Punta Vicente Roca, Isabela Island and Punta Espinosa, Fernandina Island
What a marvelous experience - from sunrise to sunset! At 6:30 in the morning, we were delighted with the presence of a small pod of common dolphins playfully jumping or breaching clear out of the water upon our approach. With the Polaris describing circles as we followed them, naturalist Dora Ulloa saw two Bryde’s whales at a short distance. They surfaced for about three more times before they finally disappeared in the deep blue waters of northern Isabela.
Once at Punta Vicente Roca, after crossing the Equator line, we spotted an odd looking fish called the Mola mola or Pacific Ocean sun fish, gently moving away from the Zodiacs. In addition to this great sighting were sea lions, Galápagos penguins, flightless cormorants, giant marine iguanas, blue-footed boobies, brown noddy terns, and Galápagos fur seals; all inhabited the ledges of the shear cut cliffs bathed by the cold waters of the nutrient-rich Cromwell current.
At 12:30, the Polaris set sail towards the newest island in the Galápagos, the most beloved by all our naturalists. Here one feels a witness of the creation of the world or a walk on the moon. The marine iguanas were so well camouflaged by their color and shape on the lava flows: above the flows we could see some of the females, ignoring our presence, dig their nests to finally lay two or three oblong eggs. These are incubated by the warmth of the sun, as the female will only guard her nest for a couple of days to keep other females away, thus making sure no other female comes to dig in the same place and remove her eggs. These gentle reptiles coexist peacefully along with Galápagos sea lions, flightless cormorants, Galápagos penguins and the sally light foot crabs that colored the volcanic rocks with splashes of red.
The Galápagos penguin is the only penguin to live on the equator, and together with the flightless cormorant, they are the most endangered sea birds on the islands. The populations have been drastically reduced by events known as El Niño. To date, the populations have been estimated to be no more than 1300 penguins and a little more than 1500 flightless cormorants.
We came back to the ship with big smiles on our faces, thinking about what new surprises await us on the other islands.
What a marvelous experience - from sunrise to sunset! At 6:30 in the morning, we were delighted with the presence of a small pod of common dolphins playfully jumping or breaching clear out of the water upon our approach. With the Polaris describing circles as we followed them, naturalist Dora Ulloa saw two Bryde’s whales at a short distance. They surfaced for about three more times before they finally disappeared in the deep blue waters of northern Isabela.
Once at Punta Vicente Roca, after crossing the Equator line, we spotted an odd looking fish called the Mola mola or Pacific Ocean sun fish, gently moving away from the Zodiacs. In addition to this great sighting were sea lions, Galápagos penguins, flightless cormorants, giant marine iguanas, blue-footed boobies, brown noddy terns, and Galápagos fur seals; all inhabited the ledges of the shear cut cliffs bathed by the cold waters of the nutrient-rich Cromwell current.
At 12:30, the Polaris set sail towards the newest island in the Galápagos, the most beloved by all our naturalists. Here one feels a witness of the creation of the world or a walk on the moon. The marine iguanas were so well camouflaged by their color and shape on the lava flows: above the flows we could see some of the females, ignoring our presence, dig their nests to finally lay two or three oblong eggs. These are incubated by the warmth of the sun, as the female will only guard her nest for a couple of days to keep other females away, thus making sure no other female comes to dig in the same place and remove her eggs. These gentle reptiles coexist peacefully along with Galápagos sea lions, flightless cormorants, Galápagos penguins and the sally light foot crabs that colored the volcanic rocks with splashes of red.
The Galápagos penguin is the only penguin to live on the equator, and together with the flightless cormorant, they are the most endangered sea birds on the islands. The populations have been drastically reduced by events known as El Niño. To date, the populations have been estimated to be no more than 1300 penguins and a little more than 1500 flightless cormorants.
We came back to the ship with big smiles on our faces, thinking about what new surprises await us on the other islands.
