Española Island
The Galápagos Islands were formed by a plume of lava in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. As they were never attached to the mainland, every species of plant and animal that lives here had to arrive from somewhere else; a 600-mile trip (at least) is already a big barrier for the flora and fauna of the archipelago. This is one of the reasons why the biodiversity In the Galápagos is low, but the endemism is really high; from the species that were able to establish here, a big percentage became endemic, found nowhere else in the world. Today we had a great example of speciation; Española Island has a lot of endemic species: these species of lava lizards, mockingbirds, snakes and marine iguanas are found only on this Island.
In the morning we visited Punta Suarez. This visitor’s site is one of the jewels in the crown during our week. From the moment we set foot on the island, animals were surrounding us. We walked through colonies of blue-footed boobies, swallow-tailed gulls, red-billed tropicbirds, Nazca boobies and waved albatross. We sat on some pillow lava and enjoyed watching the albatross’ courtship for over 30 minutes.
Life is surrounding us in the Galápagos, and you really get to think about it by being so close to nature. The morning was amazing, but while we were getting back on board we witnessed the other side of life: death. A striated heron walking on the rocks suddenly attacked a Darwin finch! I couldn’t believe what my eyes were seeing! I’ve never heard of herons eating Darwin finches! But it definitely killed and ate it, in front of our eyes! The islands are a tough place too; everyone is fighting for survival.
In the afternoon, activities took place in Gardner Bay, on the northern side of Española. Here we had our first snorkeling outing. Some of our guests enjoyed of the glass-bottom boat, others kayaked along the coast, and everybody had the opportunity to walk on a white sand beach covered by sea lions. Sea lions are definitely the favorite of most of us—we could stay there forever, just observing them. But we had to go back because this is just our first full day in the Galápagos. We have more to come!
