Kate and Richard

by Kate

Our next experience took us into the centre of the world’s wildlife. In the Galapagos the wildlife is very different from that in the jungle as you just can’t miss it. There was little ‘jungle’ for the animals to hide in and even if there was they wouldn’t feel the need. As the islands had been uninhabited by humans for thousands of years the animals hadn’t needed to develop a fear for the hunting human. This makes experiencing these islands absolutely unique.

We  were lucky to find a last minute deal in Quito a few days before the cruise departed from the island Santa Cruz. For eight days our home would be on the very luxurious catamaran the Archipell II. There were many different boats and catamarans to choose from and with the last minute deals there really could be a cruise for every budget.

Our catamaran could sleep up to 16 guests, however for the first half of the week there were only six of us – it almost felt like a private cruise! For the second half the cat was fully guested.

We chose specifically a catamaran in the hopes that the wave rocking would be kept to a minimum, but our first lunch onboard, even in the harbour, was a challenge and I had to keep looking out the window to keep my balance, and food, at bay! Apart from a couple of open water crossings we were subsequently quite lucky.

Our days were fully packed. The bell rang each morning at 7am when breakfast was served, we would be motored to shore an hour later, walk the land for a couple of hours, and then be brought back to the cat in time for lunch or a snorkel before lunch. After lunch we would have an hour to relax before heading back out to land before or after another snorkel. Dinner was generally served around 7.30pm before which the boat would often fire up the engines and begin its journey to the next location, if it hadn’t already arrived after a lunch time motor. It was like a whirlwind week!

We visited many different islands, each with a wildlife or landscape speciality, as well as various tortoise breeding centres or sanctuaries. Lonesome George from Pinta Island (left), now kept at the Charles Darwin Research Centre on Santa Cruz, is the last one of his subspecies. At around 75 years of age the local biologists are trying to get him to reproduce with the ladies of his closest subspecies still surviving. He is, however, having nothing of it. The local biologists are equally persistent and are devising strategies of how they can keep his blood line going. IVF and cloning are two options, however luckily there are some who support his return to Pinta Island where he can live out the rest of his life how he chooses.

It is one of the many man-made shames in life that an enormous tortoise population was eradicated by the whalers and explorers of the 17^th century, wiping out some of the subspecies entirely. The tortoise protection agencies are ferociously breeding them in copious quantities, repopulating them into the wild after a certain age. This desperate attempt to rectify our forefathers’ mistakes was seen in the Galapagos also with the island goats. They were introduced onto the islands again back in the 17^th century when they were bred for their meat, to allow the whalers to remain longer in the region. Since then they have bred to such an extent that they have destroyed much of the local wildlife and terrain. Just a few years ago the locals called in men with a helicopter, loaded with guns and ammunition, from New Zealand to eradicate the goat population. This was successfully done by drawing out the goats into the open using a female goat injected with hormones. One horrific act of man leads to just another one.

On a more positive note the island authorities have successfully implemented strong protection laws on their wildlife and even though they can be hard to enforce as the protected area is so vast there is certainly a massive increase in awareness. And we were fortunate enough to witness many of the protected lives.

On land, on nearly every island, we saw many marine iguanas. They would huddle together warming themselves on the volcanic rock after losing a lot of their body heat hunting in the sea. They have an incredible mechanism of snorting the salt out from their nostrils after returning to land. So they very often had salt-encrusted noses! 

 

On Dragon’s Hill we also saw the less common land iguana, who was a lot bigger and more yellow in colour.

The sky was filled with so many different types of birds. Before this trip I didn’t have much of a fascination with birds, but this place couldn’t suppress anyone’s interest. The brown pelican was fairly common (I love his dangling feet in the picture to the right!):

as was the great frigate bird, whose male puffed up the most magnificent red balloon when he was attracting a female (these two looked to be competing with each other):

On North Seymour we saw the famous blue-footed boobies who had the sweetest courtship ritual where the male would carefully perform a wonderful dance to his potential lady friend. He would step from one blue foot to the other pointing his beak up to the sky in the hopes that it would attract her attention. If she was impressed by his blue footed dance then she would reciprocate with the same dance. There would then be a stick exchange exercise – so cute!

Their kids were fluffy and white and looked so helpless in their ground-based nests. Not until they would turn six months old could they muster up enough strength and muscle to fly. We saw many hearty attempts, but they must all have needed a few more feeds from mum and dad.

The albatross had the most incredible wingspan and such a beautiful face:

 

Among many more there was the red-billed tropic bird with his long elegant tail, the hawk, and the inquisitive mocking bird:

On land and in the sea we enjoyed the company of the sea lions. We saw them many times on the beach, but during our second snorkel, at Pinnacle Bay, suddenly a sea lion shot into view and was playfully darting among the snorkelers. It was magnificent! It was such an inspiring sight to see this lumbering land animal metamorphose into a streamlined swimming beauty.

 

 

On other snorkels (and dives) we would be joined by many of the younger sea lions, swimming among us, dancing with each other and generally just having fun. They would swim directly for our masks and then at the last minute swerve away. The first few times this happened to me I would shy away expecting there to be a collision. But these guys had done this often enough and knew just the right moment to change course, after scaring us sufficiently first of course. Richard must have been encouraging a little too much play as he was nipped on the elbow twice!

Some of the landscapes were fabulous.

We were sad to leave the Archipell II and to bid farewell to the other guests and crew members, but we were also looking forward to planning our own days again and to not being woken up by the bell every morning! We had another week on Santa Cruz island so we weren’t saying goodbye to the wildlife just yet.

On my birthday we checked into a lovely hotel, the Red Mangrove. Our room was super and looked right onto the harbour. After the Ecuadorian cake-head-dunking birthday celebrations on the catamaran we turned to wine-sipping on the waterfront.

In order to continue the day in true style Richard had organised chilled champagne to be brought up to the room early evening. While sitting on our balcony watching the sun set behind the bay Richard presented me with my beautiful birthday gifts. He then presented me with a certain question.

A few days later he even presented something sparkly in a glass of champagne while sitting at a waterfront table at the Angermeyer restaurant! For an English boy he can certainly bring out the romance.

    

                          

 

 

 

 

 

 

After one indulgent night in the Red Mangrove we begrudgingly we moved our things to a slightly more backpacker-budget hostel and enjoyed various activities for the rest of the week. We joined the Wise family for boogie boarding at Turtle Bay, went on a snorkelling trip with Arik, played long-jump on the beach, and went for a couple of dives with Scuba Iguana. The dives were certainly an experience! Both Richard and I hadn’t dived for around four years and after an extremely brief introduction and safety check we chucked ourselves backwards over the boat and tried to keep up with our guide as he rapidly descended into a cloudy abyss!

I struggled with the first descent and managed to lose Richard and the Swiss couple in our dive group – visibility was pretty low and there were no landmarks to focus on. After flailing my arms attempting to indicate to our guide that I was going to ascend he managed to calm me down and we then had to quickly find the others! We all managed to join up and happily set off on our explorations. (We were in fact just a few metres below Kate, and I wondered what an earth was wrong when she waved her arms at the guide and headed for the surface. – Richard) Yes, alright, expert diver. – Kate

On the two dives we saw some incredible fish and even had our old friends the sea lions join us. We saw gliding turtles and a whole sea floor of garden eels – they were the funniest sight; they just looked like a field of single branches growing from the ground, waving gently in the wind. The second dive took us straight into a university (it was no school) of white tipped reef sharks! Never in my life did I think I would dive with sharks! Even though apparently this shark is not aggressive they do look menacing. But they minded their own business while we watched them from a safe distance.

Apart from this one time. Our guide showed us a cave like area where some of the sharks were resting. He told us to hold onto the rock surrounding the cave, but due to the strong underwater current I couldn’t keep in place and ended up drifting towards the cave! I didn’t want to use my flippers too much in case I would scare and aggravate the sharks, so I just held out my hands in desperation in the hopes that someone would come forward and rescue me. Luckily the guide and Richard managed to pull me back out into safety! I can laugh about it now….

Probably the most unreal sight was the manta rays. As we were making our final ascent I turned my attention from the resting sharks below us up towards the surface to see how far we had to go. I almost couldn’t believe what I saw. There must have been twenty or so of them majestically flying through the water just a few metres above us. It was a mind-blowing and humbling experience.

I will forever look back with a big smile on these two most amazing weeks. The friends we made, the romance, and the wildlife that we saw – the Galapagos Islands were truly generous to us.

I just love this picture, where everyone is hoping for some fish….

(just look at that soppy sea lion – Richard)