Galapagos Islands, Ecuador – Part IV (Post #132)
On May 28th both of our excursions were to the island of Santa Cruz. Of the Archipelago, Santa Cruz has the largest population with the largest city on the island, Puerto Ayora, having about 20,000 inhabitants.
The morning excursion was to the Darwin Station nearby the city of Puerto Ayora. Here, there is an ongoing program to help the giant Galapagos tortoise population recover. Our guide showed us the egg incubators and several enclosures each containing different age groups of the tortoises. It was interesting to look at the dates on the pens to see how big a giant tortoise is at various points in its life. The 2-year-olds weren´t much bigger than my hand but adult Galapagos tortoises can weigh up to 250kg and live for over one hundred years. I once saw an episode of Crocodile Hunter in which Steve Irwin visited the oldest of these (actually living in Australia now) who is over 160 years old!
After viewing the nurserys, we saw some of the giants. Here´s one…
The Darwin Station also had three pens with Galapagos land iguanas. Land iguanas are an entirely different species from the marine iguanas we´ve already talked about. I watched a couple who were occupying adjacent enclosures square off through a screened window between them. I excitedly took some film of the head-bobbing and threatening lunges. We´ll get a closer look at this species of iguana later.
After the Darwin Center everyone was given about 45 minutes to walk through the town of Puerto Ayora back to the dock. Michele and i were hoping to stop by the Galapagos SubAqua Dive Shop office to confirm our diving reservations for after we finished our cruise but every shop we saw on the island (there are many) was closed. It was, after all, Sunday morning.
We took our lunch back aboard the legend and then re-disembarked back to Puerto Ayora. The afternoon excursion started with a 45 minute bus ride across the island of Santa Cruz to the Highlands where there is a private giant tortoise reserve. We spent about 1.5 hours walking around with our group and guide before taking the bus over to visit a lava tube. The lava tube wasn´t so impressive compared to some of the cave´s we´ve been in but we didn´t spend much time there.
After taking the bus back to Puerto Ayora, Michele and i made a mad dash over to the SubAqua office, sucessfully confirmed our reservation and picked up the standard dive disclosure forms.
The next day was the end of the cruise for all but six of us (the Boobie group Michele mentioned in part I). Some of those who left had only been on board for 4 nights while others had been on board the full week. Before the departing passengers actually departed, we had a morning excursion to Bachas beach on Santa Cruz.
For this excursion, our zodiac landed on the beach and we walked around while our guide explained various features of the wildlife and habitats around us. Here is a picture of Michele and i on Bachas beach just after stepping off the zodiac.
The first attraction of Bachas Beach was a couple of pink flamingos. The guides had advised us in the briefing the night before, that there wouldn´t be hundreds of them like in certain places in Africa but we would be able to see them relatively close up. We stood next to a couple of sunbathing marine iguanas for several moments while watching the flamingos dredge the bottom of this brackish lake in search of food.
After wandering around this beach area for over an hour, Michele asked the guide when we were going to do the morning snorkelling. Ooops! The guide had totally forgotten! He said, “If you want to snorkel we better head back to the beach right now because we´re supposed to get back on the zodiac in 20 minutes.”
Michele and i ditched the rest of the group and hurried back to snorkel for 15 minutes. We´re glad we did because we found a small (maybe 18″ in diameter) marbled ray gliding across the sandy bottom.
On this morning there was actually a second excursion to a beach near the airport. Michele and i opted out of this one because it didn´t sound like there was much to see there. Besides, we had awoken extra early this morning and needed some more rest.
For lunch the six of us remaining from the last cruise were joined in the dining room by about 50 newcomers.
After our regularly scheduled afternoon siesta, we left the Legend on the zodiac for our afternoon excursion. We found the group of boobies significantly changed. For the second half of the cruise there were 14 of us instead of the original 8 (2 left after the first 4 nights). At first we were a bit concerned that this would be too many people for the group but it turned out ok.
The afternoon excursion was to one of our very favorite island in the archipelago — North Seymour. If a person went to the Galapagos and only had time for one island (i don´t know who would arrange their trip this way) they could go to North Seymour and see all the hightlights. I was particularly excited about this excursion because there was a possibility we would see land iguanas in the wild (so far we had only seen those in Darwin Station).
Upon landing on North Seymour, we were greeted by several frigates with their throats inflated in an attempt to attract a mate. Here are a couple of frigates with their throat pouches inflated.
A short walk from the frigates brought us to nesting blue-footed boobies with some young chicks.
Shortly after the booby nests, Michele spotted our first land iguana. They can actually be difficult to recognize sometimes because their color is not so different from many of the rocks on the island. After the first far off land iguana we found another just off the trail but obscured by the bush under which it was resting.
Finally about halfway into our hike around North Seymour, we found a large (approx 3 ft. long) male land iguana eating vegetation off of a small tree just a meter or so off the trail. This resulted in our most prized series of Galapagos photos. Here is a sample…
No sooner than we had finished taking several photos of this big male land iguana someone shouted about another one nearby. This was an interesting site because this one was standing on its hind legs in order to reach some leaves on a tree. I took a short video but much of the footage (and Michele’s pictures) is obscured by the tree branches.
Wow! What an island! North Seymour has nesting blue-footed boobies, frigates in mating, cormorants, lava lizards, marine iguanas, land iguanas, sea lions…
Tags: Category #29: Ecuador
Michele Harmon
As usual, you have got some really spectacular photos. The colors these animals display is unbelievable, esp. the red throats of the frigates and the golden head and chest of the iguana.