We traveled during the night from Santa Cruz to Santa Fe. Not California to New Mexico, but two of the islands in the Galápagos archipelago. The Spanish were not all that creative with their names, were they?
This morning we had breakfast and then we were placed in the two dinghies. John and I were not paying attention to the time and I think the last of the two had left before somebody noticed that we were not there and it had to return. Our guide was obviously irritated though he said nothing. It only took us a couple minutes before we landed on a lovely sandy beach.
From the beach you could get a good view of our ship.
But not many people were looking back. Instead, everyone was busy taking pictures of a couple dozen sea lions. There were small groups of females and their pups everywhere.
They were so unafraid of humans that it was easy to come close and photograph the three graces.
And they seem quite happy to pose for pictures.
The male was not at all happy about us being there, and regularly barked warnings from the water whenever he thought we came too close.
While we were on the beach, we also took pictures of ourselves and each other. This is the family from Virginia. From left to right, Thomas, Margot, Katie, Tim, and Brook.
And this is the family from New York: Ceci, Charles, Cali, Susanne, Catherine, and Charlotte in front.
And our friends from Atlanta, John and Trish.
After we had spent some time taking pictures, we started walking over a fairly rocky trail. Our guide stopped along the way to provide some background information about the animals we could see.
We saw many of the same plants and animals that we had seen yesterday at the Darwin Center, but seeing them as a part of a complete ecosystem was particularly interesting. The island is covered with both Palo Santo trees and the tree-like cactus.
I suppose the only reason these cacti are not used much for decoration in the States is that they take so long to grow. This is not a fully mature specimen, and our guide said it was probably about a hundred years old. We saw more iguanas
and discovered that they quite happily coexist with sea lions.
There were birds on the shore
and perched on cacti.
After this we came back to the ship. After a short break to get changed, everybody except me went snorkeling. I am so blind that I see pretty much nothing when I go snorkeling and I find it a pretty unsettling to be in the water and not have any idea where anybody else is when I stick my head up. So I stayed and edited photographs while John and the others went out.
After about an hour, they returned for lunch. After we finished eating, the ship left Santa Fe and headed towards South Plazas Island, about two hours further. Most of the passengers took a nap.
We disembarked on South Plazas around three thirty in the afternoon. The moment we stepped off the launch we were astonished to see a mother sea lion who had just given birth to a baby not more than a day before.
It was hard to tear ourselves away from watching the mother and her baby, but Victor, our naturalist, finally told us we had more things to see so we headed up the trail.
The rocks here are pretty interesting all on their own. They are white and shiny, and from a distance you would be almost certain that they are marble.
And, in a way, they are. This is a former sea gathering area, and the animals literally left tons of their scat on the rocks. As the main ingredient in their diet is fish, the calcite from the fish skeletons remained after the organic material had washed away. The sun then baked it over the years into a hard, white, shiny surface covering the volcanic rock. It is especially shinny where people and sea lions walk. It looks like well maintain ballroom floor.
We had not gone far on the trail when we once again saw a land iguana.
But it was soon joined by another male, and for a time it looked like the two were going to fight. They both hissed and shook their spines and circled each other.
But after a few minutes, the one on the right, probably a bit younger, decided that against the challenge and walked away.
The landscape of South Plazas is remarkably beautiful. It is too dry even for the the Palo Santo trees, and the only significant vegetation are the cactus and some succulents that must be related to ice plant. These turn a bright orange red during the dry season, which camouflages the orange iguana.
When it rains, as it has recently, the plant turns green again. The yellow warbler is almost perfectly camouflaged in this environment.
We passed a something that looked remarkably like an old Roman road. Our guide explained that a lava tube had once been here, but that it had collapsed leaving only the base of the tube.
After walking for a bit, we arrived at a headland. John normally does not get very close to any kind of cliff, but he could not resist posing in the later afternoon light on this stairway too where..
There were pigeons of some kind nesting there, but even they looked beautiful in this light and on these cliffs.
Walking along the path, we found the remains of an iguana. Young Thomas speculated that maybe it had been burned to a crisp by a volcanic eruption, and I liked that idea more than any more pedestrian explanation.
