Isabela & Fernandina Islands
In the far western Galápagos Islands lie black pristine Fernandina, the brown giant seahorse Isabella, and tiny cliffy guano-white Redondo. At 0600am it’s a lovely sea state. No chop and a 1 meter swell with broad wavelength and 6 minute sets. Our sky dawns a discontinuous overcast making for soft luminence of a phytoplankton-green charged Pacific.
Closely circling Redondo we observe thousands of noddy terns, blue-footed boobies, shearwaters and petrels. By mid morning Polaris is sailing across eroded caldera Volcan Ecuador, one of the six comprising Isla Isabella. We observe parasitic cones/tuff cones up on steeply dipped layers and vertical black magmatic dikes cutting through hundreds of lava flows.
Our Expedition Leader counts off the meters to the equatorial crossing. Team members suddenly metamorphose from polywags to shellbacks. Our naturalist pirates finish indoctrinating us with water showers followed by all guests carrying off certificates of the crossing.
There must be upwelling here because the ocean is abuzz with marine mammals. Hundreds of dolphins are chasing tuna when the bridge spots a wonderful sperm whale. 400 meters away she does three shallow dives, curiously spouts right, before graciously fluking us goodbye. It’s an uncommon sighting. Exhilarating but also sad in that they once numbered in the thousands here.
We proceed to our first snorkel site off Isabella. First the team scouts the area in Zodiacs. We get up close to the back surging shoreline, counting the time carefully between wave sets. Up close we see our first Fur Sea Lions, Penguins and Flightless Cormorants. The soupy green water is chock full of turtles and rays and Mola mola. One ray is 6 meters tip to tip! It’s looking quite good for the snorkel so we head back to Polaris to change gear.
We quickly return to the snorkel site and as a tight team make our way along shore, swimming astride green sea turtles. Doing frequent check ins, we make our way towards a tremendous cave where a school of golden rays flips past us. Along the cliff face penguins join us in the water and nimbly scoot by us or torpedo beneath. It’s hi tide and we can observe many intertidal zones, the walls are just covered with life including anemones, urchins’ species, colorful algae and purple soft gorgonians waving in the surge.
After lunch, while sailing between islands, our National Geographic Expert gave a PowerPoint lecture “Red and Blue-Footed Boobies: Natural and Sexual Selection”. For Fernandina and Isabella, our nautical chart’s bathymetry reads they were joined 15,000 years ago when sea level was 130 meters lower.
We sailed towards Fernandina’s Punta Espinosa; described as perhaps the most pristine oceanic island on earth. It is jet black. The super fresh a-a and pahoehoe lava reach their firey fingers seaward. Here and there, the deep green of red mangrove leaves above the redded stilt roots provides safe harbor for countless marine fish. Giant red Sally Lightfoot crabs sun bath and scatter on our close approach. Penguins gain miniature conetops and survey the scene. The unmatched turquoise of the cormorant’s eye stirs our aesthetic soul.
Dry landing, we walk the ropy lava surface towards a colony of 1000’s of marine iguanas. Carefully stepping over and around the nuzzled up salt-spitting mounds. We pass the washed up sun-bleached skeleton of a Cuvier’s Whale. As we approach the point, bull sea lions defense call to their harems and pups gurgle-cry for their lactating moms. Finally we watch the courtship and nesting behaviors of the flightless cormorants. Gentle seemingly thoughtful expression, care and kindness, amongst couples, between birds and homos. It’s 6pm, we swivel onto our Zodiacs and outboard back to Polaris. What a difference 12 hours can make!
In the far western Galápagos Islands lie black pristine Fernandina, the brown giant seahorse Isabella, and tiny cliffy guano-white Redondo. At 0600am it’s a lovely sea state. No chop and a 1 meter swell with broad wavelength and 6 minute sets. Our sky dawns a discontinuous overcast making for soft luminence of a phytoplankton-green charged Pacific.
Closely circling Redondo we observe thousands of noddy terns, blue-footed boobies, shearwaters and petrels. By mid morning Polaris is sailing across eroded caldera Volcan Ecuador, one of the six comprising Isla Isabella. We observe parasitic cones/tuff cones up on steeply dipped layers and vertical black magmatic dikes cutting through hundreds of lava flows.
Our Expedition Leader counts off the meters to the equatorial crossing. Team members suddenly metamorphose from polywags to shellbacks. Our naturalist pirates finish indoctrinating us with water showers followed by all guests carrying off certificates of the crossing.
There must be upwelling here because the ocean is abuzz with marine mammals. Hundreds of dolphins are chasing tuna when the bridge spots a wonderful sperm whale. 400 meters away she does three shallow dives, curiously spouts right, before graciously fluking us goodbye. It’s an uncommon sighting. Exhilarating but also sad in that they once numbered in the thousands here.
We proceed to our first snorkel site off Isabella. First the team scouts the area in Zodiacs. We get up close to the back surging shoreline, counting the time carefully between wave sets. Up close we see our first Fur Sea Lions, Penguins and Flightless Cormorants. The soupy green water is chock full of turtles and rays and Mola mola. One ray is 6 meters tip to tip! It’s looking quite good for the snorkel so we head back to Polaris to change gear.
We quickly return to the snorkel site and as a tight team make our way along shore, swimming astride green sea turtles. Doing frequent check ins, we make our way towards a tremendous cave where a school of golden rays flips past us. Along the cliff face penguins join us in the water and nimbly scoot by us or torpedo beneath. It’s hi tide and we can observe many intertidal zones, the walls are just covered with life including anemones, urchins’ species, colorful algae and purple soft gorgonians waving in the surge.
After lunch, while sailing between islands, our National Geographic Expert gave a PowerPoint lecture “Red and Blue-Footed Boobies: Natural and Sexual Selection”. For Fernandina and Isabella, our nautical chart’s bathymetry reads they were joined 15,000 years ago when sea level was 130 meters lower.
We sailed towards Fernandina’s Punta Espinosa; described as perhaps the most pristine oceanic island on earth. It is jet black. The super fresh a-a and pahoehoe lava reach their firey fingers seaward. Here and there, the deep green of red mangrove leaves above the redded stilt roots provides safe harbor for countless marine fish. Giant red Sally Lightfoot crabs sun bath and scatter on our close approach. Penguins gain miniature conetops and survey the scene. The unmatched turquoise of the cormorant’s eye stirs our aesthetic soul.
Dry landing, we walk the ropy lava surface towards a colony of 1000’s of marine iguanas. Carefully stepping over and around the nuzzled up salt-spitting mounds. We pass the washed up sun-bleached skeleton of a Cuvier’s Whale. As we approach the point, bull sea lions defense call to their harems and pups gurgle-cry for their lactating moms. Finally we watch the courtship and nesting behaviors of the flightless cormorants. Gentle seemingly thoughtful expression, care and kindness, amongst couples, between birds and homos. It’s 6pm, we swivel onto our Zodiacs and outboard back to Polaris. What a difference 12 hours can make!
