It's probably going to be tough to write about our trip to the Galapagos without just making the whole entry a string of superlatives. It is truly one of the most amazing places I've ever been.
I first visited the Islands on a week-long cruise my family. I was returning again, almost 30 years later with even more family. My two sisters, their husbands, two nephews, an 18 month old niece and, of course, my mother and father, who had arranged the family holiday as a celebration of my dad's seventieth birthday. I'm still amazed to think that I'm now older than my dad was during our first trip back in 1989.
We flew to the Galapagos’ one major airport on Christmas day. Our arrival was a bit chaotic, but our guide was waiting or us, and we'd soon enough paid our national park fees and caught a bus down to the boat in Baltra habour. Astonishingly, the boat, a motor sailer named The Beagle was the same boat we'd been on in 1989 (though it's captain, ownership and name had all been changed in the meantime).
A quick ride in a zodiac (locally called a “panga”) and we were all aboard and steaming out of the harbour.
I was rather surprised that we got to go ashore that afternoon. We took the zodiac out again to a small but lovely white sand beach on Santa Cruz island. We took a walk to the lagoon behind the dunes and plenty of splashing in the Pacific, complete with a visit by several spotted eagle rays that seemed happy to cruise around the human swimmers, coming as close as a metre or so to my nephew Dante. This got us well primed for the wildlife spotting walks and snorkelling expeditions that made up most of our wondrous week in the Islands.
We motored all night, crossing the equator on calm seas as we slept (the first time we'd been in the northern hemisphere since Macapa in Brazil, about three months earlier!
Our first stop was Genovesa (Tower) Island. We woke up to find The Beagle anchored in the wide, round bay inscribed by the rim of a volcanic caldera, bringing back memories of Deception Island off the Antarctic Peninsula. And just as in Antarctica, the bird life on shore was absolutely phenomenal. Completely free of introduced mammals, on Genovesa you (quite literally) have to pay attention to avoid tripping over masked and red footed boobies. While blue footed boobies are the Galapagos’ most famous variety, I actually think the red-foots are prettier and Sarah liked the masked ones as, she said, their wide slightly goofy faces and waddling walk made it look as though they'd just told a terrible dad-joke and were asking for affirmation of their avian comedy.
We also saw a rare short-eared owl on the hunt. This species isn't uncommon elsewhere in the world. But the ones in the Galapagos at unique in that they've taken to hunting during the day, and we actually saw this guy catch and carry off one of the thousands of storm petrels that wheeled and soared just offshore.
Some of my strongest memories from 1989 came snorkelling around Genovesa. We saw a huge school (I remember it as being a couple of hundred, but probably it was more like fifty) of hammerhead sharks swimming beneath us in the depths of the caldera. I was really hoping the new visitors would get to see something similar, but it didn't turn out that way. In fact, the snorkelling trip turned out decidedly unpleasantly. We'd seen some pretty stuff when, fifteen minutes in, my mom complained of being stung by something.
I felt one or two painful little zaps on my arms as well, but decided they weren't that bad and just to try to ignore them. Apparently everyone else was getting stung as well, and by the time most of them had escaped back into the zodiac we must've swum into a good big patch of invisible jellyfish, because I was quickly convinced to head back myself after several more good stings, receiving even more as I scampered (you can't really scamper while swimming, but that's how it felt) back aboard myself.
Back on the ship, we treated our wounds with vinegar but everyone, especially my sister Melanie, had some good bright pink blisters on their bodies. Our guide Tommy told us that jellyfish are uncommon in Galapagos waters, and that these were likely visitors brought by the warm el Niño waters (which, except for the stingers, made swimming in the Galapagos even more pleasant than I remembered it being).
That night we sailed to Santiago Island, another one that we'd visited thirty years previously. We went for a walk ashore and once again, memories flooded back. I'd been telling Sarah about the marine iguanas on Santiago for years, knowing that she'd love them and, unsurprisingly, she did. They have blunt snouts, drooping eyelids and mouths that look like they're in a constant state of sleepy contentedness. This fiits in well with their generally lazy behaviour when on land, just sitting on the black lava, warming themselves in the powerful equatorial sun before diving into the cool water to munch (exclusively) on seaweed.
There weren't quite as many iguanas on Santiago as I remember but there were far more sealions basking, like the iguanas, on the warm rocks before diving in to swoop and play in the waves as they crashed into the rocky shore and shot up through the remains of ancient lava tubes forming impressive surge pools and blowholes. In one spot, water and air, pressurised from below found its way up through porous lava to bubble and “breathe” underfoot in time with the waves
While there weren't the scores of oceangoers as on Genovesa, my dad still delighted in the shorebirds (oystercatchers, night herons, stilts) that were kept company by the iguanas and by dozens of brilliantly coloured Sally Lightfoot crabs. I love these both for their appearance and their behaviour which seems more appropriate to flocks of birds or schools of fish than crustaceans. They'll sit there silently, all seeming to stare at you with their stalked eyes until they get a bit nervous and back (or actually sidle, since they're crab walking) away. Then one would be startled by something and they'd all scuttle rapidly off, like geese taking flight.
That afternoon we departed Santiago and spent the full day on the water, two of the sails unfurled for the long journey up and around to the western side of Isabella Island. When sailing in the Galapagos you're almost always in sight of one island or another. Many of them are dozens of kilometres across, and their volcanos range up to 1800m in height, so there's always at least a hazy vision of one on the horizon. But this day was about the closest we got to sailing open ocean.
The water was dark, but brilliant blue. And even though we were well out to sea, there was still some excitement, as Sarah and Mel spotted manta rays in the distance, some even jumping spectacularly entirely clear of the water. Another, perhaps two metres across, cruised (seemingly lazily, but actually at eight or ten knots) alongsjde the bow.
As we neared Isabella, it's dark (under rain clouds, also a result of the el Niño) and foreboding landscapes provided more awesome sights.
I still struggle to get used to the equatorial days, which are warm and sunny but, unlike NZ or Canadian summer days, end abruptly at 18:00, the sun plumetting quickly below the horizon. Because of this and our anchorage for lunch, we completed our day's sailing down the west coast of Isabella in the dark, leaving its wonders to surprise us the following morning.
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