Southern Isabela Island
The Island of Isabela is by far the largest in the archipelago. It comprises just a bit more than half of the land mass of the total territory in the Galápagos Islands. For this reason, it deserves a bit more attention during our exploration around its waters. The southern side of the island has a couple of interesting visitor sites that are hardly visited by any other ship. Mainly this is because, distance-wise, its location is inaccessible for smaller vessels and our ship has by far the advantage of traveling at night with the comfort of hotel-on-board facilities.
Urbina bay is the name of our morning target and it holds an interesting geological approach. In 1954, part of this area was uplifted due the displacements of lava flows underneath it. As a result, quite a few miles of land were raised above the sea level, taking all the marine life that up to that point had beep established on top of the marine platform. Scientist from the Darwin Station confirm that when arriving to the area, turtles, lobsters and all kinds of marine creatures were still alive, working their way back to the ocean after such a “fast” uplift.
Our walk took us not only through such notorious area but into the forest, where land iguanas that could be well call “dragon-like creatures” are found. Our morning was dedicated also for water activities, and for first time during this week kayaks were launched to explore the dramatic coastline, having a magnificent volcano as a background.
Our afternoon had a different flavor, as the area to explore was an apparent barren lava flow that ended up being anything but barren! Hidden lagoons, resulted of the partial collapse of the lava itself, had naturally created the perfect shelter for plants to arrive and established. This environment had attracted birds from all over, making possible the encounter of many different species such as white cheeked pintail ducks and even flamingoes!
The Island of Isabela is by far the largest in the archipelago. It comprises just a bit more than half of the land mass of the total territory in the Galápagos Islands. For this reason, it deserves a bit more attention during our exploration around its waters. The southern side of the island has a couple of interesting visitor sites that are hardly visited by any other ship. Mainly this is because, distance-wise, its location is inaccessible for smaller vessels and our ship has by far the advantage of traveling at night with the comfort of hotel-on-board facilities.
Urbina bay is the name of our morning target and it holds an interesting geological approach. In 1954, part of this area was uplifted due the displacements of lava flows underneath it. As a result, quite a few miles of land were raised above the sea level, taking all the marine life that up to that point had beep established on top of the marine platform. Scientist from the Darwin Station confirm that when arriving to the area, turtles, lobsters and all kinds of marine creatures were still alive, working their way back to the ocean after such a “fast” uplift.
Our walk took us not only through such notorious area but into the forest, where land iguanas that could be well call “dragon-like creatures” are found. Our morning was dedicated also for water activities, and for first time during this week kayaks were launched to explore the dramatic coastline, having a magnificent volcano as a background.
Our afternoon had a different flavor, as the area to explore was an apparent barren lava flow that ended up being anything but barren! Hidden lagoons, resulted of the partial collapse of the lava itself, had naturally created the perfect shelter for plants to arrive and established. This environment had attracted birds from all over, making possible the encounter of many different species such as white cheeked pintail ducks and even flamingoes!
