Southern Isabela Island

We had a wonderful sleep last night, peacefully anchored as we were until about 0500 when the Captain had our boson haul up the National Geographic Islander’s anchor. As dawn arrived, we navigated across the Bolivar Channel, from Fernandina to the coast of Isabela, and dropped our anchor during breakfast time at the base of Alcedo volcano. This is one of my own favorite areas of Galápagos; I spent a year and a half camped on Alcedo studying the giant tortoises and their introduced herbivore counter parts and competitors –feral donkeys. Doing research for my PhD, I was documenting the extent of the competition and the interactions between the endemic tortoises and these introduced mammals.

This morning we visited an interesting coastal section of Southern Isabela that was uplifted in 1954 when magma shifted underground and caused an almost instantaneous 4 meter rising of 5 kilometers of the shoreline. We landed after breakfast on a steep, black sand beach and chose either a 2 mile loop hike or a shorter, ¾ mile walk that went out and back behind the beach. All of us saw brightly colored land iguanas, most of us found a tortoise and everyone enjoyed the cotton and Cordia flowers, yellow warblers, flocks of curious finches and evidence, in the form of coral heads, tube worms and rounded beach pebbles, which proved that the ocean was once spread across the land we were hiking on. We had a welcome blanket of clouds protecting us from the tropical sun this morning which helped make this an extremely pleasant outing.

Back at the beach we leapt into the cool ocean and – especially the kids among us - had a blast riding the waves, burying one another with black sand or watching the wildlife perform. Two pelicans, two penguins, a cormorant, a blue-footed booby and a sea turtle all swam right into the beach near us and put on a magnificent show, as they dove and swam and fed on a school of tiny fish.

In the afternoon, two groups of hikers set off on a “lava hike.” Barren lava flows stretched for miles and miles between the two southern volcanoes on Isabela: Sierra Negra and Cerro Azul. Both of these shield volcanoes have been recently active: Cerro Azul erupted from a fissure on its lower eastern slopes in 2008 and Sierra Negra erupted from inside the northern rim in 2005. The National Geographic Islander and our guests witnessed both of these eruptions. This week’s guests are wishing that we could also score an eruption!

Naturalists Sofia and Magdalena led the hikers across the rough lava fields, pointing out a few scattered pioneer plants that are beginning to take hold on this forbidding terrain. What a surprise when we reached the edge of a sort of oasis in the middle of all that black and barren lava! Brackish water, lush vegetation and…flamingoes! It was amazing to see five bright pink adults and one juvenile in one of these small pools surrounded by acres of lava.

A group of guests joined Naturalist Sandie for a Zodiac ride along the lava cliffs and into the mangrove lagoons. The hikers also explored the mangroves after their walk. We observed several sea turtles, lovely gliding spotted eagle rays and a huge marbled sting ray as we motored and paddled quietly in the shallows among the red, white and black mangroves.

Our recap, briefing about the next day’s activities and dinner were a bit early this evening. As the ship began to rock and roll, we snuggled down in our cozy beds to try and get some sleep. Rounding the southwestern point of Isabela we headed into the wind and the current, but the good ship National Geographic Islander motored on towards Floreana as we slept…or just rested.