Galapagos Islands

Our arrival in the Galapagos was at Baltra airport. This picture is of the airport as we entered our downwind leg in preparation for landing. It has a short narrow runway on what appears to be an otherwise deserted island. There's a one-room airport, a few hangers. and a few tourist shops out front selling T-Shirts, caps, sun screen and trinkets. It is very clear we've left the known world. We next boarded a bus to take us about 5 minutes to the harbor. And after a short wait, we boarded the MV Carina, our floating home for the next several days. It's clear, from 30 minutes of killing time waiting to board, that there are a LOT of birds here. And sea lions. This is going to be great! Our already sky-high expectations ratchet up a bit more.

This is from the "summit" of Bartolome. Later we landed on the beach to the right and hiked over to the beach on the left. We did not enter the water on the left however. Among other things, the surf was crowded with Galapagos and Black Tipped Reef Sharks. There were dozens of 4-6 foot sharks swimming in about 2 feet of water just at the surf break. That beach is one of many where turtles lay their eggs. When they hatch, the little turtles make a bee line for the water. The sharks were waiting. Most of the turtles don't survive their introduction to the concept of predation! Later we snorkeled off the beach on the right. Beautiful clear water. Lots and lots of marine life.

The origin of the islands is volcanic. In many places erosion has hidden the volcanic that origin. But there are many recent lava flows. We spent an afternoon hiking across one. As the lava reached the surface it was thick and viscous. As a result, it formed really neat patterns which were preserved as the lava hardened.

All the birdlife here is spectacular. But the species with the best PR department is the Blue Footed Boobie. You can buy T-Shirts, caps and such with the "I Love Boobies" tag line and 2 strategically placed blue web feet. Unfortunate name aside, these are pretty neat birds. I loved watching them dive full sped into the water hunting for food. As they start their dive, their wings fold backwards behind them and they hit the water like a torpedo dropped from a plane. They will then shoot 5, 10, 15 feet deep or more to their prey, grab it and swallow it before they get back to the surface. I could watch these guys for hours.

The 747 of Galapagos birds is the Pelican. On one of our hikes we observed this guy resting on the beach. He was quite tolerant of us walking around him even though we were only 10 - 15 feet away. We saw lots of these guys, both resting and flying along the crest of waves. Another neat bird!

On the same island as the pelican but further along the beach, we found a brackish lagoon with Flamingos. Mostly they would walk through the shallow water with their head skimming the bottom eating tiny shrimp, which give them their vibrant color. In this photo, the Flamingo in the foreground has just flown into the frame and is landing in the shallows.

One of our hikes took us along the crest of a high bluff overlooking the sea. This one of thousands of birds that made the bluff home. It may be an American Oyster Catcher, but I am not sure of the identification.

Near the end of our stay we landed on Seymour Norte where we saw a lot of Frigate birds. Here's a female in flight. The males have a red swoosh at their throat which they inflate to attract females.

It had to happen and as it turned out, it happened here. With thousands of birds flying around overhead, it was here that I got dive bombed by a big bird. I know it was a big bird by the volume of bird crap that landed on me. Warm and white and gooey (well maybe that's too much information.) It washes off and no harm done really but I got a lot of laughs from our traveling companions. Walking up and down the various beaches we visited, there was constant traffic overhead. Every couple of minutes a flock like this one would come cruising down the beach. Often the onshore wind would create a ridge as it bumped into the beach and these guys would ride it effortlessly for hours at a time.

One of my favorite marine animals was the Sally Lightfoot Crab. These colorful little guys were plentiful and we found them almost everywhere the sea met the shore. I don't know if it is a male/female thing or a different species, but some of the crabs, like this one, had their eyes set far apart. Some had them very close together. But otherwise they all looked alike ... colorful, but skitish.

We saw a lot of Iguanas. 99% were the black marine variety like this one. The rest were the more colorful but more rare land variety. In the water these guys swim by swishing their tails back and forth. Quick. Maneuverable. We occasionally saw them while snorkeling but mostly they seemed to sit around, on the beach or among the rocks, doing nothing. Ugly things that seem a throwback to an ancient time or to a 50's B horror movie.

Nancy got the best picture of a tortoise. We saw tortoises in the wild, but these were at the Darwin Research Center on Santa Cruz near Puerto Ayora. A tortoise originally discovered by Darwin died recently. He would have been something like 170 years old. The biggest town we saw was Puerto Ayora, a town of a few thousand people. A few hotels. Half a dozen dive shops. The research center. And a bunch of folks just trying to live simple lives with the infrastructure necessary. As we were preparing to leave I was able to check email at the only internet café on the island. 30 minutes for $1.00.

There are a gazillion Sea Lions on the islands. The ones we saw on land were mostly asleep on the beach. The ones we saw under water were incredibly swift, graceful and sometimes uncomfortably curious. They had no fear of us but it bothered me a bit when one grabbed the tip of one of my swim fins in his mouth.

Nancy has an underwater housing for her Sony digital camera. She took this and the next picture. With all the diving we've done, we have seen quite a few sharks. We saw more sharks here than all the other occasions put together. Although there are hammerhead sharks in these waters, we saw only Galapagos and White Tipped Reef Sharks. The one here is about 10 feet below us in about 15 feet of water. We left them alone and they returned the courtesy.

The marine animals I liked best were the rays we saw. This Diamond Ray was in about 10 feet of water quite near a steep shore. The "wingspan" was maybe 2-3 feet.

Our route when we got there was Isla Baltra; Isla Santa Cruz; Isla Bartolome; Isla Santiago; Islas Plaza; Isla Sante Fe; Puerto Ayora on Isla Santa Cruz; Isla Seymour Norte; and then back to Isla Baltra for our return flight. Here's the map with our route in red.

Okay, it's time to take on this evolution thing. I think I have understood for the first time what Darwin may have observed and why the Galapagos were so important in the history of the study of evolution. We were traveling with a naturalist and he explained it this way. The Galapagos are situated at an important position in the Pacific. Normally the cold Humboldt Current flows north, then turns west at the equator. The warm Panama Current normally flows south and also turns west at the equator. These two mix to form the west-flowing Equatorial Current. To keep things in balance there is a deep-water east-flowing Equatorial Undercurrent. This is important because the two equatorial currents meet exactly at the position of the Galapagos and create an incredible food-rich environment for marine life. With me so far? On an annual cycle, there is a cool dry season, and a warm wet season. During the cool dry season, the waters are cold and food-rich ... marine life explodes in the abundance. But there is little rain and life on land is dormant. During the warm wet season, the rains come. Food becomes abundant on land, and life there explodes while marine life struggles in the food poor warmer waters. That's the normal cycle. A cycle of dormancy, but not species threatening. Every 5-7 years, the cold Humboldt Current deteriorates and the surface current flowing past the Galapagos becomes slower, but much warmer and profoundly food poor. About 60% of the marine life dies. Above normal rainfall allows life on land to recover. This is called El Nino. Every 5-7 years, but off cycle with El Nino, the warm Panama Current deteriorates and the water flowing past the Galapagos becomes much colder and is super food rich but the rains fail and food above the ground becomes profoundly scarce. Marine life recovers but about 60% of the bird and animal life dies. This is called La Nina. When 60% of the life dies, only the strongest members of each species survive. Tiny genetic differences in favored members convey unique survival advantage and get passed on to offspring. The species changes over time. The mechanism of evolution. What did Darwin observe and why did it have to be here? Normally evolution takes a long time. But with the rapid El Nino/La Nina cycle, evolution happened here at a hyper-fast rate. It happened so fast in fact that a single human being could observe evolutionary changes occurring during their life time. Enter Charles Darwin; right place, right time. Darwin observed that Finches were changing. Being a smart guy, and because it was his job, he wrote his observations down in The Origin of Species and the rest is history. I'm not going to enter the Intelligent Design vs Evolution debate here. But if you've been to the Galapagos and understood what's going on, you cannot doubt that evolution is a real and observable force on the planet. Intelligent life elsewhere in the universe? Time will tell. We'll we believe what we see, or see what we believe?