For almost her entire life Dana has dreamed about touring the Galápagos Islands. This seemed like a good time to do it, what with the need to celebrate her birthday and all. And what the heck, because we did it on a boat this also seems like a good time for a one-off boating diary entry.
Before getting to the M/C Endemic, of course, we first had to reach Ecuador. Which for us meant stops in Peru. Because that stretch involved planes, trains, and automobiles—but no boat—and because, duh, Doug and Dana and a Boat is reserved for our boating adventures, we’re skipping over that part, although here’s proof that we hiked to Machu Picchu. And a baby alpaca.
Anyway, after Doug fed the baby alpaca and Dana purchased a baby alpaca blanket we flew from Cusco to Lima to Guayaquil to Baltra Island, where we met the boat. Niiiiiccceee.
This was the first time we boated without worrying about what gunk is in the sea strainers, or how much room is left in the holding tank, or the source of the tiny leak that’s causing the fresh water pump to cycle on and off, or whether there’s space for us at the place we want to stop. We greatly miss Tumbleweed, but it’s kind of awesome to let someone else do all that worrying.
First stop, a beach stroll on Playa Las Bachas, which literally means Barge Beach and which literally was so named because the U.S. generously left military barges to moulder in the otherwise pristine sand. But the beach is quite pleasant and the water is warm and we ignored the barge carcasses whilst chatting with the twelve strangers who joined us for the trip.
Obviously you don’t go to the Galápagos Islands to see rusting metal, of course, you go to see wildlife. First up, Sally Lightfoot Crabs.
Endemic to the Galápagos Archipelago, these cuties supposedly are named for a famous Caribbean dancer. All we know is that you’re not supposed to eat them, but First Mate Jefferson says they’re delicious despite him never having heard of Old Bay.*
Damn we miss sunsets from a deck.
The only thing that spoiled an otherwise superb first day was Nemo II’s generator growling after they inexplicably anchored right beside us. Yup, even in paradise one of us easily can find an annoyance.
A lumpy overnight cruise took us north to Genovese Island—Isla Genovesa. An oddity about the Galápagos Archipelago is that it’s also known as Columbus Archipelago—Archipiélago del Colón—despite the fact that ole’ Christopher never came close to the area.** Genovese Island is named for Genoa, Columbus’ home town.*** Here’s a map for easy reference.
Historically, upon a maiden equatorial crossing, mariners transform from pollywogs to shellbacks following an elaborate ceremony performed by King Neptune. The above map doesn’t show the equator, but sometime during the night we crossed it for the first of four times. Slept through all of them. No ceremony, although later in the trip some of the crew did dress up as pirates and danced to “YMCA” and “La Macarena,” and on the last night we received certificates.
Genovese Island is where the really good stuff started.
Like so many other species, the male Frigate Bird is handsome and colorful and borderline obnoxious.
No matter how unattractive the female might appear, she seemingly has her choice of mates, particularly as the bars near closing time.
Here are two Lava Gulls, enjoying the mating ritual in which the male rides around on the female’s back before doing whatever gulls do to reproduce (riding crop not pictured).
Then after all that, the resulting offspring looks at mom like she’s crazy and goes off and does whatever mom just said not to do.
But who are we kidding. For birders and teenage boys, it’s all about the boobies. The Galápagos sport three varieties, two of which we checked off while hiking on Genovese Island. The most common seem to be the Nazca Boobies.
Here a mischievous youngster contemplates taking a bite from Dana’s leg.
Next up are Red-Footed Boobies, which—not surprisingly—are easily identified by the color of their feet.
We didn’t ask Jefferson if he eats Lava Doves, but since most all Galápagos bird species are protected we assume he doesn’t.
Galápagos Mockingbirds are distant cousins with the mean-as-a-snake regular old mockingbird that used to torture poor Benny in our back yard. These guys are skittish but not overtly aggressive.
Red-Billed Tropicbirds are difficult to find, and even more difficult to photograph. They don’t sit still on land, they zoom about at high speed, and cameras on a bouncy tender—called “pangas” in Ecuador—are inherently unstable. If one blindly shoots in the air enough times, however, maybe one or two marginally-passable images magically will appear on the SD card.
Galápagos Short-Eared Owls blend into the rocks on Genovese Island, jumping from holes just long enough to snatch inattentive Storm Petrels. Dana shot this handsome fellow from a good distance, moments before he caught and dismembered lunch even further away.
The hike to reach what supposedly is one of the premier birding sites in the world requires traversing Prince Philip’s Steps, which may or may not have been created to make things easier for the British Royal when he visited in 1981.
After a day of birding on Genovese Island we returned to find juvenile boobies lined up on the Endemic’s bow rail.**** Ain’t they cute?
Okay the birds are cool and all, but what about the famous Galápagos Giant Tortoises? After another long bumpy night crossing the equator again, we anchored off Santa Cruz Island. An hour or so inland we reached a point on the migratory path where there were a bunch of them lumbering along. Yup, they’re pretty damn big, and pretty damn impressive.
After the tortoises, a short hop took us over to a small channel between Isla Santiago and Isla Bartolomé.
On a panga cruise around Bartolomé, we checked a couple more birds off the must-see list. This Galápagos Penguin politely posed for us on the shoreline.
And a short while later we lucked into an equally polite Yellow-Crowned Heron.
Around these parts, Sea Lions are as common as, say, Sea Lions in California and Washington. We’ve photographed scores of Sea Lions. Except—as our naturalist guide Daniel would say—“These are Galápagos Sea Lions.”
We also saw our first Blue-Footed Booby, but sadly not from a photo-worthy perspective. Fortunately we found a much more compliant one later in this post.
Across the channel on Santiago, we found exactly zero birds, and scant much else. Except lava.
Santiago was one of the stops made by HMS Beagle, the British cartography ship carrying a young Charles Darwin. As we later discovered there’s more stuff on the rest of the island, but on this side it’s mostly lava, although some signs of life did appear now and again.
Then off to Isla Isabela. Along the way we passed the Daphne Islands. The largest—Daphne Major—is world-renowned in the world of evolutionary biology thanks to the 40-year study of Darwin’s Finches conducted by Peter and Rosemary Grant, who found significant generational adaptation. As a closed ecosystem Daphne Major isn’t open to the public, so we motored on.
Named for Columbus’ patron queen (although again this seems silly given his non-existent connection to the region), Isabela is the largest in the archipelago. Our four stops yielded a variety of things worth noting. On the panga ride to shore at the first stop, for example, we crossed paths with swimming penguins. You’d have to be pretty damn heartless to think these lil buggers aren’t noteworthy.
On shore, everyone was taken with the marine iguanas. In the Florida Keys iguanas are huge pests, but in the Galápagos Islands tourists think they’re amazing. Go figure.
The plan was to hike to the rim of one of the five Isabela Island volcanic craters, but the plan was foiled by rain and mud and cloud cover and our group of weenies (us included). We still consider it a massive success, however, because one of Dana’s chief goals was to encounter an elusive Vermilion Flycatcher. Mission accomplished, with a photo to prove it.
As a bonus, a Pacific Green Sea Turtle popped up sort of near Dana, although she (the turtle, not Dana) looked rather down in the dumps.
Later that day we toured the tortoise hatchery, run by the park service and dedicated to repopulating the various islands with the tortoise variety that should be there. What with the rats and birds and all, the tortoises can’t be released until enough years have passed to make them rat and bird proof. This one isn’t yet to that age.
Just enough time to add one of the four hundred Galápagos Flamingos to our birding trophy case.
The only town we visited has a hospital and an opportunity to put your head in penguin for one of those photos that pretty much always look stupid.
After a nine-hour overnight trip around the bottom of Isabela Island, we jumped in the pangas for a look around a mangrove inlet. Woooo! Now there’s a Blue-Footed Booby, which—not surprisingly—was easily identified by the color of his feet. Woooo!
That goofy-looking thing in the background? That’s a Flightless Cormorant, whose inability to fly comes from an absence of predators and a desire to catch fish underwater rather than a mother who took thalidomide.
We’ve seen Great Blue Herons from Florida to Ontario to Washington, but unlike, say, iguanas, it’s still fun to see them. Plus—as our naturalist guide Daniel would say—“These are Galápagos Great Blue Herons.”
Another hike on Isabela Island—this one starting at the beach in Urbana Bay—took us right along a tortoise highway. We have no idea where they were headed but they all seemed quite determined to get there by the end of the year.
One might think this is just another photo of a Giant Tortoise. Nope. It’s a Lava Lizard on a round rock.
Towards the end of the hike we finally found a Galápagos Land Iguana, which again was far more exciting to our shipmates who’ve never visited south Florida.
The Ecuador flag popped nicely on the short trip up to our last stop on Isla Isabela.
The highlight of that last stop—apart from the quiet overnight anchoring—was a trek up and around Darwin Lake. The Beagle crew supposedly rushed joyfully to what they thought was a freshwater lake, only to discover salinity twice that of the nearby Pacific Ocean.
No life in the lake but the views were quite satisfying. On the way up past the lake, we bagged a Dark-Billed Cuckoo, which was quite exciting. Damn, we should be doing a Big Year!
Despite the fact that they differ from island to island, to the uninitiated like us all Lava Lizards look the same.
Everyone knows that 0° latitude is a line that by definition separates the earth into two hemispheres, and yet exactly no people have ever seen it. That volcano in the background sits on the equator, however, which isn’t as cool as that soccer stadium in Brazil but is cool enough for us.
Back down on the beach Dana spotted a Yellow Warbler flitting about. Very tough to photograph these things—particularly with just the zoom lens on a phone—but she got it.
Next stop: Isla Fernandina. We’d tried mightily to get a shot of a Galápagos Hawk taunting us while circling high over head, to no avail. Apparently the message about playing hard to get didn’t reach Fernandina Island, however, because we found one sitting in a tree, albeit a tree far away from our vantage point.
Although we’re kind of over Marine Iguanas, Fernandina has a mess of them.
No really. A grouping of iguanas is called a “mess,” which actually is a name that fits things that look like iguanas.
Much cooler was the Galápagos Sea Lion Maternity Ward and Nursery. On one short hike we passed multiple sets of moms with nursing babies, although the “babies” frankly were old enough and big enough to make the whole thing slightly uncomfortable. For us, not them.
Know what probably is uncomfortable for Galápagos Sea Lions? Having someone shove a camera up your nose while you’re trying to sleep.
Oh yeah. We also found another of the Boobies with blue feet. Very funny these things.
On the way around the top end of Isla Isabela we crossed the equator twice, but neither time did it wake us up. When we did wake up we were anchored back at Santiago Island again, but this time on the non-lava side.
Not a lot of new wildlife, but we hadn’t seen Brown Noddy Terns before. So that was fun.
Rabida island was our penultimate stop. First red beach we’ve seen since Prince Edward Island.
American Oyster Catcher. Semipalmated Plover. Nice.
Last night the crew all reconvened to say goodbye. Obviously this was the best charter any of them ever have had or will have, so the tears they secretly shed were understandable.
Our new friends joined us in a birthday toast for Cali, which was extra cool.
This morning, a sunrise trip to the beach on Mosquera Islet. Those lumps might look like rocks, but a handful of them actually are yet more sea lions.
And just like that it was over. Eight days in the Galápagos Archipelago on a fantastic boat. This post is too long already, but we could’ve made a book of it. We have a gazillion more photos. There are the geological events that created this place. Stuff about Endemic and her crew and great shipmates from England, New Zealand, Washington, and Minnesota. Even a superficial discussion of Darwin’s contribution to the battle between science and mythology would require another five thousand words. A deep dive into the murderous intrigue on Isla Floreana—which Ron Howard dramatized in the movie Eden, starring Ana de Armas and Sidney Sweeney—would’ve tripled the length.***** So we’re sticking to the birds and the beasts.
Maybe next summer we’ll finally rent a canal boat and cruise around parts of Europe. Which might trigger more blog posts. Or possibly not. Either way, here’s what would’ve been our traditional animated map except YouTube decided to suck and we’re too tired to fumble around with it, and a final Galápagos sunset.
* Sally Lightfoot Crabs are not to be confused with Galápagos Towel Crabs, one of several creatures created by the clever Endemic interior crew members.
** Much like Columbus never visited the place those cheating dirtbag Ohio State Buckeyes call home.
*** Wikipedia is silent about any connection Lucky Luciano and Vinny The Chin might’ve had with the island.
**** There’s a juvenile booby joke begging to be made about Jeffrey Epstein’s Washington D.C. pals, but in this blog we don’t do politics.
***** There’s a booby joke begging to be made about Sidney Sweeney starring in a Galápagos Islands movie, but in this blog we don’t do blue humor.