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The Galapagos

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The Galapagos The Galapagos Islands of Fire The Galapagos Islands teem with wildlife, above and below the water. Even the rocks are alive and constantly threatening to erupt as volcanoes vent their fury in this spectacular and historic place. By Tony Karacsonyi nother feature of these isles is their emphatic Born of fi re as the tips of submarine ‘uninhabitableness’. It is deemed fi t for… the volcanoes, the Galapagos Islands is a place where “A evolution can be observed ‘in-situ’. Hundreds jackel itself; …but the encantadas refuse to harbour of kilometres from mainland Ecuador, animals even the outcasts of the beasts. Man and wolf alike and plants set adrift have somehow found and colonised these desert islands. Floating rafts of disown them. Little but reptile life is here found; vegetation, wind, air currents and oceanic drift tortoises, lizards… and that strangest anomaly of have all helped this colonisation, otherwise know as “sweepstakes dispersal”. outlandish nature, the iguano. No voice, no lo, no Birds displaced from migratory routes howl is heard; the chief sound of life here is a hiss” landed here, and sea birds carried seeds and invertebrates. Animals set adrift in the ocean – Herman Melville, from las Encantadas, 1841. currents came from North, Central and South 4 6 7 America and the Caribbean. Californian sea lions Wilson, took us near shore and armed with mask and land birds came from North America, while and snorkel, we slipped into the green waters. pink fl amingos and Darwin fi nches came from the Marine iguanas scampered on shore and within Caribbean. Land iguanas, giant tortoises, pelicans, seconds we were examined by a huge green cormorants and boobies arrived from South turtle. “This place is alive,” I thought, as a vast America. Fur sea lions and penguins travelled from school of black-striped salema fi shes buzzed the Antarctic. me. Marine iguanas swam on the surface, trailing Then there was Charles Darwin, the most prehistoric tails. On the rocks, there were famous of all visitors to the Galapagos. He Galapagos penguins and fl ightless cormorants, arrived aboard the HMS Beagle on September together with the bright Sally Lightfoot crabs. 15, 1835. The HMS Beagle spent fi ve weeks in Fernandina is the youngest of the Galapagos the archipelago, during which the 26-year-old archipelago – less than 700,000 years old. The naturalist visited Chatham, Charles, Albemarle ‘Hot Spot’ theory held by geologists today says and James Islands. He spent 19 days on shore that there are stationary areas of intense heat in collecting and observing fl ora and fauna in this the earth’s mantle that cause the crust to melt ‘living laboratory of evolution’. In 1859, Darwin and give rise to volcanoes. Every now and again, released the fi rst edition of his work The origin there’s a build-up of pressure and a mild volcanic of species by means of Natural Selection, which eruption, producing lots of lava. sparked a scientifi c revolution and challenged religious beliefs. CRATE COLLAPSE Our motor yacht, Letty, lay off Fernandina In June, 1968, the caldera of Fernandina changed Island in the Western Galapagos, a place where dramatically when it’s fl oor, a block two the islands are bathed in the colder, nutrient-rich kilometres round, fell by 350 metres over nine waters of the Cromwell Current. The captain, days. The caldera was clouded in choking dust 8 and the crater lake disappeared. Some 2000 white-cheeked pintail ducks and land iguanas disappeared, too. Fernandina is still the most volcanically active island in the archipelago, with a dome-shaped cone that rises to almost 1500 metres. Its caldera is now 900 metres deep and six kilometres round. The Galapagos archipelago consists of thirteen major and six minor islands, with 49 smaller rock formations, all spread over 27,000 square kilometres. These equatorial volcanic islands erupted above the Pacifi c Ocean 950km west of Ecuador. They fi rst broke through the sea fl oor 7- 9 million years ago, and still show volcanic activity – seven volcanoes have erupted in the past 15 years alone. The Galapagos Islands sit on top of the Nazca Plate, close to the junction with the Cocos Ridge. The plates shift along the Galapagos Rift and the East Pacifi c Rise, which is making the islands move south-eastward at more than seven cm per year. The eastern islands are older than those in the west. Fernandina and Isabela, are the youngest – less than one million years old. We stepped ashore at Punta Espinosa, which means Spiny Point in Spanish. A lava/sand promontory, this place is surrounded by six volcanoes on Isabela Island, which lies across the Bolivar Channel. Stepping ashore onto the black lava from our panga – the local name for a small dinghy – Sally Lightfoot crabs scuttled on the green algae in the tidal zone. A pile of marine iguanas lay sunning themselves on the solidifi ed lava. As their body temperatures increased, they made their way to the ocean to feed on green algae, above and below water level. Further along, a huge whale skeleton lay on some sand and an inlet yielded endemic fl ightless cormorants. Here we enjoyed the cormorants fl apping their short wings. Sally Lightfoot crabs and marine iguanas lay all around. Sea lions were playing in the shallows. Distant views of volcanoes made for a splendid vista. Our natural history guides, Harry Jimenez (alias Loco Harry) and Jose Luis Castillo (alias Pepe) were a wealth of information, making the fi eld trips most enjoyable. The islands’ climate is greatly determined by the ocean currents. In the cooler dry season – July to December – the Humboldt Current keeps the islands much cooler than you would expect in an equatorial region. During the warmer, wet season 10 – January to June – there’s actually minimal rain on the coasts. DOLPHIN ENCOUNTERS The colder waters of Fernandina and Isabela Island are great for dolphin and whale watching – striped, common and spinner dolphins and pilot whales abound. Nowhere have I had such amazing encounters with dolphins as in the Galapagos. There must have been 70 dolphins, some of which congregated around the bow of our boat. Jumping into the ocean, I cleared the bubbles in my mask to see dolphins and a 5-foot Galapagos shark – so sharks do swim with dolphins. Dolphins were zooming in to see us from all around, often in pairs, peeling off when only two metres away. of sea lions and hundreds of Pacifi c creole fi sh, The sheer experience of being in the ocean with until we reached a point where two currents so many dolphins around checking us out was one collided. Here I saw a scalloped hammerhead of my life’s greatest experiences. shark, eagle ray, green turtle and no less than fi ve With some reluctance, we left the dolphins white-tip reef sharks. The funniest thing was that and headed over to the island to scuba dive. We the sea lions were playing tag with the reef sharks. swam along an underwater cliff with an entourage The sea lions were diving down and chasing, then 11 12 nipping the shark’s tail. Whenever there was a nip, the shark would give a good fl ick of its tail. The fi sh life in the Galapagos is fascinating and many of the fi sh look like overgrown versions of exotic and colourful African cichlids (ornamental aquarium fi sh to the uninitiated), with long fi lamentous fi ns. Even the giant damselfi sh look like our one spot chromis, but on a gargantuan scale. Some of the more remarkable species were the Pacifi c creole fi sh– looks like a fusilier; the Mexican hogfi sh – hump-headed with long, streaming fi ns; the guinea fowl puffer – yellow puffer fi sh and Galapagos garden eels– named ‘Anguila Jardin de Galapagos’ in Spanish. The marine iguanas on Espanola Island – called Christmas iguanas – are also vibrant, with spashes of pink and green. Each island has something different to offer. On Bartolome Island, we took the summit At Genovesa Island, we anchored in Darwin Bay, trail past splatter cones to an awesome lookout, an ancient caldera. Here we climbed to a bluff with views of Sullivan Bay, distant volcanoes and named The Tower, to see sea birds nesting in the lava fi elds. salt bush. There were red-footed boobies, red- At Isabela Island, we climbed to a brackish billed tropic birds, swallow tail gulls, storm petrels water crater lake, then onto a cone with superb and magnifi cent frigatebirds, sporting bright red views of lava fi elds. Exploring Tagus Cove by infl atable throat pouches. panga, we saw blue-footed boobies, sea lions, Galapagos hawkes, pelicans and Galapagos SHEEPISH SHARKS penguins. Tagus Cove abounds with marine life. Later, we cooled off with a snorkel and went The cove is adorned, somewhat controversially, in shark spotting. What actually happened is that graffi ti, dating back to the 1800s. the Galapagos sharks spotted us and circled a At Cerro Dragon, you can see endemic metre away. While none of us were really scared, land iguanas, orange yellow in colour. They I did hear a few nervous shrieks and some of were once part of Darwin Station’s breeding the husbands were thrust in front of the placid program Greater fl amingos can be seen on the shark by anxious wives. All good fun! Some of salt water lagoon. the lovelier fi sh to be seen were giant damsel fi sh, razor surgeonfi sh, morish idol, bump-head parrotfi sh and Cortez rainbow wrasse.
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