Island Hopping

Back from the spring break island hopping tour through the Galapagos!  Last Friday the whole group of GAIAS students left from San Cristobal for Santa Cruz, breaking into 4 groups to take 4 separate boats, with our groups based on which classes we’re taking.  Because we left San Cristobal after lunch, we arrived too late to do anything besides check into our hotels and hang out before dinner.  Dinner was at “The Rock”, a restaurant with delicious shrimp that for some reason decided it’s sign was best upside down.  The meal was great, and it was a nice change to have a meal without rice as a key component.

The next day, we met up with a local guide and hiked to las Grietas, a canyon 75 feet deep, bordered by vertical cliffs 20 feet apart, and half-way filled with water.  Even though the water didn’t seem to have any outlet, a school of big fish swam near the bottom, and seemed unbothered by our presence.  On one of the cliffs, there was a climbable section of rock, and I scurried up it, about half way up the cliff, before jumping in, and starting a frenzy of cliff jumping into the clear water below.   Then we loaded onto a little harbor boat, and travelled to a marine iguana breeding beach.  The iguanas were all over eachother, lounging in the sun trying to soak up as much heat as possible before they ventured into the water at low tide to search for the algae they eat.    The biggest were 3 feet, which the smallest barely reached 6 inches, and were the most prone to scurrying away from us when they saw us.  For the most part though, they seemed unconcerned by our presence.  Before lunch, we got a bit of snorkeling in along the rocky coast outside of the Santa Cruz harbor.  As were swimming I dove down to look at the bottom, and found a trio of black-tip reef sharks, resting on the bottom where the motion of the waves could force water through their gills, saving them from having to swim to breathe.  The 3 were motionless, and the largest was almost 6 feet, and wholly unconcerned by us.  After lunch, we first bused to a section of lava tunnel, with a hole in the ceiling to let light into its 600 foot length, then continued on to a beach further up the island, where we spend time playing a great, if tiring game, of ultimate Frisbee.

the tunned on Santa cruze, below the skylight where the ceiling has fallen in at one point

The next day, we got up early for a bus ride to the channel between Santa Cruz and Baltra Island, were we boarded our boat for a trip to Bartolome Island, home to the most iconic photo of scenery on the Galapagos.  Our boat, the Espanola I, was the biggest and most luxuriant of the boats I’ve island hopped on.  On the ride out to Bartolome, I rode on the bow with a couple other people, getting an excellent view of the sharks we passed on the way out.  They’d start as a fin in the distance breaking water, and as we got closer and passed them we could look over the side of the boat and down at them, getting a full view of them.  We saw my first hammerhead in the Galapagos, and a couple tiger sharks, the biggest of which our captain estimated at 5 meters!  In other terms, that’s almost 3 Matthews long.  After almost 3 hours on the boat, we reached the island, and met the huge pinnacle of rock that looms 200 feet over the bay.  Before we snorkeled, we hiked to the top of the small mountain behind the pinnacle, where we were greeted by great views and a team of Galapagos hawks.  They’d hover 10 feet above us on updrafts, then land on the wooden railing, unconcerned that people were standing just 5 feet away.  Their shear lack of concern showed that they’ve never faced predation or attack from humans. 

After we hiked down from the mount, after plenty of pictures, we took a launch to the beach and began to snorkel below the pillar.  The rocks below water were jagged and incredibly textured- it was really neat to see how they looked underwater, kind of like a black version of ice that’s been warped by high winds as it froze.  Below one of these jagged outcrop, a trio of white-tip reef sharks was resting, and on top of another, a pair of Galapagos penguins watched us swim past.  On the way back to shore, I almost ran into a baby black-tip reef shark as I was almost back to the beach.  He was only a foot long, and I tried to follow him, but being young and more skittish than an adult, he quickly left me behind.   

looking down on the pinnacle.  apparently, this is one of the most famous landscape images from the galapagos, based on the number of photos and paintings i've seen based on this shot

close up of a galapagos hawk

Me wit ha galapagos hawk behind

The next day, we took boats out Isabela, to return to my homeland in the Galapagos.  This time I stayed at Hostal Cerro Azul instead of the Gran Tortuga, but had an excellent time on the island.  Our first full day, we hiked up Sierra Negra, the big volcano we climbed with mountain geology, hiking to the edge of the caldera and around it, before hiking down to Volcan Chico, the parasitic volcano on its slope.  The day after that, we returned to the lava tunnels on the coast for snorkeling.  On the way out, we passed a ton of manta rays- their wingtips would breach the surface of the water so that we could spot them from a distance, and then get a better look at them as we passed close to them in the boat.  After we snorkeled we were returning the Puerto Villamil, the town in Isabela, and again saw the mantas- but this time we got in the water with them.  Our captain pulled us close to one, then we followed out guide and jumped in the water.  The first manta we saw was a good 10 feet wide, swimming perpendicular in from of us, black with white highlights on its face and underbelly.   As we watched that one swim away, one of the girls yelled in surprise and I looked down, to find an even bigger manta- 15 feet from wingtip to wingtip, cruising 5 feet below my flippers.  It was incredible to see how gracefully they moved without having a tail swinging back and forth.

The lava tunnels on Isabela

Tortoises at the breeding center.

Another big animal highlight of Isabela was visiting the tortoise breeding center, where the parque nacional is leading efforts to boost the gaint tortoise population from its current 20,000 on the islands to the 200,000 it was before humans arrived.  We saw tortoises of all sizes- from babies the size of a chicken egg, to adults with shells 4 feet long, weighing a good 500 pounds.  One fully fact about them is that they love the color red- at one point a red backpack was dangled into an enclosure of younglings to point this out, and they all instantly started moving towards it.

Puerto Chino

This weekend I got to spend some time away from the town of Puerto Baquerezo and explore more of San Cristobal. Instead of spending Saturday night in town, we headed to Puerto Chino, a beach on the northeastern edge of the island.  After meeting up in the afternoon, we hired a bus to drive us the 30 minutes up the backbone of the island- through the highlands and past several small farms and the three massive wind turbines that generate 50% of the islands electricity.  After the turbines, we started back downhill unit the road literally ended.  It wasn’t a parking lot- just the end of the road, with a trail leading from there and the couple hundred yards down to the beach.  We arrived at high tide, and the beach was almost non-existent, with the waves reaching almost to the narrow strip of grass that ran between the sand and the scrappy trees that cover most of the island.  I’m glad the grass was 6 inches higher than it’s surroundings- at the far end of the beach, between the two sections of grass where we erected tents, was a narrow sand channel which we considered as our first tent spot- before the waves filled it with water and our guide helped us construct a make-shift sand dam to keep the next high tide (which would come while we were sleeping ) from filling the area again.  Because we were in a group of 14 people, we had to have a guide from the park come with us.  Thankfully though, someone’s host-brother was a guide, and he volunteered his services. 

The beach itself was gorgeous- it wasn’t terrible big, but the sand ran from maybe 100 yards between black volcanic rock.  On the left, where we entered, the rocks were a low shoreline, but on the right end, where we set up camp, the sand was bordered by a rock outcropping.  At the end of the outcrop, a couple sea lions were lounging, and a group of 4 blue-footed boobies where positioned on the rocks.  The boobies are a lot bigger than I thought they would be- their goofiness makes them seem smaller, but their bodies are almost as big as a pelican or goose.  Their beady little eyes are blue, so the pupils make the eyes seem way too small for their body.   And of course they have sky blue feet.  So yeah, they’re a little hard to take seriously.  But it’s neat to watch them fish- they fly over shallow water til they see a fish silhouetted against the sand, then fold their wings up and dive into the water.  Bobbing to the surface a few seconds later.

another shot of Leon Dormido

the other group's boat

setting up camp at puerto chino

That night, after finally getting around to erecting the tents, we had a nice bondfire we set up with driftwood, and spent a while around it after cooking on a grill in the woods, the sound of waves in the background and the smoke keeping the mosquitos to a minimum.  Until the moon came out, we had great views of the stars and the Milky Way, and once it did appear, we were treated by the illumination of a full moon.

The next morning was spent on the beach, swimming and surfing…until 2 of the 3 boards brought to Puerto Chino became casualties.  Alas, one was mine.   While breaking the board my host brother was letting me borrow was definitely not a good thing, it was his old board that he doesn’t use anymore, so he wasn’t upset, but that also now leaves me without a board.  It broke when I had just caught a wave (laying on the board of course- standing is still beyond me), and the wave broke and foamed, pushing the back of my board up and driving the nose into the sand.  But at least now Ivan can turn it into cool wall-art for Café del Mar!

the other side of the rocky outcrop

swimmin'

Chasing turtles

At the university today, a sea lion decided to set up camp outside of the front door.  Presumably to escape the heat by hiding under the balcony on the 2^nd floor, he was sprawled out on the tiles, completely unconcerned with us humans milling about.  Being a sea lion, that wasn’t terribly surprising!  As far as I know, he’s still there in all his smelly glory.

 Yesterday for class we went to Playa Corola, a 15 minute walk from the university, to work on group projects.  My group’s project was to study the feeding behavior of sea turtles in the little bay that makes up the playa.  The turtles there munch on algae growing on and between the rocks, but we didn’t know what kind of algae, so we set up the experiment to figure out.  Here there are too many, very similar algae species to easily identify, so for simplicity’s sake, they’re divided into a couple major groups- green, brown filament, red leafy, and brown leafy.  The plan was to bbreak into groups of 3 and swim through the harbor of playa Corola until we found a turtle, then swim with it as it ate, recording how many bites it took of each kind of algae to get some idea of its feeding habits.  Unfortunately, the turtles we found weren’t the most cooperative, and after we finally found one, it decided it would rather pass it’s time swimming than feeding, and we chased it around for the lagoon for a while.  We didn’t get to close- we stayed far enough away that at times we could barely see it through the sediment kicked up by the rough water- but our presence still may have affected its behavior.  Eventually, we gave up on that one, and found a second turtle, but this one behaved the same as the first, idly swimming until he headed out and we lost it in the bubbles generated by the bubbles at the end of the harbor.  The water was rougher than it has been- there were plenty of surfers further out, and inside the bay pretty big waves were coming in, making it hard to have exact control over where I went while I was swimming, even with fins on.  But despite the lack of our desired turtles, I was still able to see a lot of fish, and enjoy and afternoon in the water! 

While we were in the water, we used slates that we used in class.  Being that paper doesn’t tend to do so well underwater, the slates were our way of taking notes while working on our projects.  The slate itself was a quarter of a cylinder of PVC pipe, with the surface roughed up with sandpaper so a pencil would leave a mark.  Thanks to holes drilled in the corners of the slate, I was able to attach elastic bands to hold the apparatus to my arm.  Finally, the pencil stub got tied to the slate so I wouldn’t have to worry about losing it in the waves.

Leon Dormido/ Kicker "Kickass" Rock

Yesterday I passed on class, and we instead headed out to snorkel at Leon Dormido, aka Kicker Rock.  Alright, I wasn’t really skipping class- but when class consists entirely of snorkeling at an awesome rock formation in the middle of the ocean, it starts to lose its academic feel.  Because our class was too big to fit into 1 boat, we split into groups and took off along the coast, passing the long delayed freightor in the harbor.  When you live on an island where the only locally produced goods are fish and fruit, it becomes kind of a problem when such vital things as rice, medicine, beer, and gas don’t arrive on schedule….

Before we went to Leon Dormido, the sleeping lion, we stopped at small Lobo island by the coast of San Cristobal to snorkel briefly in the shallow water there.  Where we jumped out of the boat was too deep to see bottom, but within a minute’s swim we were near the shore of jumbled volcanic rocks, checking out the fish swimming below.  Little damsel fish were everywhere, guarding the patches of algae they farm, and at one point a big school of surgeon fish, who are dinner plate sized and get their name from the scalpel-sharp spines on their tail, swam below us, munching on the algae on the black rocks.  Unfortunately, the island didn’t quite live up to its name, and only a few sea lions, lobos marinos, swam by as we were in the water, not stopping to check us out.

Leon Dormido, with the channel between the 2 halves

From there, I rode on the top of the boat as we headed to Leon Dormido.  The rock itself is really more of a mountain than anything else- over 500 feet tall at its highest point, the whole rock is the remains of a volcanic cone that through erosion and wave action, now is surrounded by cliffs on all sides.  The main hunk of rock is the largest, with a smaller, narrow knife edge of rock bursting out of the water in front of the main mass, creating a 20-foot wide channel of water between the two.  Before we went into the water, our boats took a lap around the island to get a look at the thing, and check the sea conditions.  Finally, we pulled up next to the end of the channel, and enter the water.  The sea was a little choppy, but not too bad once we entered the channel and its shallower water.  “Shallower”.  We still couldn’t really see the bottom, but when we entered we could see the silhouette of a couple rays near the bottom.  The rock walls were covered in algae, barnacles, and whelks, with crabs clinging to the vertical surface above the height of the waves.  Below us in the channel, a big green sea turtle swam about, and I saw my first shark of the day.  It was a little Galapagos shark, maybe 4 feet long about 20 feet below me.  After we left the channel, we swam around the sheltered side of the rock, spotting a couple more big sea turtles and 4 more Galapagos sharks.  While I swam above one, it came up to sea what I was, getting within 10 feet before diving back down out of sight. It was really awesome!

A galapagos shark.  Alas, not one of my photos

After we finally returned to the boat, after  staying in the water as long as we could, we  headed back to San Cristobal and anchored in the meter deep water off a beautiful beach, eating before I jumped in the water for a last bit of snorkeling before we returned to the water.