Day 1 -- Arrival |
Baltra Island Airport
00° 26' 44"s
090° 16' 10"w
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Arrival at Baltra Airport, one of 2 airports in the Galapagos
Islands. We departed quite early from the Quito airport after a mad
race to find an ATM that would dispense the $100 required for entry into
the national park. The 4th ATM finally worked.
There were a number of excellent shops outside of the airport which
offered so many great t-shirts and hats that I wanted to buy them all!
A ferry bridged the gap between Baltra and Santa Cruz. Then
we boarded a bus that took us to the town of Puerto Ayoro at the
southern end of Santa Cruz Island.
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| Santa Cruz Island |
We had lunch at a restaurant then walked to the Darwin Research Center.
Our "guide" for the day, Mario, spoke almost no English. He was
successful in pointing to and identifying animals along the way, but
could give no information whatsoever beyond their names whether in
English or Spanish. Consequently our visit to the Darwin Research
Station was a massive disappointment, the tour group being led around a
nondescript zoo to examine the only giant tortises we would get to see
on the trip enclosed in pens. We could have saved a lot of money and
experienced more by going to the San Diego zoo. Other tour groups in
the research center seemed to be getting their money's worth. Our "tour"
ended almost 2 hours before we boarded our boat at 6:00p.
Shuttled to our yacht where we had our orientation and set
sail overnight. The cook, Miguel, asked us all if we had any dietary
restrictions. Not only did he remember them, but he honored them all at
every meal. And everything was absolutely delicious.
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Day 2 -- Floreana Island |
Post Office Bay
01° 14' 13"s
090° 27' 01"w
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We were treated to a Zodiac ride to look at the wildlife before
landing on the beach. Our first encounter, we were all very impressed
to see boobies, sea lions, pelicans, and marine iguanas. Later on we
saw all of these animals much closer and in much more interesting
situations.
On the beach we walked a few yards into the brush to the world's
strangest post office. A collection of boxes and crates, one of which
held mail. You could write a letter or postcard and bring it here.
The next tour group would go through all the waiting mail to see if
anyone was a resident of a postcard's destination country. If so, they
got to deliver that piece of mail. One of the tour members got stung by
one of the many hornets buzzing around the area.
We had another hour+ to spend on the beach while the crew of our yacht
played soccer in a nearby field. I'm not making this up. There was
nothing to do here. Coupled with our 1st day of visiting the Darwin
zoo, this trip was turning out to be a complete bust. |
Flamingo Lake
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Just across the north coast of Floreana the yacht stopped again.
After a very brief, cold, and sightless snorkeling excursion by half of
the tour group,
the Zodiacs shuttled us to a beach where 4 Galapagos Penguins were
feeding in the water. They are normally not seen here, and too quick
to get a picture. We saw flamingos in the
lake and some sea turtle tracks in the
sand. The tour was finally starting to get interesting.
That night we set sail for Espanola Island. The water was so choppy
that many times during the night I became weightless in my bed. Made
for some interesting dreams.
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Day 3 -- Espanola, San Cristobol Islands |
Booby and Albatross Rookery
01° 22' 22"s
089° 44' 36"w
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Now this is what we came to see. Lots and lots of animals here. I took
6 rolls of film and spent 2 hours here and neither were enough.
Marine Iguanas, sea
lions, blue-footed and masked boobies,
and waved albatross were all seen here up
close and in abundance. I could have spent all 4 days here at this
spot.
Besides all of the animals, the scenery was spectacular. Pristine blue
ocean crashed against the shore and even created a dim rainbow against
the sky. There was also a blowhole here -- that's where seawater funnels
into a small, horizontal opening in the rock and the pressure shoots it
into the air through a natural vertical tube.
Afterwards, we set sail during the afternoon to San Cristobol Island.
It took about 4 hours to get there.
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Port and Interpretive Center
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Arrival into port was humorous because there were many small boats
and each one appeared to have a basking sea lion on its front as
standard equipment. This is where we would spend the night, so we had
the option of going to shore to party if we wanted. No tourist left the
ship, but all crew did.
But on arrival we were bussed to an interpretive center and abandoned to
wander around it ourselves. The only exhibit that I went through showed a
timeline of the islands depicting its human history. It was amazing --
the Galapagos' past is riddled with well-meaning but failed attempts to
colonize using prisoners for labor. Each try ended in disaster for the
animals and the humans and nobody learned anything. I don't understand
how the animals can be so acclimated to humans when the islands' history
suggests nothing should have promoted their tameness.
There were trails behind the center, and after being couped up on a ship
for 3 days I was eager try one. They meandered through the lava and
plantlife, but that's about it. We all left the center somewhat
dissapointed, not because it was lame or anything, but because so little
of our trip to see wild animals had been spent seeing wild animals.
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Day 4 -- Sea Lion, Santa Fe Islands |
Kicker Rock aka Isla Leon Dormido
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The next morning we made our way NE up the coast of San Cristobal
Island to a small outcropping dually-named Kicker Rock/Leon Dormido
(Sleeping Lion). The higlight of this beautiful formation was piloting
the ship through the crack that split the island in 2. It didn't seem
all that difficult or dangerous, but the view was neat and we went
through it twice.
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Sea Lion Island
00° 51' 20"s
089° 34' 03"w
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This was a small island between Kicker Rock and the port. We found
plenty of sea lions here as you might expect.
In fact, after a walking tour of the island, the snorkelers really
enjoyed swimming with the curious pinipeds.
But the highlight for me on the island were the
frigatebird families. Not only did we get to see the males with
their inflated throat sacs, but also a few babies!
We spent the next 4 hours inefficiently using the daylight to travel
to Santa Fe Island.
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Santa Fe Island
00° 48' 14"s
090° 02' 29"w
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This stop showed us lots more animals. Not only did we get our closest
look at sea lions, but we also saw a number of
green sea turtles and our only
land iguanas. Snorkelers enjoyed swimming with
reef sharks and manta rays.
This island also gave us a view of some bizarre-looking cactus trees.
You can get a pretty good idea how tall they grow from this picture.
The trunks were not needled, just their plate-segment "leaves." And of
course the cactus trees were growing right in the lava.
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Day 5 -- North Seymour Island |
North Seymour Island
00° 24' 01"s
090° 17' 26"w
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The last day was quick. The ship motored to the island in the early
morning. We disembarked onto North Seymour before breakfast and saw a
whole bunch more blue-footed boobies, but this
time they all had fuzzy babies! We also got our best views of frigatebirds all puffed up.
After breakfast it was a short journey back to Baltra where we got on
the plane and went back to the mainland. The flight went back through
Guayaquil and onto Quito.
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