Bartolome Island

After a fairly long cruise during the night, we awoke at a volcanic island called Bartolome. It's one of the younger islands in the Galapagos. It has few animals and not a lot of plants. Mostly, you see a moon-like landscape covered in lava rocks, lava flows and a variety of volcanic cones. We left the ship just after 6 a.m. again to take advantage of the photographer's favourite - morning light. It is also a good way to avoid the heat of the day. 

We landed on a slippery lava landing and proceeded to climb the 376 steps to the peak of the island. It's only 120m/400ft high but the path is pretty steep. Along the way we learned about the geology of the islet from our guide. 

This is another small volcanic cone that has been eroded away.

And this is a view from the top showing Pinnacle Rock and the beach from which we would go snorkelling in the  afternoon. 

After breakfast back on Endeavour, we grabbed our snorkel gear and took Zodiacs back to a beautiful beach on Bartolome. The beach is made of broken down volcanic material called tuff and is an interesting goldish brown colour. Usually, we did deep water snorkelling from the Zodiacs, but this time we swam out from the beach into the deeper water. The underwater landscape was as amazing as the terrestrial one. We swam through fairly narrow coral passages that came out from steep, rugged lava cliffs. The passages made it so that the schools of fish were closer to us, letting us get better views and pictures. The most exciting sight was a 5 foot reef shark that didn't seem interested in eating us!

The highlight of this day happened on a Zodiac ride in the late afternoon. We were taken to an area where Galapagos penguins had been seen earlier in the day. As we approached, we could see them standing on the rocks getting some sun. In all, we saw around 25 penguins, some on the rocks and some swimming. There are only around 2000 of them so we felt very lucky to have seen them.

On the way back in the Zodiac, we saw a very interesting cloud formation developing as the sun set. 

Santa Cruz Island 2

This expedition stuff is tiring! Today was another 5:30 a.m. wake up call for a photo hike at Cerro Dragon on another part of Santa Cruz Island. We were hoping to see some of the land iguanas that live there. The population had been decimated by wild dogs and cats introduced by sailors. A breeding program combined with an effort to remove the invasive animals has led to a rebound in the iguana population. 

Our landing on the island was interesting in that we started out on wet lava rocks which turned out to be quite slippery.

I survived that nicely but as we were photographing a stand of cacti in the morning light, I brushed against one of them and ended up with a pincushion effect on my arm. Luckily, they pulled out easily and didn't leave marks. It was another long, hot hike but very much worth it due to all of the great photo opportunities.

The land iguanas are able to eat cactus due to very hard skin around their mouths. 

We also saw some marine iguanas on beach. 

There was a quick turn around once we got back to the ship to go snorkelling at a nearby rocky islet. The sea was quite calm when we left but the wind kicked up soon after we were in the water making for some larger waves to go with the current. We saw some interesting coral features but I ended up being pushed onto one by a large wave. A minor scrape or two ensued. The guides had us out of the water a bit earlier than scheduled as the winds increased and the ride back was very bouncy. 

I like this shot because it gives an idea of what the waves were like. This is what I was doing when the wave got me. 

This is called a chocolate chip cookie starfish.

This is one of the sharks that we saw while snorkelling. I'm not sure what I would have done if it had turned towards us! 

Santa Cruz Island

We spent the entire day on land today at Santa Cruz Island near the town of Peurto Ayora. This is the largest city in the Galapagos at 20 000 people. The day was bright and sunny and we weren't complaining about the 30+ degree heat or the humidity!

Our first stop was the Charles Darwin Research Centre. The people here have been working since the 1960s to protect the wildlife and the land of the Galapagos. It was estimated that when the British first came to the islands in the 1700s there were over 500 000 giant tortoises. By the 1960s there were only 14 of one species left and not many more of others. Through research and a breeding program, they have been gradually restocking the islands with young tortoises. The researchers are also trying to save species of birds that are endangered due to invasive species that are threatening to wipe out a variety of land birds. It was incredible to see the baby tortoises but sobering to consider how much damage was done and the threats that are still present. 

There are quite a few adult tortoises at the centre that were once pets of the local people. The government decided that the tortoises shouldn't be used as pets and brought them all to the Centre in the 1980s. 

The next part of the day was spent in Peurto Ayora exploring the waterfront area. It was quite touristy with dive shops, galleries and many souvenir places. The highlight for us was the outdoor fish market where a sea lion and a flock of pelicans were fighting over the scraps dropped by the employees. 

We then boarded our buses and headed up into the highlands for lunch at a family run restaurant. From there, we drove to another family operation that made both sugar cane products and coffee. We saw the process where cane juice was boiled just like maple sap to form a syrup and later, sugar. A sideline was the production of cane moonshine. This was a definite bonus and somehow I ended up with three samples, all of which were very good! We saw the small scale production of coffee from the beans on the trees to hand sorting and roasting. The end result was one of the best cups of coffee I've tasted. 

These are coffee beans before processing. The next shots show traditional methods for making finished coffee beans.

Boiling down sugar cane juice is similar to boiling maple sap.

Sampling the sugar cane moonshine!

The day ended with a walk through some fields where we saw many wild giant tortoises. They are really magnificent creatures and some that we saw were over 200 years old. They watch you as you approach and I found myself crouching down and just looking into what seemed to be very wise eyes more than once. If you approach from the back and startle them, they make a loud hissing noise and pull in their heads. So, you make every effort not to do that. It's really hard to put into words what it was like to be in their presence. 

That's about as close as you're supposed to get but sometimes the tortoises would change direction and approach you.