Travels to the Galápagos

Travels to the Galápagos

Tuesday, February 12, 2002

Darwin's 193rd Birthday

Mardi Gras

Galápagos Day

Roca Redonda, Fernandina, Isabela

Note: Due to a camera malfunction, we have relatively few pictures from this day.

During the night we sailed up the east coast of Isabela, crossed the equator, and arrived at Roca Redonda, just north of Isabela, right before sunrise. The Polaris circumnavigated the small islet of Roca Redonda twice as the sun rose.

A heavy dew had covered the outside of the ship, but rapidly evaporated once the sun was up. To the south we could see, partly shrouded in mist, Volcans Wolf, Darwin, and Ecuador on Isabela, as well as the island of Fernandina.

Roca Redonda is the eroded tip of a former volcano. Although it rises about 9000 feet (?) from the sea floor in the space of a mile, the portion above water is perhaps 500 feet by 200 feet, by 200 feet high (very approximate). The sides are sheer, and composed of layers of black and orange volcanic rock. Supposedly, no one has ever summited Roca Redonda, except by military helicopter. It has underwater fumaroles.

Redonda is a high-rise bird condominium. Birds, birds, birds, and birds nest in crannies on the steep sides (and probably on top too, although we couldn't see there). Swallow-tailed gulls, Audubon's shearwaters, storm petrels, blue-footed and Nazca boobies, red-billed tropicbirds, and always magnificent frigatebirds circling overhead. There were more frigates here than we have seen anywhere else. Blue-foot boobies would plunge dive in large numbers in search of fish. Frigates harassed red-billed tropicbirds and blue-footed boobies, attempting to steal fish. Nazca boobies took off en masse for a prime fishing spot, a few hovering 15 feet off the bow of Polaris, suspended in the air. A sea lion swam in the distance.

Then we sailed south. As I write, the sun is climbing in the sky, and we are passing Volcans Ecuador and Wolf on the north end of Isabela. Wolf, 5600 feet, is the highest point in the Galápagos. There is still a little mist in the air, obscuring detail at lower elevations. At higher elevations of Volcan Ecuador there are distinct ridges running down the western flank.

The Polaris circled back north briefly to spy on a group of six or so common dolphins. This species usually travels in larger groups. A red-footed booby flew past. A melon-headed whale was spotted earlier by others, but I missed it.

On a hot sunny morning, with no clouds in the sky, we crossed the equator again, heading south.

And promptly entered a fog bank

Cold water upwelling from the Cromwell Current is responsible, and also makes the ocean ecosystems in this northwestern part of the islands different.

A Dark-rumped Petrel and a sea lion escorted us. Our course carried us through the caldera of Volcan Ecuador, part of which collapsed some time back. A smaller tuff cone then arose about 1000 years ago, on the shore line. A black basalt flow just south of the tuff cone is perhaps 100-150 years old, with a few candelabra cactus growing in it. The tuff cone has an interesting layered effect.

Fernandina, ahead on our right, is a shield volcano about 200,000 years old. The exterior of the Volcan Ecuador caldera is very steep, with almost nothing visible growing -- just red, brown, dry, tumbled rock.

Our first excursion of the day was by Zodiac to Punta Vicente Roca, on the southwest side of the Volcan Ecuador caldera. From a distance, it appeared almost devoid of living creatures, closer examination revealed much activity.

The side of the caldera is quite steep, mostly reds and browns. Occasional trends of black, with sharp divides separating them. The black is basalt, and the brown or buff is compacted volcanic ash. The ash was stratified, much like a sedimentary formation. There are many dikes, veins of magma intrusion into solidified rock. Apparently these dikes, which are numerous and plainly visible to even the casual observer, are of much interest to geologists, who travel great distances to come study these.

As we cruised near the shoreline, many large turtles swam by in the water. Marine iguanas clung to the rocks. There were far more iguanas actually swimming in the surf than we had previously seen this week. The marine iguanas on Isabela were larger than we have seen on the other islands (because the water here has more nutrients), but were not as colorful as those on Española. Many female iguanas scratched out nests in the soil, on steep, sunbaked slopes, to lay their eggs. (One per clutch, if I understood our guide correctly - which can weigh up to 25% of the female's body weight.)

We saw our first Galápagos fur sea lions, formerly (but incorrectly) called Galápagos fur seals. The few females and babies here were considerably smaller than the Galápagos sea lions. Sea lions visited our Zodiac later on the same outing.

The peaks of Fernandina, Volcan Wolf, and Volcan Darwin are encircled by cumulus clouds, while lower elevations bake in the sun.

Our first flightless cormorant swam near the shore, occasionally sticking its snake-like neck out of the water, but going under for fish more often than not.

A Galápagos penguin flitted by about 50 feet (15 meters) from our Zodiac, and was soon out of sight. Two other penguins stood watch on small outcrops of rock, seemingly unconcerned by the blazing hot equatorial sun. (These guys were only a few miles south of the equator - perhaps as close as three miles.)

We are becoming so used to close encounters with some native creatures that we begin almost to take them for granted: blue-footed boobies (nesting cliffside or plunge diving), Sally Lightfoot crabs (unusually large here), King angelfish, swallow-tailed gulls, puffer fish, lava lizards, pelicans, yellow-crowned night herons, Audubon's shearwaters, and dark-rumped petrels.

Our Zodiac entered a cave in an ash formation, perhaps part of a former lava tube. The surrounding layers of ash had eroded into weird shapes. The cave was dark, and cool (relatively speaking). It was blazing hot outside in the sun, so the cave was a nice respite, albeit brief. Thunder periodically entered the cave, the result of surf crashing into a crack. It was the most Disney-like setting we've seen, somehow reminding me of Pirates of the Caribbean, although it was completely natural.

The registered guides double as park wardens, reporting illegal fishing, unauthorized landings, and such. (Not that we saw any.)

I wore a frog-covered T-shirt today to bring amphibians to the islands vicariously, since there are none here -- or so I thought. On seeing my T-shirt, one of our guides told me that there has been a species of introduced frogs on Santa Cruz and Isabela for the last two years.

After Punta Vicente Roca, we sailed south to Fernandina, but made a detour east after a large group of common dolphins was spotted. There were perhaps as many as 200 dolphins in the group, leaping, splashing, playing. I've never seen anything like it. Eight, ten, twelve dolphins at a time leaping from the water in formation. Finally, the entire group stampeded away from us -- there is no other word for it -- it was a stampede. Practically the entire pod burst out of the water in unison, several times in succession, swimming away from us far faster than the Polaris could follow.

As we left the first group, on our way to Punta Espinosa, we spotted a second group of dolphins. The second group was just as big, and just as spectacular as the first. Had it been choreographed, it could not have been more impressive. They also ended their display with a stampede.

The common dolphin (which is actually not that common) is smaller than the bottlenose - perhaps half the size. They travel in large pods for better protection from predators (mainly orcas and sharks). They have a gray body, with lighter gray or white on their sides and bellies.

From Fernandina I saw Tagus Cove on Isabela across the water, where Darwin went ashore in 1835. We could not see the saline lake to which he hiked, however.

Snorkeling at Punta Espinosa on Fernandina was detoured to a beach a little farther down the coast, due to high wave action. The visibility was not good in many places, though it was acceptable in others - compared to other snorkeling this week, there wasn't as much to see: mostly small fish, that sort of thing. It was interesting to see the lava blocks coming down to and going under the sea. We did spot a very large puffer fish and a turtle. Above water, we saw flightless cormorants, and a couple of penguins. There were a number of intriguing damselfish - black with yellow tails and bright blue eye rings. Although I didn't see it, a penguin swam up nose-to-nose with my son. The black aa basalt all around was testimony to the youth of these rocks - on the order of 200 years, though dating is uncertain. There are even two estimates for the age of Fernandina itself: 60,000 years and 200,000 years.

After a very quick shower and change, we went by panga (Zodiac) to a walk at Punta Espinosa (on the northeast end of Fernandina). Not only is Fernandina the youngest of the islands, it is also the largest island in the world without introduced species. On the ride in, through some mild waves, we encountered a group of about 20 penguins swimming and fishing. They were a little shy, darting under the water if we approached closer than about 50 feet.

The dry landing was covered with iguanas - iguanas across the path, grouped in mangroves, paying us no mind. We had to be careful not to step on the iguanas, their black color was so similar to that of the omnipresent lava.

The lava at first resembled very badly poured asphalt, that had buckled from excessive use or too much sun. It would soon become worse.

But first we crossed a beach where female marine iguanas were busy digging nests. The beach was an unusual mixture of black lava sand, broken shells, and sea urchin spines. Since soft spots for digging are hard to find on Fernandina, this was a popular place to lay eggs. The marine iguanas mated here a little earlier than in the southeastern islands, so they have lost their mating colors. The males have stopped fighting with each other here, but now the females fought over nesting holes - either already dug, in progress, or just a good spot to dig one. Holes were everywhere on the beach, even in the narrow tourist path. We had to be careful not to step on any. Nests in progress meant spurts of sand flying out of holes, or a female turned around, facing out while laying eggs. Fighting females meant head bobbing, and head-butting like that of the males during mating season - it reminded me somewhat of sumo wrestlers. Since nesting occurs only once a year, we were truly fortunate to witness it. Our guide, Carmen, was genuinely excited over the iguana nesting.

Sea lions sometimes plopped down to rest in the sun in the depression of a recently-dug nest. Although the female iguanas would fight one another over a nesting site, they did not seem the least perturbed by a sea lion in a nest. I do not know whether there was nothing they could do about the much larger sea lions; or whether their instinct only told them to fight other iguanas; or whether the sea lions on top of the sand did nothing to harm the eggs underneath. Who knows -- maybe the sea lions not only do no harm to the eggs, maybe they also keep other female iguanas from taking over a nest site?

A short ways off, we saw a pair of American oystercatchers with red bills, and their downy chick with a bill just starting to turn red. Offshore were the (by now) familiar blue-footed boobies and pelicans. Several flightless cormorants were fishing offshore, and three were onshore, one of which was drying its vestigial wings in the classic cormorant pose.

Offshore was a large group of feeding penguins, probably sixty or so in shallow water. I was told that such a large group is unusual. They were very busy. There must have been a lot to eat.

A little farther along the trail was a small Galápagos sea lion colony. A rather large bull barked loudly that this was his territory, so we kept our distance. Past the bull a smaller, more laid-back sea lion basked, right next to a picture-perfect grouping of juvenile iguanas posed, facing into the sun to cool down. One small iguana was perched on a larger iguana.

We left the sea lions and walked along a different, short beach, also filled with females digging nests and laying eggs.

Next we took a walk of a mile or so along the lava - ropy, or pahoehoe lava. Punta Espinosa was chosen as a National Park visitor's site because it is one of the few coastal sites on Fernandina with some walkable pahoehoe, rather than the sharp, almost un-traversable aa.

Lava cactus grew relatively frequently on the lava, low, cylindrical groupings of spine-covered plants, with different segments showing different periods of growth. Lava cactus is a "pioneering" plant, one of the first to grow on a new lava flow.

Virtually the only other plant we saw here was the white mangrove, which grew in the salt water.

A few inland salt water pools supported fish and algae.

We also saw a single, small clump of a short grass growing in a lava crack near the end of the pahoehoe trail. Hermit crabs in borrowed shells occasionally crossed our path. Carmen moved them out of the way so they wouldn't be stepped on. A few spider webs crossed or were adjacent to the trail.

We ascended the pahoehoe trail until it ended in a sea of aa. It was hard to believe that all the lowlands of Fernandina could be so inhospitable, as well as much of the uplands. The black lava was cracked, tortured, bulged, had fissures, was like no place I'd ever seen. Different people on the hike compared it to the moon, to Mars, to the Plain of Gorgoroth in Mordor. It was certainly beyond any ordinary experience. Some called it "Carmen's death march," although this was a tad exaggerated since the hike was not that long.

On the way back to the landing a Galápagos Hawk was perched in the same mangrove where we had left it when we landed. Carmen told us that there was almost always a hawk there. She also said she thought the introduced frogs were in San Cristobal and Santa Cruz, not Isabela.

We stepped around lazy iguanas on our way back to the panga. The iguanas seemed to be about as large as those on Isabela.

Other creatures seen on Fernandina: Sally lightfoot crabs, lava lizards, blue-footed boobies, dragonflies, lava heron (on the trail), and pelicans. We saw no finches, which are less common on Fernandina generally. Land iguanas live inland on Fernandina, including in the caldera, but we didn't see on Punta Espinosa.

On the panga ride back to Polaris, we saw some penguins swimming, a sea lion or two, a couple of blue-footed boobies, two cormorants, and one penguin on a rock (a juvenile).

My son's stomach was bothering him a little after the walk, so the ship doctor gave him something that made him feel better. The rest of us are doing well.

Sunset over the Pacific was pretty, but no green flash tonight. The volcanoes still had clouds on their peaks. I saw the direction of Tagus Cove clearly, but we headed back north, to round the top of Isabela, crossing the equator up and down on our way to Santa Cruz tomorrow. A typical 12-year-old, my son is losing things constantly on this trip: name tag, sandals, binoculars. It's a good thing his head is firmly attached to the rest of his body, or no doubt he'd lose it as well.

Map of the Islands (from the Emory Law School website)