4. Galapagos - Exhilarating

April 08, 2019

covering 2 - 16 March 2019

sunrise on North Seymour

What was very different about this eight day cruise from our usual laissez-faire attitude trips was that everything was organised for us. Where we went, what we did and what time we did it. There were some very early starts with us leaving the boat at 6.00 in the morning. There were a number of overnight cruises of eight or nine hours so that we were in place for a different island trip the next morning. Every day had three or four activities of walking or snorkelling and it was a pretty intense eight days.

Nazca Booby - note the more conservative footwear

Galapagos Land Iguana

young Mockingbird begging for food

Lava Lizard

I mentioned it in an earlier Galapagos blog but the one thing that would surprise most people is just how close it’s possible to get to the birds and animals. They’ve lived in isolation for so long that an innate fear of humans has never developed. It is quite normal here to walk past a nesting or resting bird only a few feet away and they just don’t bother to move. One other thing about endemic birds on remote islands is that they’re often quite dull rather than being flamboyantly coloured. Oh, and ‘endemic’ in wildlife terms means found nowhere else in the world.

Flightless Cormorant photographed from a snorkelling position

and two taken underwater

There are of course many non-endemic creatures here, particularly seabirds. Lots of Grey Pelicans with what seem like ridiculously huge beaks which dive at breakneck speed into the water to catch fish. They’re also the most wonderful gliders, often in a line as they skim the surface of the sea riding and falling gently with the height of the waves beneath them. The Boobies dive in a similar fashion, bending their wings back to what looks like a dislocated angle as they hit the water. We saw Blue-footed and Nazca Boobies but missed the Red-footed ones because we didn’t get to the right islands. Well we couldn’t do everything and the interest of spotting wild creatures is that you can never be sure that they’re where they’re expected. There’s also a good spread on different islands of American Flamingoes, very pink and with what also look like bizarre beaks which they use to sieve the water for food. The birds are usually benign arrivals but the ones that are not are brought in deliberately or accidentally by man - mice, rats, cats and dogs which can all cause havoc in a population of birds and animals which don’t have them as natural predators.

Sting Ray

Spotted Eagle Ray

I remember going on safari in Kenya many years ago and when something interesting was seen, a lion for instance, the radio would come into use (mobile phones were only on Star Trek in those days) and very quickly there’d be a dozen or so landrovers full of tourists surrounding the poor creature. Maybe it’s different now. Here it was very well organised in order to prevent overcrowding. There are a limited number of allowed landing and snorkelling sites, it isn’t a go where you feel like place. Boats are scheduled for different locations at different times and we never moored up with more than two other boats. It was also unusual to meet any other group on a shore excursion so it did make us feel as if nowhere was busy. It certainly made for a much more enjoyable trip and a feeling that we were very fortunate to be in such isolated locations.

We did get the very strong impression that the conservation here is taken very seriously indeed. Litter is scarce and when on one island we saw some washing around in a tide pool eight feet or so below when we were standing, our guide climbed in and collected it all. He would also pick up any small pieces of rubbish as we walked around.

Our on-board chef managed to produce three meals a day from a tiny galley for us sixteen passengers and the five crew which was a bit of a conjuring trick really. We had brought some snacks in case the food wasn’t to our taste but we ended up not eating any of our iron rations. There was also enough space on board to get away from people if we wanted without going to our tiny cabin in which Heather kept her case on the end of her bunk. We also learned to try avoiding taking a shower when the boat was moving because it moved in a lot of directions.