8th May: Espanola Island/Punta Suarez

Me and the Blue-footed booby are clearly closely related.

 Espanola has a reputation as one of the top spots for bird-watching, which has led to the phasing-out of day trips, so you need to be on a cruise to come here.  It was another early morning start for a 3 hour walk.  As the panga deposited us we were greeted by a carpet of marine iguanas - the only truly marine lizard in the world.  They spend the cool nights under the vegetation in clusters and emerge into the sunshine to warm-up and 'recharge their batteries'.   Socrates, our guide, informed us that the collective noun for lizards is a mess and indeed there was a mess all over our path and he had to gently shoo some away to remove the danger of stepping on them. A little further along the path we found a mockingbird making breakfast of a baby sea turtle.  Once again we wanted to intervene - surely one saved turtle wouldn't change the world - but Socrates said it was strictly against the rules.  He was rather scathing about the mockingbird, saying it was the scavenger of the islands much like the hyena in Africa and blowing my romantic idea of it being a sweet songbird.  As we reached the cliff edge we saw Nazca and blue-footed boobies nesting, so tame that you had to be careful you didn't step on them.  It was an arresting experience: a cloudless blue sky and ultramarine sea with waves crashing against the black cliffs, spurting water through the blowholes.  We sat to drink in the spectacle, while a Galapagos Hawk flew overhead.  There was even more to come - a field nicknamed 'albatross airport', the biggest breeding site of waved albatross in the world.  We witnessed their courtship, dancing, clacking and mating.  It was pretty hot by this stage, and I was feeling smug about my Rohan technical gear.  I had a wide-brimmed hat and a long-sleeved 'moisture wicking' blouse to protect me from the sun.  My water bottle was attached to my belt hook and my technical trousers had so many pockets it wasn't even necessary to lug a backpack around.     

A mess of iguanas warming up in the sun

Socrates clears a path

Marine iguanas on Espanola are the most colourful subspecies,
 nicknamed 'Christmas iguanas' for their red and green splotches 

Mockingbird pecks a baby sea turtle

 

I found the terrain challenging as it was strewn with lava rocks and boulders
and I was grateful for the walking stick and Richard's helping hand. 

 

Brown Pelican

Nazcar booby

Blue-footed booby

Waved Albatross

Galapagos Hawk

Mating Albatross

The most perfect perching spot

Suitably accessorised with zoom lens, country walking stick and binoculars

 



Floreana Island/Cormorant Bay

Retired!  Who knew it would be this good?
Copyright © 2016 Metropolitan Touring  

Late afternoon and I can't believe I'm launching into my third activity of the day.  I hopped onto the panga like an old nanny goat (and I was worried that would be an ordeal!) and we disembarked a little further up the coast at Punta Cormorant. (This is a perplexing name as there are no cormorants on Floreana -  the flightless cormorant is only found on Fernandina and Isabela).  The temperature was cooling down and just perfect for walking.  The path was relatively easy-going and allowed me to appreciate some of the interior landscape of the island.  After a brief incline (720m I'm told) we arrived at a look-out point over a salt water lagoon.  We could see 2 flamingoes in the far distance.  Dennis brought along a rather impressively large scope, so we could get a better viewing.  These American flamingoes are rarely found outside the Caribbean and a recent bird-count registered 314 individuals in the whole of the Galapagos. We walked a little way further to a stunning beach with fine white sand and turquoise sea set against a dramatic backdrop of imposing black cliffs.  It was a moment.  The beach is a well-known nesting area for sea turtles and as we were coming to expect, there was an abundance of birds, crabs and other wild-life.  Suddenly the frigate birds started dive bombing and I could tell from the excitement amongst the guides that something special was happening.  The sea turtles were hatching and the birds were helping themselves to dinner!  The eggs incubate under the sand for 45-55 days but the vast majority do not survive.  Evolutionarily speaking, the idea is to produce more young than predators can eat and eventually, through natural selection only the fittest animals will survive.  It was upsetting to see the carnage and we wanted to save the little things but Dennis was adamant - this was nature in action and it was not our place to interfere.

A little hazy, but I'm pleased to have captured the frigate picking up the baby sea turtle

Frigate Bird swooping (largest wingspan-to-bodyweight ratio of any bird)
Copyright © 2016 Metropolitan Touring



The sun was setting and there was a fine drizzle of rain so it was time to head back for dinner.  Dennis assembled the team for a photo.  They were a decent crowd and with a few shared experiences under our belt we started to gel.  Although initially a little brash for my taste, the American seniors were all rather kindly and I was warming to them. There was a dear family from Ecuador with 2 teenage girls who were a credit to their parents.  Having a language in common they were palling up with a young Spanish couple.  And we were getting along with our new English friends like they were old English friends.  



Getting to know everyone a little better
Copyright © 2016 Metropolitan Touring

Floreana Island/2nd Mobility Test

Snorkelers United 

After all the morning activities I worked up quite an appetite for the scrumptious lunch back on board, but after a short break it was back on the panga for the next activity.  Louise signed up for advanced snorkelling, Ian and I plumped for easy snorkelling, whilst Richard took the more relaxing option in the glass-bottom boat. Most days there were alternatives for the group activities, which not only kept the groups small but catered for different tastes and levels of fitness.



I worked myself up into a bit of a panic.  After a major operation and a couple of falls, your confidence gets a knock and you have to learn about some new limitations.  I had enjoyed snorkelling in the past, but it was a few years ago.  Would my new bionic hip give me the agility I needed in the water? Would I be able to get in and out of the boat?  If it was horribly cold would I get cramp? Would a seal bash into me and make me lose control? Would I drop the new camera? All in all, why on earth was I putting myself in for this? Why hadn't I joined Richard?



Calm, calm and collected on the glass-bottom boat



Beneath that mask I was terrified

Christopher coaches the beginners

My hip worked perfectly!  I passed the second self-imposed mobility test!  It was an invigorating and uplifting experience!  I want to go again! 



7th May: Floreana Island/Post Office Bay

 
 
 
 One of the advantages of cruising the islands is that the ship travels overnight, so that when we woke up we were already anchored off Floreana Island.  Breakfast at 6:30, excursion at 7:30.  Like most days, it was a wet landing, which means that the panga took us close to shore and then we had to wade through the sea onto the beach. Floreana has a couple of hotels but very few people live on the island, and the northern coast that we visited is only accessible by cruise ship (not day boats).  What's more, each cruise ship is allocated a specific itinerary, with strict times when they are allowed to drop anchor and visit the island, and consequently most times there are no other cruise ships in sight. 

Post Office Bay is quirky and offers a bit of light-hearted fun. A barrel was set up in 1793 by whalers leaving mail for passing ships to collect, whose crew would hand-deliver the letters to their destination.  Today the tradition is carried on by tourists.  I left two postcards and took one home with me.  I thought this was great fun until I made a wasted journey to Tunbridge Wells only to find that the person hadn't lived there for 4 years, even though the card was dated this year.  My post card arrived at its destination but disappointingly had used the mail system.  I guess I'm just a stickler for rules. 



Available from Amazon

We took a short hike up to 'Mirador de la Baronesa' (Baroness's Lookout) where she often sat watching for passing ships  Floreana has a troubled history stemming from a small group of Europeans who inhabited the island in the early 1920s, including a flamboyant lady who called herself 'The Baroness'.  Their story involves mystery, a love triangle, death and possibly murder and is recounted in a documentary film called The Galapagos Affair: Satan Came to Eden .  It makes fascinating watching, although I'm sure Hollywood could do a kind-of Out Of Africa version.  Maybe they won't let them film on the Galapagos Islands.  



. 

Our guides, Dennis, Socrates and Christopher dishing out postcards  

I chose to deliver a postcard for Tunbridge Wells

Team photo - 26 passengers on board Isabella II

Deserted sands at Post Office Bay

The panorama from Baroness's look-out.  



I'm not quite as exotic as the baroness, but I'm still alive

 

 

6th May: Arrival in Galapagos

Galapagos means Tortoise

I was like a kid on Christmas morning, awake and ready at 4am!  And still the journey to Galapagos continued.  At the airport we met Judy and Phillip, and it transpired we would be spending the next 6 days with them, adding a new dynamic to our cosy foursome.  It was a 1.5 hour flight from Quito to Guayaquil, another 2.5 hour flight Guayaquil to Baltra Airport (Galapagos), a short bus ride to the jetty, a ferry to Santa Cruz Island, then a 30 minute coach ride up into the mountains for lunch.  The vegetation is lush, even though our guide, Dennis, told us that there had been no rain for ages.  The landscape is dominated by trees, bushes, giant prickly-pear cactus forests and tropical flowers, with very few roads and even less traffic. The Big Deal of the day was the Giant Tortoises, which we were scheduled to see in the breeding programme at the Charles Darwin Research Station, but Happy Days, we saw them in the wild! There were lots of them, big ones, smaller ones, sleeping ones and some wide awake with heads stretched out of their shell.  They were a delight to behold. Dennis gave us lots of information and I loved the learning aspect of the trip.  For example, the hissing noise that the tortoises make as you approach them is not aggressive, as I assumed, but just an exhalation of air so that they can fit back into their shell. Dennis showed us how to approach slowly and quietly from behind. 

I swapped my sandals for Wellingtons because of the nasty ants in the ground and we were left to wander around making friends with the 100 year old statesmen.  It was hot and sticky, and walking across the uneven ground in sweaty boots wasn't the best, but the close encounter with such magnificent animals was.

Isla modelling Galapagos T-Shirt
Had to squeeze in a photo of her,
even though she wasn't with us.

Back on the bus we headed to Puerto Ayora, the archipelago's largest port and tourist centre, which Dennis warned us would be the only urban area we would see for five days. He emphasised that this was the last opportunity for shopping, whether that was for tourist souvenirs or bog-standard sun protection.  We bought Isla a cute little tunic with tortoises on; I just love buying her stuff!  I bought some postcards and stamps and then sat with an ice cream on the dock of the bay, watching the seals playing in the clear blue water and caught our first glimpse of Isabella II, the yacht we would be living on for the next 5 days.

We were ferried from the shore to ship by a small Zodiac boat, locally called pangas.  Having had my hip replacement operation just 8 months ago, I was apprehensive about how I would be able to cope with the physical demands of this holiday, but with a little hand holding I managed to clamber on and off the boat ok, so passing my first mobility test.  Thankfully someone else was dealing with the luggage.  The expedition ship, Isabella II, accommodates 40 passengers, but only 26 are travelling.  Whilst I was annoyed to have been fooled by the travel agent into booking early due to 'high demand', it meant less crowding and with 27 crew, more personalised service.  Our cabin was cosy (= small) and perhaps a little past its glory days (= me), but clean and fully functional.  The Captain's welcome in the bar included a complimentary Daiquiri, an introduction to the staff and details of the next days activities. My goodness, there was so much information I was confused, overwhelmed, excited and couldn't wait to get started. 

Who thinks Louise looks like Dora the Explorer?

Jackie doing a David Attenborough



Our first glimpse of Isabella II

This seat is already taken

Safely on board

On Board we meet the team

In the dining room of Isabella II with Judy and Phillip