Isabela and Fernandina Islands
It is wonderful to be back. The seasons are starting to change from dry and cool to hot and wet, yet we are neither. Today we awoke to cloudy skies and the towering formation of Wolf Volcano to our south. I like to compare the island of Isabela, when seen on a map, to the image of a sea horse, and Wolf Volcano is the head. After breakfast cameras clicked as we crossed the equator line, though the line itself proved illusive on the surface of a white-capped sea. Ecuador Volcano exposed itself as a textbook example of Galapagos geology, tuff stone and lava meeting crashing waves on shore. At one point we crossed over a turbulent line (some gave a fleeting thought to the Equator line), which indicated the meeting of two strong surface currents, and sea birds such as Northern phalaropes, Audubon’s shearwaters, storm petrels and dark-rumped petrels fished the obviously nutritious upwelling. Common dolphins expressed their energy in acrobatic leaps in the Bolivar Channel between Isabela and Fernandina, one of the richest places on earth, which no amount of money can buy.
The day finished with outrageous success: oceanic sunfish, boobies, flightless cormorants, penguins, and newborn sea lions. The setting sun created living bronze statues of gleaming flesh fresh from the tidal pools breaded with Fernandina sand, and stoic reptilian sunbathers on rumpled lava.
It is wonderful to be back. The seasons are starting to change from dry and cool to hot and wet, yet we are neither. Today we awoke to cloudy skies and the towering formation of Wolf Volcano to our south. I like to compare the island of Isabela, when seen on a map, to the image of a sea horse, and Wolf Volcano is the head. After breakfast cameras clicked as we crossed the equator line, though the line itself proved illusive on the surface of a white-capped sea. Ecuador Volcano exposed itself as a textbook example of Galapagos geology, tuff stone and lava meeting crashing waves on shore. At one point we crossed over a turbulent line (some gave a fleeting thought to the Equator line), which indicated the meeting of two strong surface currents, and sea birds such as Northern phalaropes, Audubon’s shearwaters, storm petrels and dark-rumped petrels fished the obviously nutritious upwelling. Common dolphins expressed their energy in acrobatic leaps in the Bolivar Channel between Isabela and Fernandina, one of the richest places on earth, which no amount of money can buy.
The day finished with outrageous success: oceanic sunfish, boobies, flightless cormorants, penguins, and newborn sea lions. The setting sun created living bronze statues of gleaming flesh fresh from the tidal pools breaded with Fernandina sand, and stoic reptilian sunbathers on rumpled lava.
