Galapagos - August 2007

Almost my first experience of the Galapagos was seeing a number of sealions lying on benches on the jetty for the boat. They appeared to be substantially less impressed than we were by our chance encounter.

Actually, strictly speaking my first experience was smelling them, as soon as we got off the bus from the airport. But you get the idea.

As we were to learn, sealions behave completely differently towards people on land as opposed to in the water. On land, the females at least pretty much pretend you aren't there. So like home.... (Fitzgerald said that perhaps life was more successfully looked at through only one window, after all. Then again, I never did agree with that)

Stepping back a bit, the first thing you see is rather a desolate place. Each island (and there are a lot of them) is made up of volcanic rock, although they can look very different depending on when the eruption was, what the metal composition was and how exactly the rock got to the surface (lava flows or actual explosions).

the landscape looks alternately like the surface of the moon, or on Mars (if there is more iron in the lava), as it might be presented in some big budget sci fi movie, which is helped rather by the low skies you get at this time of year.

So, here I was, in the one week I had in between jobs, ready to see one of the wonders of the world.

A little bit of background, for those who might need it. The Galapagos are part of Ecuador, but lie 600 miles due west off the coast, well into the Pacific. Because they are so far away, the animals there are mutants - they are descendants of animals that swam, flew or were carried on flotsam (or air currents, in the case of land birds) during massive freak storms. They were then cut off for milennia and mutated - or 'evolved', in the words of a particular visitor to the islands - into what we can find today. That visitor was of course Darwin, in 1835, who noticed that finches on different islands had characteristics that set them apart from each other and which seemed particularly well suited for each island (longer beaks where they fed on worms that hid in plants, etc). I forget the actual statistics, but something like a quarter of the marine birds, mostof the land birds, all of the reptiles and half of the plants are unique to the Galapagos, and many are unique to individual islands.

a nice quote from the Rough Guide: "it's quite humbling that a scattering of scarred volcanic islands, flung across 45,000 square kilometres of ocean, 960km adrift from the Ecuadorian mainland and defying permanent human colonization until the twentieth century, should have been so instrumental in changing humanity's perception of itself."

Because of the seclusion, there are few predators on land, and when there are, they are vastly outnumbered by the prey. So most animals have no fear of people. As well as the stuck up sea lions, we were struck by the proliferation of crabs - they did run away if you got too close, but otherwise were perfectly happy wandering around despite the seabirds flying above. This is a 'Sally Lightfoot' crab, one of the most common (and colourful) types to be seen.

There are few people and many islands, and most of those are uninhabited either because they are inhospitable or, now, are wildlife reserves. There are 21,000 people in 8 towns on 4 islands - less than 3% of the landmass of the islands.

One inhabitant one sees just wondering around in some of the islands it the giant tortoise. The pictures below are taken both from a special centre and also from a farm - but they are mostly free to roam (and protected - people are not allowed to touch them). Some of these creatures are 80+ years old.

Pete and Ange find a new home

ET Phone Home!

(the original inspiration for Spielberg. Seriously)

The most common beast we see are birds. There are the usual pelicans, which like to keep the boats company, and the rather magnificent frigate birds with their red pouches. Unlike the other sea birds, they can't swim - they have stopped producing the oil that most sea birds do to insulate their feathers - so if they dive to catch fish, they will get waterlogged and drown. Instead, they have learned quickness, and dart in as other birds catch the fish and pull them from their mouths. It's quite a sight - but not as magnificent as seeing flocks of blue footed boobies dive to fish. The picture is only an approximation of what it looks like -the birds float on the breeze, then stop for a split second, before diving head first from a great height. Luckily for them they have an air pocket in their skulls as aspirin is not readily available on most of the islands.

The booby itself is in many ways the symbol of the islands. They are rather extraordinary-looking things.

But the highlight from a bird point of view were the penguins - the only ones north of the equator. I love this little clip

back on land - sea lions and more sea lions.

The most extraordinary land animal was the marine iguana. These things are straight out of Jurassic Park. They make no noise - other than 'spitting' out of glands above their noses. They accumulate so much salt in their bodies from swimming that they eject salt water periodically - especially if you get too close.

The real highlight of the trip, though, took place underwater. Turtles gliding gracefully by, and the sealions suddenly becoming friendly puppies, playing with you and each other. Just can't describe what that was like. Thanks to Pete for the underwater shots.

ALL the unedited pics are here:

http://picasaweb.google.com/justin.woddis/GalapagosUnedited