Isabela & Fernandina
These are the youngest islands of the archipelago, Isabela is the largest, formed by six volcanoes, and five of them are still active. There are many stories of eruptions, going back to when people first lived in this area.
The sun rises and we are just north of it, about to turn the point going south, and volcano Ecuador is in front of our eyes, a collapsed caldera; who knows when it last erupted. All we know is that the beauty of this landscape is saying that a huge portion of it disappeared under the sea, leaving an obvious caldera shape. There is no need to climb the volcano and we can see it from the ship.
Anchor falls and we get into our Zodiacs to have a closer look at these volcanic walls. From far away they look impressive. Once closer we can see that these formations have unique inhabitants. For example, the Galápagos penguins came to this land in order to survive in a tropical environment they went through several evolutionary changes that make them unique and endemic to this area. The flightless cormorants, only seen on the western island went thought similar changes as well. Together with other species like marine iguanas, green sea turtles and brown pelicans our ride was not only a fun one, but a learning one. We returned to the ship to go snorkeling along the same coast. We saw the same species, but this time of course, from the different world of the Galápagos waters.
Afternoon came, and just four miles apart, crossing the Bolivar Channel we have Fernandina, the youngest of all the islands. It is so young that everything we have in front of us is basaltic lava in all its forms and shapes, Pahoa-hoe or ah-ah, ropy or jagged, terrain that looks as if someone put many sculptures together. They are capable of providing shelter to species such as massive marine iguanas. They form piles on top of each other, making it hard to decipher them from the lava, unless you are very close. This was not all we saw along our walk with these spectacular volcanic landscapes. We saw our everyday hosts, the sea lions and the top predator, the Galápagos Hawk. This one was having a great meal, one of the Fernandina inhabitants, a marine iguana.
