Española Island
The Galápagos Islands are formed by a plume of lava that breaks the crust of the Earth to form volcanoes. The volcanoes are set on Nazca platform, which slowly moves northeast and eventually crashes against South America creating a subduction. The plume or hot spot stays in the same place but the islands drift away from their origin. The oldest islands are at the eastern side of the archipelago. Today we visited the oldest island of all: Española.
We anchored in Gardner Bay near a beautiful white coralline beach that is home of hundreds of sea lions. This is the perfect spot to begin exploring the wonders of the Galápagos Marine Reserve. Snorkeling was one of the highlights. We found a mixture of tropical and subtropical fish species, we even spotted an octopus and a tiger snake eel. Galápagos sea lions are very curious, and they played with us by competing to see who could get deeper, and of course they won!
In the afternoon Punta Suarez was our next visit. This place is home of several seabirds that use the cliffs of the area as a natural airport. The birds take off by jumping from the cliffs. Nazca boobies, Blue-footed boobies and Waved albatross are nesting at this time of the year along the trail. Galápagos hawks were spotted mating! Reptiles dominated the land territory: Española marine iguanas and lava lizards were found warming themselves on the lava rocks near our trail. The hike was outstanding and full of wildlife. It was hard to leave the island since it was so beautiful, but near the Equator the sun sets very quickly. Oh well — this just has been the very first full day in our expedition! There is still much more to come in the next days!
