An early morning start for the flight to Galapagos. The plane went via Guayaquil and we arrived at the Galapagos just after lunch. Short ride in a bus and then onto a RHIB to take us to our home for the next few days, the MS Santa Cruz II. This is one of the smaller vessels in the Hurtigruten fleet. A maximum of 90 passengers. Our cabin was small but comfortable. First thing I did was to flop onto the bed and think about having an afternoon nap. No chance. As soon as the new passengers were on board, the ship up anchored and sailed up to Punte Vincente at the north of Isla Isabella. As soon as we had finished lunch, the obligatory introduction to the ship and safety procedures we were off on a RHIB cruise.
The Galapagos is an archipelago of volcanic islands about 1,000 km off the coast of Ecuador. The islands are famous for their large number of endemic species. These were studied by Charles Darwin in the 1830s and inspired his theory of evolution. Ecuador won its independence from Spain in 1822 and formally claimed the islands ten years later. This was essentially unchallenged because nobody else really had any interest in the islands where it was reported that there were just some ugly animals. Today, Galapagos is primarily a tourist spot with about 300,000 visitors a year. Tourism is heavily controlled so as to preserve the ecology. Independent travel is difficult. Most tourists will join organised tours that are usually based on a ship. There are only 116 visitor sites in the Galápagos: 54 land sites and 62 scuba-diving or snorkeling sites. Small groups are allowed to visit in 2- to 4-hour shifts only, to limit impact on the area. All groups are accompanied by licensed guides.
The short cruise was followed by a landing and a walk. On the cruise we saw a remarkable variety of animals and birds. Now we saw even more including pink flamingos and several other birds that I completely failed to photograph. First thing I noticed as we approached the coast were the marine iguanas. Hundreds of them hanging out on the rocks with some very colourful crabs. The iguanas are cold blooded so they like to sit in the sunshine to keep themselves warm. Onshore we found a land iguana. Big brother to the marine type. He was easily a metre long. There are a lot of birds. Possibly most famous are the boobies. Blue footed boobies look faintly ridiculous especially when they do their mating dance. The routine is essentially about showing off their feet. We also saw a couple of Nazca boobies with their chicks. There was a solitary Galapagos penguin. This seemed very odd to me. It was clearly a penguin not too different from the Humbolt penguins we saw on the way to Antarctic. But this was the equator. What is a penguin doing here? I felt like telling it to go south back to the ice and snow. In fact, they live quite happily here. They are the only equatorial penguins and the only ones to ever be in the northern hemisphere. The equator passes through Galapagos so occasionally these little birds can wander, briefly, into the north.
