Isabela Island, 11/8/2022, National Geographic Endeavour II
Aboard the
National Geographic Endeavour II
Galápagos
Isabela Island is the largest island in the Galapagos, and it has five main active volcanos. Each volcano is active every couple of years.
After successful programs to eradicate the introduced animals that caused the most harm to the islands, Isabela has made an amazing recovery. Now the island provides many different visitor sites. It is great to be surrounded by so many endemic animals and active volcanoes in this part of the archipelago.
Walter was born in a very small town on the mainland of Ecuador. His first trip to the Galápagos was when he was 12 years old, visiting friends and aunt, who had moved to the islands. From the first moment he saw the Islands, he fell in love with the...
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Today we visited Floreana Island. An early hike brought us to Punta Cormorant where we witnessed the start of the breeding season of the blue-footed boobies by observing the famous blue-footed booby courting dance! Then a few yards away, we observed flamingos in the brackish water lagoon. What a great start to a great day! After breakfast we went to Champion Islet and off we went for Zodiac rides and later for deep water snorkeling and glass bottom boat rides. It was like swimming in an aquarium! The afternoon was filled with activities: two rounds of kayaking, visiting the famous Post Office Barrel, swimming, and snorkeling off the beach. To cap it all off, sunset was gorgeous. It was an amazing day in paradise.
Española Island is considered the oldest of the Galapagos Islands. This island is home to diverse and abundant species, even if from afar it looks like a deserted island. Mockingbirds, endemic to this islands, lava lizards, and large colonies of sea lions are a few of the species that we observed today. Our morning took us to one of the most wonderful and pristine white sandy beaches in the world, Gardner Bay. Here we could try out our snorkeling gear and practice some snorkeling among curious baby sea lions that swam by. We couldn’t miss the opportunity to take our guests on a boat ride to observe the breathtaking coastline of Española. Its dramatic cliffs make the perfect runway for waved albatrosses to take off, as they are a very heavy bird. This species of albatross only nest on this tiny island in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, and our guests were lucky to observe the first albatrosses of the season, as April is the month in which they return to breed.
On our last full day, we still had two amazing visitor sites to explore. An impressive fact is that some species are endemic only to San Cristobal, and we anticipate encountering them today. The degree of endemism in this archipelago is extraordinary. It seems like most of the plants and animals exist only in this lost paradise.