Isabela & Fernandina Islands
We woke up surrounded by mysterious fog; we didn’t know where we were, we just knew we had sailed for more than a hundred miles and that there were big swells. The moon had been bright all night, and until ten we were able to see Mars, red and brilliant, shining a few degrees above the horizon. Our captain, Wilfrido Chavez, knew where we were of course, as for us, we just had to close our eyes and remember that it is possible to perceive through other senses but sight. We heard Roca Redonda; it was on our starboard side. Birds could be sensed, with their calls, with their wings flapping through the wind; we knew we were circumnavigating a place crowded with life. We could imagine big waves crashing against this tiny rock still above sea level, when most of the volcano it once was, has collapsed to several hundred feet below the surface. For a few minutes it cleared up, and then we saw. The rock was there, impressive, floating over the mist, like a mirage.
Dense fog accompanied us until we crossed the Equator line. Everything changed once King Neptune and his pirates boarded the ship. We were back to the southern hemisphere then, and things are different below the equator; some think constellations and people live upside down in the southern hemisphere, but all of us on this other side think right side up. We should ask someone from outer space, maybe from Mars; their point of view would be surprisingly different.
By the time we got to Fernandina, the skies were light blue; it was perfectly clear. Isabela volcanoes decorated the horizon to the east while La Cumbre, the youngest, impressively rose right next to Polaris, to the west. We experienced Fernandina in pretty high tide. It looked amazingly beautiful, bubbling from the effect of waves crashing against its basaltic shoreline. Iguanas, flightless cormorants, penguins and sea lions enjoyed the feast of beauty and foam. But was it real foam, or was it the white spume in which a little mermaid transformed herself long ago, a mermaid who fell in love?
We woke up surrounded by mysterious fog; we didn’t know where we were, we just knew we had sailed for more than a hundred miles and that there were big swells. The moon had been bright all night, and until ten we were able to see Mars, red and brilliant, shining a few degrees above the horizon. Our captain, Wilfrido Chavez, knew where we were of course, as for us, we just had to close our eyes and remember that it is possible to perceive through other senses but sight. We heard Roca Redonda; it was on our starboard side. Birds could be sensed, with their calls, with their wings flapping through the wind; we knew we were circumnavigating a place crowded with life. We could imagine big waves crashing against this tiny rock still above sea level, when most of the volcano it once was, has collapsed to several hundred feet below the surface. For a few minutes it cleared up, and then we saw. The rock was there, impressive, floating over the mist, like a mirage.
Dense fog accompanied us until we crossed the Equator line. Everything changed once King Neptune and his pirates boarded the ship. We were back to the southern hemisphere then, and things are different below the equator; some think constellations and people live upside down in the southern hemisphere, but all of us on this other side think right side up. We should ask someone from outer space, maybe from Mars; their point of view would be surprisingly different.
By the time we got to Fernandina, the skies were light blue; it was perfectly clear. Isabela volcanoes decorated the horizon to the east while La Cumbre, the youngest, impressively rose right next to Polaris, to the west. We experienced Fernandina in pretty high tide. It looked amazingly beautiful, bubbling from the effect of waves crashing against its basaltic shoreline. Iguanas, flightless cormorants, penguins and sea lions enjoyed the feast of beauty and foam. But was it real foam, or was it the white spume in which a little mermaid transformed herself long ago, a mermaid who fell in love?
