Avian Ending

We’ve seen thousands – probably more along the lines of millions – of animals here these past two weeks.  The last few days have been an incredible finale for the trip.  While sea lions and iguanas have been important players in the full story, we closed out the trip with birds. And when I say birds, I mean BIRDS. 

Penguins whizzed around beneath us at Bartolome and Sombrero Chino Islands.  They occasionally came up to check us out too.

 

Our last full day was spent on Genovesa, a jewel of an island on the northeast side of the archipelego.  We anchored the ship inside a caldera underneath a myriad of frigatebirds, red-footed and Nazca boobies, swallow tailed gulls and red billed tropicbirds.

Once again we were very close to the beautiful male frigatebirds with their inflated gular pouches.

Red footed boobies flew around us gathering nesting materals while others sat on newly laid eggs.

 

We saw tenderness with a Nazca booby mom and chick and just down the trail watched another two in an intense fight.

 

Coming here is something I don’t tire of.  Each trip is unique….I’m already looking forward to being back later in the year. 

Ciao – for now.

 

Fleeting Moments

The sights of the islands here are, of course, beautiful.  That is something that you can experience through the photographs you’ve seen.  The sounds and smells, though, that is something you can only truly experience here.  I’ve often thought I should invest in audio equipment to bring here to share the symphony that we hear on the islands, but that would still not do it justice.  It is when it all comes together that the experience is whole.

Every time that I’ve come here, there have always been unexpected things that have happened.  Nature is not a blue footed booby standing in a trail.  It is things that we experience because we happen to be in the right place at the right time to intersect with the lives of the animals around us.  Those moments happen often here, if we’re paying attention.  This week has been no exception.

Gardner Bay on Española Island has a beautiful sandy beach with sooooo many sea lions on it, hundreds on any given day.  It’s may be one of the most photographed locations in the Galapagos.  After several visits here, it can be difficult to do something different to photograph, but you can’t help but try.  This week, I spent most of my time there in the surf as sea lions swam through the shallow water and eventually came on shore.  (Click on the photos to see them larger.)

Española is also home to the waved albatross.  This large bird only comes to shore on this island, and only spends part of the year here.  If you visit here February – April, you won’t see these graceful creatures….they are out at sea then.  May is their breeding time, and their courtship dance is one of my favorites here.  When walking by the “albatross airport” where they take off from a high cliff over the ocean and many nest nearby, we watched the courtship and mating of one pair.

The next day, near Champion Island we snorkeled with countless sea lions.  May is a great time to be here because the sea lion pups are at such a fun age.  They dance and spin all around you, especially when you dive down with them.  It really is like no other place I’ve experienced in the water.

On Floreana Island, there is a beach that we visit that, like many here, is a nesting area for the Pacific green sea turtle.  As we were leaving the beach to go back to the ship for breakfast this week, we saw a frigatebird flying low over the nest area.  I had been keeping my eye out for this, since friends had seen this happen on previous trips, but I had always been on another part of the island.  We watched as the bird plucked hatchling turtles from a nest and ate them as he flew overhead.  Three times he circled back by.  It was amazing to see how quickly he was able to do this.  At one point a hatchling was dropped and he swooped down to catch it in midair.  Yes, some in the group were horrified, but it is part of the process of life and a moment that I felt fortunate to witness.

 

There are four inhabited islands (five if you count Baltra which houses the airport and a small military base) in the Galapagos.  Puerto Ayora, on Santa Cruz Island, is the largest city in the archipelago, with somewhere around 18,000 inhabitants.  People are often surprised to hear that around 30,000 people live on the islands.  I’ve visited three of the four inhabited areas and they are all distinct from each other.  One of the great places to visit in Puerto Ayora is the fish market.  The guys that work there are great multi-taskers, as they filet the fish that’s come in that day, deal with customers, and defend their catches from the patrolling pelicans and sea lions around them, although they do give them an occasional treat.  Anyone who has a dog knows what kind of behavior that encourages!

Happy Mother's Day

To mothers across the globe, of all kinds, thank you.

To my own, I love you and am honored to be your daughter. 

More Highlights

Some of the things that make experiencing the Galapagos unique are the variety of animals, the sheer number of them in one place and how close you can get to them, or more often, how close they come to you.  And of course, the landscape is beautiful too.  Here are some highlights from the second part of this week’s trip.

Sally lightfoot crabs on Santiago Island being washed by the incoming tide.

School of golden cow rays.  I don’t know how many were in this school, but they just swirled beneath us before swimming away.  It was a wonderful few moments.

 A giant tortoise approaches Greg, one of the naturalists on board.  We spent at least 45 minutes with this one tortoise before he went on his way.

Looking out from a collapsed lava tube on Santa Cruz Island.

Sunset over Leon Dormido, near San Cristobal Island.

Expect the Unexpected!

It is good to be back in the Galapagos with friends old and new, on trails that I’ve traveled and still see with new eyes every time.

North Seymour Island is a place brimming with activity.  Every time I go there, I wish that I had audio equipment because the sounds are as enchanting as the sights.  Birds are the main characters at this landing sight….frigatebirds (both Magnificent and Great) are displaying their courtship behavior this time of year, which means the males have their red pouches inflated to attract females, among other fascinating behaviors.  

 

The blue footed boobies also are in their mating season, so as the frigatebirds fly through the air and establish nests in the trees, the boobies are on the ground doing their dance, whistling and showing off their feet to potential mates.  Also on the ground, in stark contrast with the green landscape (which is rare), are the yellow land iguanas.  

 

A new island to visit yesterday….Rabida, with it’s red sand beach.  Flamingos fed at an inland lagoon, but the reflections of the landscape on the wet sand was the most beautiful sight on our short outing there.

Today we spent the day in my favorite part of the archipelago, the western and youngest side, on the islands of Isabela and Fernandina.  Too many marine iguanas to count in the morning.  A ride on zodiacs in the afternoon included close encounters with a pod of dolphins and juvenile Galapagos fur sea lions frolicking in the surf.

A special and unexpected treat on this trip has been in some of the people that I’ve met.  I am always looking to see where people are from on the first day and this time I noticed that there were two women on the trip from Lampasas, Texas, where my mom went to high school before moving to Ozona.  When I met the mother and daughter pair that evening, I told them that my mom had lived there.  Of course they asked who she was and the mother of the pair responded with a gasp when I told them her name.  Yes, they were friends as teenagers!  So, as I spend this week traveling around the Galapagos, I end most my days with new friends, listening to stories about my mom as a young lady over a glass of wine.  It really has been a special time!

A few of my favorite things

If the guests from week 1 of this voyage would have been here for week 2, they would not have believed it was the same area. We had only one brief rain shower the entire week. The weather was absolutely beautiful, the air cool, the water warm. What more could you ask for?

Our mobile home when traveling through the islands is the National Geographic Endeavour. She has spent extensive time around both poles and came to Galapagos ~2 years ago to settle here. Every evening the crew pulls the zodiacs up on board so that we can travel to the next destination. These images are from our first evening, at Leon Dormido, where we ended week 1's trip.




The land is beautiful here. The dark lava and tidal lagoons. Sometimes we see flamingos, marine iguanas, and various other shorebirds in and around this lagoon, but as you can see, it is stunning on it's own too.



The large prickly pear cacti were in full bloom on various islands. The yellow and sometimes orange blooms were a stark contrast to the green vegetation during the rainy season. Some of these plants are 20 feet tall or taller.



Gardner Bay has a beautiful white sandy beach and Caribbean like water. The sea lions there are incredible. Our expedition leader counted 362 when we were visiting the beach. There is nothing like being so close to so many of these animals.



The accessibility to the animals is unique to Galapagos. It's not uncommon that you have to wait for a blue-footed booby, land iguana, or sea lion to move out of the trail before moving along. It is the mocking birds and juvenile sea lions that are most curious and often come right up to you to investigate.



You must always keep your eyes peeled for things out of the ordinary. You never know when a marine iguana is going to swim by you to feed on algae beneath you or when a pod of dolphin will be riding the bow of the ship.




Sometimes you know that something is going to happen. When juvenile birds are squawking excitedly, it may mean that its mother is not far away with food.



Other times, you come across things already in progress, such as a Sally lightfoot crab eating another, as a third watches. We don't know if the 'victim' here was still alive or not, but watched the dominant one take apart its legs before we moved on.



The differences between different islands is always striking to one who visits Galapagos. The last day of this trip, we visited Genovesa. It was my first time there but one that I had heard many things about in the past, so it was a highlight of the trip as a whole. We saw nesting Nazca boobies and two new species (for me), the elusive short-eared owl and the red footed booby.


These owls can be very difficult to spot because they blend in with the reddish brown lava and don't typically come close. We were able to see two close up, which was a real treat. (You can always tell when it is really something special when even the naturalists, who are out there week after week are excited.) I love the vibrant yellow of their eyes.


We also saw numerous red footed boobies and their chicks nesting along a beach.



As I sit at home now, I'm reminded of how incredibly fortunate I've been to get to know this magical place. There is a part of it that feels like a second home and one that I hope to continue to get to know better in the coming years. If you have not been, you really should go. If you have, you know exactly what I am talking about.

New places, new faces

Thirteen weeks in the Galapagos Islands over the past 8 years and it was one of new experiences…new islands, new trails, new animals. Roughly half of our landings were in places I had not visited before. If one thing was constant for the week, it was rain. Friday was our only precipitation-free day. The clouds were a welcome thing though, as without them it would have been H-O-T.

Three sites that I have visited in times past but never cease to amaze me were North Seymour Island, with its nesting areas for the great and magnificent frigatebirds, Fernandina Island, where we watched two flightless cormorants performing their mating ritual, and Santiago Island with its numerous tidal pools and marine iguanas.

From the zodiacs off Isabela Island, we watched sea lions catch fish and brown pelicans competing to take them from the sea lions at the water’s surface.

New places included a hike from Tagus Cove on Isabela Island to a hilltop to look “Darwin’s Lake.” During a snorkel at Buccaneer Cove off Santiago Island, we saw three manta rays and several sharks.

Our last full day was spent at San Cristobal Island. A beautiful beach at Point Pitt was the starting point for a hike up to a lookout filled with Sesuvium portulacastrum that was a vibrant red. Speaking of red, this was also where I saw my first red-footed booby in the distance. Such odd looking creatures they are! One of our destinations next week should have numerous of these birds so I’m hoping to have images of them soon.

We ended the day with a snorkel at Leon Dormido, a striking islet offshore. This area had golden rays, lots of Pacific green sea turtles as well as numerous hammerheads and Galapagos sharks.

I'm often amazed at my continued amazement of this unique place and all the life that it holds. As passengers head for home, I am reminded how fortunate I am to be staying one more week. More to come....