Espanola Island
Located in the southeast of the Galápagos archipelago, Espanola is one of the main highlights of this expedition. Surrounded by a vast sea and being one of the oldest islands, it is the perfect home for many of the unique animal species of the Galápagos Islands, both on land and along its shorelines.
This morning our destination place was the gorgeous Gardner Beach. Here we found a long, white-coralline beach, surrounded by turquoise waters, where we could relax or watch the various species of animals. A huge colony of Galápagos sea lions made everyone’s delight, interacting alongside their very private beach. The usual beach inspector, the Espanola mockingbird, made its appearance while busily searching for food in the sand.
Some of our guests decided to be a little more adventurous and took the option to snorkel along Gardner Islet. Here, large schools of fish like the Razor surgeonfish were feeding off the plankton near the surface of the water. This bay also offered some of us a great opportunity to practice kayaking and enjoy the scenery at a more peaceful pace, an opportunity taken with keen excitement by several of our guests.
After lunch, it was time to explore the westernmost tip of Espanola Island. A landing at Punta Suarez was on the afternoon schedule, and so we did. Not far from our landing spot, we were amazed by the numbers of species all around us. It was high tide, so the small beaches where the Galápagos sea lions and colorful marine iguanas normally sunbathe were even smaller, and so the activity was even greater because of the overcrowding: pups looking for their mothers, females looking for their pups, pups trying to pull the marine iguanas tails, young male sea lions wrestling, an anticipated practice for their future life as potential territory holders… and then there were the birds.
A couple of Galápagos hawks landed so close to us that we thought they’d land in the middle of the group. Numbers of Nazca boobies all along the cliffs were very protectively looking after their nests and young chicks, and a colony of Swallow-tailed gulls raised the alarm when the hawks approached the area, so for a short while we watched some disruption in the area! We also found a few Blue-footed boobies nesting along the walk, and that was a pleasant surprise as their chicks seem to be doing well. Fingers crossed, they’ll make it to adulthood to keep up this population.
We could easily say that this afternoon felt like we had walked into a living documentary… an ideal place where animals tolerate our proximity showing almost no fear to humans. The Galápagos are certainly an extraordinary place.
Located in the southeast of the Galápagos archipelago, Espanola is one of the main highlights of this expedition. Surrounded by a vast sea and being one of the oldest islands, it is the perfect home for many of the unique animal species of the Galápagos Islands, both on land and along its shorelines.
This morning our destination place was the gorgeous Gardner Beach. Here we found a long, white-coralline beach, surrounded by turquoise waters, where we could relax or watch the various species of animals. A huge colony of Galápagos sea lions made everyone’s delight, interacting alongside their very private beach. The usual beach inspector, the Espanola mockingbird, made its appearance while busily searching for food in the sand.
Some of our guests decided to be a little more adventurous and took the option to snorkel along Gardner Islet. Here, large schools of fish like the Razor surgeonfish were feeding off the plankton near the surface of the water. This bay also offered some of us a great opportunity to practice kayaking and enjoy the scenery at a more peaceful pace, an opportunity taken with keen excitement by several of our guests.
After lunch, it was time to explore the westernmost tip of Espanola Island. A landing at Punta Suarez was on the afternoon schedule, and so we did. Not far from our landing spot, we were amazed by the numbers of species all around us. It was high tide, so the small beaches where the Galápagos sea lions and colorful marine iguanas normally sunbathe were even smaller, and so the activity was even greater because of the overcrowding: pups looking for their mothers, females looking for their pups, pups trying to pull the marine iguanas tails, young male sea lions wrestling, an anticipated practice for their future life as potential territory holders… and then there were the birds.
A couple of Galápagos hawks landed so close to us that we thought they’d land in the middle of the group. Numbers of Nazca boobies all along the cliffs were very protectively looking after their nests and young chicks, and a colony of Swallow-tailed gulls raised the alarm when the hawks approached the area, so for a short while we watched some disruption in the area! We also found a few Blue-footed boobies nesting along the walk, and that was a pleasant surprise as their chicks seem to be doing well. Fingers crossed, they’ll make it to adulthood to keep up this population.
We could easily say that this afternoon felt like we had walked into a living documentary… an ideal place where animals tolerate our proximity showing almost no fear to humans. The Galápagos are certainly an extraordinary place.
