the these seemingly solid rocks and cliffs are in fact made up of relatively soft volcanic ash or tufa. |
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| Weird and wonderful coastal formations of lava |
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| Walking on a beach on Floreana Island, one of the more easterly and thus "older" islands.We didn't step on the soft sand because the sea turtles have made their nests in it. |
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| This is on a hike in the "highlands" of Santa Cruz, one of the older islands where the vegetation has flourished as the lava has eroded to soil. See the moss covering the tree trunks. Believe it or not these trees are members of the daisy family!! Because of the limited amount of vegetation that reached the Galapagos on the ocean currents, some species have grown huge because they have a particular niche in the ecosystem to themselves with less competition from other species of plants you would find in a more varied ecological environment. |
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| Note the flamboyant fungus on the moss-covered tree trunk in the lush highlands of Santa Cruz island. |
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| This is a pit crater of a sunken volcanic eruption on Santa Cruz. Because the island is so much older than the ones further west the vegetation has taken over. |
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| A sunken volcanic crater gives this island its shape, like a cake that has fallen in the middle. |
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| Same island silhouetted at dusk |
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| Although these look very solid cliffs they are in fact relatively soft, light volcanic ash, with different minerals staining the surface. |
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| This is called Darwin's Crater Lake, although he never visited this part of the westerly island of Isabela. The water in the crater is rainfall only, not fed by an underground water source. The trees are called Palo Santo (Holy Spirit) trees because of their sparse foliage and white trunk and branches. They are all over the central islands where vegetation has begun to flourish but the climate is not wet enough to sustain the lush mosses and vines of the previous photos taken on the islands further east or the black, bleak lava of the western islands. |
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| Another view of Darwin's Crater lake and the sea with our ship beyond. |
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| This is taken on a high point on Isabela Island. Isabela is made up of three separate large volcanoes whose lava flows have joined them together into one island. Behind me on the right is a large lava field formed by one of the volcanoes .Shortly after we left the Galapagos there was a further eruption of that volcano so quite possibly there is fresh lava there now. Note the hillside covered in Palo Santo trees behind me. |
How did the wildlife get there?
The wildlife on the islands is--of course--strange, which has led to its current great popularity with tourists. Because of the relatively (geologically speaking) new nature of the Galapagos all the wildlife originates from somewhere else, principally from South America but also from the coast of Mexico and from as far north as California (the Galapagos sea lions are closely related to the ones you see cavorting on the California coast).
They most probably arrived on clumps of vegetation carried by the ocean currents from the west coast of North and South America. The Galapagos benefits from the effect of two main currents. The cold Humboldt current sweeps up the coast of Chile and Peru and hits the warm current coming down the west coast of Mexico and the US. They meet each other off the coast of Ecuador and turn westward together into the Pacific until they reach the Galapagos 1000 kilometers off the coast of Ecuador.
Because of the mixing of cold and warm currents the waters of the Galapagos are not really hot, even though they sit right on the equator. Thus the waters are nutrient rich and support a wide range of fish and sea birds. When snorkeling you see penguins (the Galapagos penguin is closely related to the southern Chilean Humboldt penguin) swimming with sea lions (closely related to the California ones thousands of miles away to the north, and flightless cormorants and marine iguanas (unique to the Galapagos) as well as sea turtles and schools of tropical fish.
However, the islands themselves, being volcanic, make it hard for animals to survive. There are no native mammals except a bat because they could not survive the long drift over from the coast of South America without food or water. Reptiles such as iguanas and turtles and snakes however found it easier since they could survive long periods without food or water. Sea birds were okay of course but strangely there are also quite a lot of non-seabirds too. Goodness knows how they got to the islands---blown off course possibly when migrating? a clump of vegetarian drifting with a nest with eggs in which hatched en route?
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| A Galapagos penguin, closely related to the Humboldt penguin which inhabits the cold waters of Chile. |
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| The Galapagos penguin is the only penguin found north of the equator (just--the equator passes through the Galapagos). They are much more solitary than is usual for penguins who normally collect in colonies. |
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| Galapagos sea lions, closely related to the California sea lion. These must originally have drifted on currents down the coast of the US and out on the currents to the Galapagos islands. |
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| Land birds too made it to the Galapagos -- yellow warbler |
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| a Mockingbird |
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| A frigate bird--note the red throat which they can blow up like a balloon to attract a mate. They have a very long tail and their profile in the sky is unmistakable. Not a very comfortable perch! |
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| Not sure about this one. Could be a female frigate bird. Sea birds of this sort would have flown or been blown to the Galapagos and the islands now form a nesting site for many species of sea bird |
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| A frigate bird, an unmistakable shape with its sharply curved wings and very long tail. |
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| Reptiles like this snake made it to the Galapagos because they could live for extended periods without food or water as they drifted in the currents on clumps of vegetation from the mainland of South America. |
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| A stately heron surveys the ocean |
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| Guano-covered rocks are ample evidence here of the bird population. Note also the different colours of the cliffs on the right and the left, evidence of the different minerals in the lava. Those are giant cactuses on the top of the rock. |
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| A blue-footed boobie perches on a Swiss-cheese-like lava cliff |
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| A lava lizard |
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| Two flightless cormorants, two penguins and a Sally Lightfoot crab sharing one rock in the sea. All came from "somewhere else", though. |
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| A Galapagos penguin sharing a barnacle-encrusted rock with a mess of marine iguanas of all sizes. |
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| A large marine iguana grazing on a seaweed-covered rock. |
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| As you can see, it is all too easy to step on a marine iguana which blend so well into the black lava. This one even has the same lichen growing on its back. |
Darwin and all that
Thus one of the most famous examples of evolution which formed a major part of Charles Darwin's theory of evolution was the finch and the mocking bird. There are 13 (some say 17) different species of finch and 4 of mocking birds--out of only 60 resident species (i.e. excluding those birds passing through on migration). So clearly once a kind of bird did arrive and settle in, it had fewer competitor species (and of course no mammal predators) and so flourished.
More interesting still is the way these few birds adapted and changed from island to island and even to different habitats on the same island. Apparently this is called “adaptive radiation” by scientists. So with the finch, those finches which live on hot barren islands and habitats have developed beaks to tackle cactuses or became ground finches with heavy bills to crack seeds. Others developed sharp bills to “groom” the lice off the feathers and nests of boobies. One even developed the ability to use a “tool”—a twig to winkle out insects inside rotten tree branches.
Another strange looking bird with a memorably name is the “booby”. The only ones we saw were the blue-footed booby which nests in the rugged cliffs and feeds in the sea close to shore. Unfortunately we saw these only in the cliff sides and none up close. (There are also the red-footed booby which feeds out at sea and the Nazca booby which also feeds out at sea and we saw none of them.) All boobies have large brightly-coloured webbed duck-like feet and a gormless expression with a long ill curved at the end.
To further illustrate the variety of birds normally associated with other environments we also saw a flock of flamingoes which have settled themselves on one or two islands where there are shallow salt water lagoons.
But the bird that seemed to me to show how environment affects evolution is the flightless cormorant. There are cormorants all over the world but in the Galapagos they have lost the ability to fly. They still have wings but very stunted with only a handful of scruffy feathers. The reason is that they have no land predators and so don’t need to be able to fly. They dive for their food and when you see them underwater they move like bullets—lack of wings seems to be no obstacle to survival in the Galapagos.
Another flightless bird which is well known but normally associated with cold climates is the penguin. The Galapagos penguin is the only one found up by the equator. They are related to the Humboldt penguin from the southern coast of Chile and must have arrived on some clumps of vegetation carries on the currents up the west coast of the continent and out to the Galapagos. Unlike many species of penguin they are quite solitary and do not seem to gather in flocks. Again this probably because they have no predators like the leopard seals that eat them in Antarctica and no adverse weather conditions and so they don’t need to stick together in flocks.
However the most numerous of the arrivals in the Galapagos were the reptiles. And the most famous is the Galapagos tortoises like the late “Lonesome George” who captured the imagination of people worldwide and is still the creature most people think of when they think of the Galapagos Islands. The tortoises have grown to huge size—because they could! No competitors or predators. (see more later)
But for me the most curious reptile was the marine iguana. There are several species of iguana on the Galapagos, all of them remarkably ugly scaly and prehistoric looking lizards. Despite their fearsome look all iguanas are vegetarians. Iguanas, wherever else they are found in the world, are land creatures who might occasionally venture into fresh water if necessary. But in another excellent example of adaptation the marine iguana has developed on Galapagos Islands. These have descended from “normal” land iguanas which happened to have been washed up on the most westerly, lava islands where there was no vegetation to eat.
So they learned to dive into the ocean and to eat the sea weed growing on the underwater shore of the island. They are completely black like the lava they live on and so they are extremely hard to see—you can inadvertently step on a pile of marine iguanas. Since the males can grow to a three feet long and weigh 20 kilos and are covered with spines and scaly protrusions, they can look very fearsome. The marine iguanas like to cluster together and on top of each other. This is not because of some overabundance of affection but because they are cold blooded and so the need to preserve their body warmth when the sun is not shining.
But not all creatures have adopted camouflage. In fact the Sally Lightfoot crabs which are everywhere have gone to the opposite extreme. They are brightest orange and they live on the black lava and on the cliffs and rocky shores. So you certainly can’t miss them. Scientists believe that this is because orange is a colour often associated with poisonous creatures and so by adopting that colour the Sally Lightfoot crabs hope to be left alone by other creatures who think they might be poisonous.
And even the vegetation has developed differently because of the isolation of the islands and the limited species of plant which made the long journey from South America. I am not a botanist so I didn’t recognise a lot of the different plants and trees but one stuck in my mind and that was some large trees over 40 or 50 feet high which in fact are daisies! Or at least of the daisy family. They have reached their enormous size because of lack of competition for growing space.
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| A Galapagos mockingbird. It was the four (some ornithologists now say five) different species and numerous sub-species of mockingbird that drew Darwin's attention, each species and sub-species having adapted to the environment of a different island (called adaptive radiation) and become different species although stemming from a common ancestor which arrived in the Galapagos (probably riding on floating clumps of vegetation drifting on the currents since it is unlikely they would have flown that far) |
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| Another handsome mockingbird |
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| One of the fifteen different species of finch (commonly referred to as Darwin's Finches) which also drew Darwin's attention and sparked his theories of evolution. |
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| A Sally Lightfoot crab. These are all over the western, lava covered islands. Why they have this bright orange colour which makes them so obvious to predatory birds, is not clear. One theory is that orange is often associated with poisonous creatures and so they may be avoided by birds for that reason. |
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| I didn't get any really good pictures of blue footed boobies, but in this picture you can see the blue feet. |
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| Red-eyed swallow-tail gull |
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| A group of marine iguanas which, being reptiles are cold blooded and need to huddle together at night to keep their body temperatures from descending too low. In the mornings they start to move slowly as the sun warms them up. |
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| Galapagos sea lions, closely related to the California sea lion. These must originally have drifted on currents down the coast of the US and out on the currents to the Galapagos islands. |
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| A Galapagos sea lion curiously eyes our zodiacs |
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| I think this is a Galapagos fur seal--they are also a species of sea lion but tend to spend more time on land and like rough rocky perches like this. |
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| Believe it or not there are flocks of flamingoes on several of the islands. This one was on Floreana. They like the shallow salty water and the abundance of small crustaceans. |
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| These are white-cheeked pintails. Surprisingly, there are fresh-water ducks in the ponds in the highlands of Santa Cruz island |
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| This charming little duckling is swimming in a fresh-water pond covered in pretty red and green algae . I think it is a juvenile white-cheeked pintail. |
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| This is a land iguana. The marine iguana and the land iguana are closely related and have been known to interbreed. |
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| A Galapagos lava lizard |
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| a brown noddy tern |
The Giant Tortoises
And the Giant Galapagos Tortoises? Well yes they are very big, although there is more variety than you would have expected. In fact there used to be 15 different species (now reduced to 10) on different islands in the Galapagos. They live for well over 100 years but no one is quite sure how long. They can weigh 300 kilo and grow to about 1.5 metres. But the females are a great deal smaller than the males---and a lot smarter! Apparently the males are so dim that when mating they often mount the females the wrong way around and the female has to manoeuvre into the right position!
The most obvious difference between the species—adaptive radiation again---is that the tortoises who live in treed areas where they feed off low branched have a saddle shape at the neck end of their shell so that they can lift their heads upwards more easily. Those that live where there is low vegetation have a domed shell with no uplift of the shell behind their neck because they have no need to raise their heads up to find vegetation to eat.
They are v—e—rr—y slow moving –about 0.2 mph an hour, although when they want to put on a dash of speed they can do 15 feet a minute. But then if you weighed 700 pounds don’t imagine you would move even that fast.
They travel many miles at different times of their lives. They are hatched from eggs laid down at sea level where they live for up to 25 years when they reach sexual maturity. Then they make their way very slowly up into the highlands to mate. Then the female makes her way very slowly down from the highlands to sea level and lays her eggs. They rest for 16 hours a day. They drink a lot when water is available but can go without food or water for up to a year.
This made them ideal fodder for the seafarers at sea for several years at a time. They simply loaded a few giant tortoises into the hold of their ships and had fresh meat for the whole voyage.
The result of course was a dramatic decline in the giant tortoise population from the 250,000 or so that existed in the wild in the 1600s. In the 1970s there were only about 3000 in the wild but successful breeding programmes have brought that up to over 20,000.
We visited two tortoise hatcheries, one on the island of San Cristobal and one at the Charle Darwin research Centre on Santa Cruz, as well as a private reserve on Santa Cruz where a large group roam freely. The hatchery on the island of San Cristobal was very impressive and includes a considerable number of fully grown tortoises in a couple of acres of highland woodland. Because they are slow moving there is no need for a huge amount of space.
They collect the eggs which the female has laid and incubate them and raise them in screened protected enclosures them until they are at least 5 years of age.
The newly hatched tortoises are very tiny and even at 5 years they are only about the size of a domestic tortoise that you might keep in your garden. Their shell is very soft to begin with and it is only when they reach about 5 years that they are big enough and their shell is hard enough to withstand the attention of the beady-eyed Galapagos hawk which is their only predator.
The private reserve in Santa Cruz highlands is unfenced but quite isolated so the tortoises can come and go as they please (which of course is very slowly!) It was also very impressive and much larger in area with many more huge tortoises and interesting nature trails and interesting vegetation, fresh water pools with lily pads and pretty native ducks.
I was disappointed in the Charles Darwin Research Centre in Puerto Ayora on Santa Cruz. This is where Lonesome George lived out is last years and it is supposed to be the leading biological and zoological research centre dealing with the plants and animals of the Galapagos. I expect the scientists have better things to say about its behind the scenes facilities but to me it just appeared like one of those old fashioned zoos with small barren pens made of concrete surrounded by wire fencing, containing a selection of rather sad looking tortoises and iguanas who looked bored rigid with their lot. Still, if you don’t get to see the tortoises in the wild I suppose this is better than nothing.
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| This is the front--you can just see his head between is interned legs |
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| Tortoises are vegetarians. Not the different shaped shells. The one at the back has a shell which is distinctly saddle shaped. His species will have originated on an island where the best vegetation was on the branches of trees rather than on the ground, so he would need to be able to stretch is head upwards and a rounded shell would have prevented this. |
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| This gives you some idea of the size of the fully grown tortoise |
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| Tortoises are land reptiles but don't mind a wallow in the mud from time to time. |
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| This one has been in a pond and has algae festooning his shell. |
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| Tortoises grow very very slowly. These are about 8 to 10 years old |
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| This one is probably about 4 years old |
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| Not particularly handsome and intelligent looking, are they? |
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| One of the young people on the ship tried out this tortoise shell for size. |
Underwater
But the most varied and prolific sights for the tourist are underwater. And this is the environment where mere “tourists” like me are given most freedom to look and explore nature without the restraints imposed by the Park Service.
I hadn’t realised how important being able to snorkel would be. I had thought that snorkeling would be a water sport which would be the preserve of the younger tourist. But I was wrong. Had I known how important being able to snorkel would be and the magnificent sights one would see under water, I would have spent more time “practising” and preparing myself mentally for snorkeling since I am not a strong swimmer, hate flippers, and tend to panic if I feel I cannot breath. I would also have taken an underwater camera.
As it was I did manage two snorkeling trips and what I saw was a revelation—tropical fish of every size and colour, beautiful coral formations, and above all a constant parade of sea lions, sea turtles, penguins, cormorants, pelicans, all zipping through the water like rockets with grace and fluidity that none of them have on land.
One particularly memorable excursion we did was a zodiac trip into the mangroves in Elizabeth Bay on the coast of the island of Isabella. Here the mangroves have taken hold of a whole stretch of shallow lagoons created by the lava flowing in the sea. We drifted silently through the clear shallow water watching schools of eagle rays, golden rays and leopard rays below the surface and young sea lions lolling on the low mangrove branches just above the surface of the calm water. We watched penguins and pelicans lazily gorging on little fish which passed in easy reach below them in the clear shallow water. Apparently these mangrove bays are where the fish and birds and sea lions come to rest and raise their young in the calm protected waters.
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| Swirling underwater activity--probably turtles |
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| not sure what this is--possibly a brown noddy tern but the eye and the plumage seem wrong |
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| Not the place you expect to see a pelican perching but these mangroves provide an ideal vantage points to spot fish. |
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| A green sea turtle. The Galapagos Islands are a major nesting site for them. |
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| Rays swimming in schools in the sheltered shallow waters of a mangrove swamp |
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| A Galapagos penguin swimming--the go like bullets under the water |
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| The calm shallow waters of a mangrove swamp provide ideal fish-hunting for all manner of birds such as this pelican and these penguins |
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| A school of golden rays in a mangrove swamp |
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| Mangrove swamps offer shelter and rest to young animals like this Galapagos fur seal |
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| It was raining, but very warm on this day on a beach on the west coast of San Cristobal Island. Of course the rain didn't bother my friend the baby sea lion. On the horizon on the right is the ship and on the left-centre is Kicker Rock. |
Invaders
There is a huge problem of introduced species on the Galapagos and has been ever since it was “discovered” by pirates and whalers in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. As is well known –and as the Galapagos Islands themselves demonstrate—if a “foreign” creature or plant arrives in an otherwise untouched environment it tends to run rampant. Think of the rabbit plague in Australia, grey squirrels in the UK, zebra mussels in Canadian lakes, Japanese Knot-weed, etc etc.
In the Galapagos, as explained above, technically speaking all the creatures and plants came from somewhere else and so are “introduced” in that sense. However it was the later introductions made by man that have done the most damage. The whalers and pirates who were often at sea for several years at a time brought pregnant goats and pigs and let them loose on those Galapagos islands which had some vegetation. When they returned on a subsequent voyage the animals had reproduced prolifically in the benign climate and with no predators and so the seafarers had fresh meat. In the process of course the animals had stripped the landscape of vegetation and plowed up the thin soil with their snouts and rooted up the turtle and tortoise eggs on the beaches. Similarly the seafarers inadvertently let loose their ships’ rats and cats which ate the eggs and young of the nesting birds, and brought foreign vegetables and fruit trees which grew prolifically upsetting the balance of the endemic vegetation.
This is a problem well known in Australia and New Zealand and so the Ecuadorian Park Service has brought in Australian and New Zealand hunters with their typically unsentimental approach to non-native animals, to eradicate these introduced species. With some considerable success. But a weak link is immigration by native Ecuadorians who have moved from the mainland to the Galapagos. For the most part these are poor farmers and naturally they have brought with them farm animals and plants to set up housekeeping. Ecuador has restricted the number of immigrants and tightly controls all importation but governments of different views have loosened and tightened controls on Ecuadorian immigration over the years and it is likely that this will never cease entirely.
The customs inspections for tourists are very thorough to prevent further introductions. And the restrictions on tourist boats are very tough, almost protectionist. None of the tourist boats are allowed to employ non-Ecuadorian personnel and the result is a willing but inexperienced crew. No food may be brought in independently from outside the Galapagos by tour companies and so the quality of food on the ships is pretty mediocre.
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| An invasive species |
People
There are 30,000 people who make the Galapagos Islands their home and only two towns in the Galapagos where you can stay: Puerto Ayora on the island of Santa Cruz with a population of 12000 and Puerto Baquerizo Moreno on the island of San Cristobal with a population of about 6000. Both towns are somewhat attractive in a laid-back, tumbledown, peeling-pastel-painted wooden or breeze-block sort of way, but if you have visited the islands in the Caribbean you will have seen exactly the same sort of place so there is nothing particularly unique which would make you want to come all the way to the Galapagos to stay in them.
Puerto Baquerizo Moreno has the distinction of being populated (seemingly) by more seal lions than people! They have adopted and adapted to town life with gusto. They are everywhere—on the benches, on the steps, on the docks , on the promenade, in the parks. Very amusing.
On the islands of Santa Cruz and San Cristobal the imprint of human activity is very evident. On our drive into the highlands to see the tortoises we passed small farms and lovely—but invasive, alien—bougainvillea, hibiscus and “proper” mainland trees, rather than the strange daisy trees (scalesia) and other unique Galapagos adaptations. There are cows and crops too.
Apparently the people who live on the Galapagos are of Ecuadorian origin but theirs is a very hand-to-mouth existence and most are poor and under-educated. In fact in Puerto Baquerizo Moreno there is an Interpretation Centre that was set up for the local people and school children to learn about the islands where they live and why they are so special. The local people are told all the time by the Park Service “no you can’t go there” , “no you can’t plant this or keep that animal.” And so they need to have it explained to them why not. Makes sense.
The first inhabitants of the islands, however, were not Ecuadorians. For some reason the island of Floreana, one of the smaller, older, flatter eastern islands, was the first place that was occupied : by a marooned Irishman at the beginning of the nineteenth century island. He was probably there because of a very interesting tradition which had been initiated in the previous century. The Galapagos were by no means unknown by then—as mentioned earlier they were a favourite stopping off place for whalers and pirates who would take on water and food since they were at sea for years at a time. Some enterprising sea captain in 1793 set up a barrel on a sheltered bay on Floreana and it became a tradition for ships to stop at “Post Office Bay” and deposit letters for their families at home and if they were themselves about to make the return journey they would pick up letters for fellow countrymen which had been left by other ships and deliver them to the recipients when they made it back to their home port. This had an unforseen consequence in the 1840s when an American navy captain had the idea of stopping in Post Office Bay to read the mail and discover where his enemies (probably the Spanish) were headed . Today Post Office Bay is a favourite stopping point for tourist ships and the tradition of dropping off and picking up mail continues.
In the 1930s Floreana was host to a weird and wonderful collection of European misfits who were fired up by the back-to-nature attractions of the Galapagos. For example a German dentist and his mistress lived on Floreana for several years. In preparation for their desert island life the dentist extracted all his and his mistress’s teeth so they wouldn’t suffer from toothaches on their desert island. Another German family arrived and then a woman who claimed to be an Austrian baroness and her three lovers arrived.
They all proceeded to hate each other liberally. The dentist was poisoned, the Baroness and one of her lovers disappeared without trace (presumed murdered) and the other lovers left the island and their desiccated bodies were found months later on another island in northern Galapagos . The dentist’s mistress returned to Germany and wrote a book and the matriarch of the German family stayed on and made a fortune off entertaining visitors to her hotel on the island where she regaled them with lascivious stories.
Who said the plants and animals of the Galapagos were the weird ones ?!
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| The mail barrel at Post Office Bay, Floreana Island |
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| Local ladies at the fish market in Puerto Ayora, on Santa Cruz Island |
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| The locals enjoy an evening in Puerto Ayora, Santa Cruz (Note the ubiquitous mobile phones) |
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| The sea lions have a adapted quickly to living with humans in Puerto Baquerizo Moreno, San Cristobal Island |
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| Note the sea lions in the shade under the fishing boat |
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| Pleasant bar in the better-kept parts of Puerto Baquerizo Moreno on San Cristobal Island |
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| Pretty, but invasive and spreads like wildfire |
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| The pleasant water-front promenade in the quiet Puerto Baquerizo Moreno, San Cristobal Island |
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| Fishing and day-tour boats at Puerto Baquerizo Moreno, San Cristobal Island. Note the sea lions amongst the rocks. |
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| Darwin and me. San Cristobal Island |
