The Galapagos Islands : Part II

Our Cruise around the Islands

I have my own theory of evolution, Darwin was adopted.
- Steven Wright

Okay, I said I was going to keep this short and to the point, but this is the Galapagos Islands. How can I write just a couple of paragraphs about the bloody GALAPAGOS ISLANDS? The answer to that one, obviously, is that I can't. So grab yourself a cup of coffee, settle in, and find out what occurred :

The Galapagos Islands are very young, in geological terms, at between 5 and 6 million years old, depending on which island you're standing on. Essentially a close knit bunch of volcanic sea mounts that eventually poked their noses above the sea after many hot and smoky sneezing fits, the only life to be found on the islands has come here from elsewhere. Birds have been amongst the most prodigious settlers, on account of their obvious flying skills, along with some insect species. All other plant and animal life has washed up on these shores by lucky accident (or unlucky if your other half is still sitting on the mainland waiting for you to come home with the shopping) or blown in on the winds. Such events favour small size and as such there were no significant predators on the islands until the introduced species already mentioned by Cara. Free from the concerns of turning into somebody's dinner, many of the little creatures settled in for an easy life and speciated off in all new weird and wonderful directions, fitting themselves in nicely to their new environment. Because of this, and protected by their relative isolation, the Galapagos Archipelago has an extensive list of species that you will find nowhere else on earth. Most of them seem to be called the Galapagos this or that, or Darwin's whotsit or thingy. Which leads us nicely on to Mr Darwin. Old Charlie, or young Charlie as he was then being just 25, swung by here in 1835 on the famous voyage of the Beagle. He collected specimens and made extensive observations of the flora and fauna. He did not however, as is commonly misrepresented, formulate his theory of evolution in the Galapagos. This came much later in life, although many examples of evolutionary adaptation he cited to support his theory stemmed from his experiences here and it is for this that Darwin will be forever associated with the Galapagos Islands (although one of his prime examples, the Galapagos finches, seems to have been completely overlooked by Darwin for some time and only used by him with hindsight after somebody else pointed out their significance after Origin of Species was published. This is, of course, a contentious issue amongst scientists and of absolutely no interest to everybody else. I only mention it here in a weak attempt to look informed). Being a huge fan of Mr Darwin's beautiful theory, I never like to pass up an opportunity to mention the creationists who would sneer at what I have so far written. Assuming that the very concept of evolution is nonsense, I can only guess that the fire and brimstone contingent believe the 250kg giant tortoises spontaneously generated here out of thin air complete with holes in their socks, to quote Bertrand Russell. This problem obviously goes away if we follow the fundamentalist christian doctrine that the world is only 6000 years old and really was created in just 7 days. If that's the case, then it was very considerate of our mischievous god to make the Galapagos fauna that little bit different so they could enjoy the barren, rocky landscape on which they found themselves that special Tuesday morning. Don't worry, I'm fully aware that none of this is of the least interest to you, but as this website also serves as a travel diary for me to look back on in years to come, I am occasionally allowed the odd ramble for my own indulgence.

Almost all of the islands have now been classified national park by the Ecuadorian government, and only 3% of the land mass is open to settlement and development. The waters off the islands are also designated marine parks and out of bounds to all but the smallest local fisheries. Despite this, illegal fishing boats regularly enter protected waters for the abundant fish stocks and to catch sharks. The sharks are hauled aboard, have their fins and tail sliced off, and then they are thrown back into the water to drown. The fins usually make their way to the far east to feed the shark fin soup trade. The land settlements are also experiencing difficulties as hundreds of Ecuadorians from the mainland regularly make their way here to build a better life for themselves and their families thanks to the burgeoning and profitable tourist trade. Ironically, the huge popularity of the islands with foreigners does not do a huge amount to boost the local economy. The vast majority of visitors climb off the aeroplane and are put straight onto a boat. After their trip, they climb back onto the same plane and take off for the mainland. The boat owners are mostly foreign or live in Quito and take their money off the islands immediately, and the US$100 park entry fee every tourist pays on arrival goes back to the government, with a small proportion funnelled back to pay for the national park authorities. The local communities are left with selling postcards and T-shirts to the boat passengers on their brief sojourns ashore and the income generated by the small percentage of people who stay on Santa Cruz or San Cristobal during their visit.

All visitors must stick to the marked tracks on the islands and be accompanied by a qualified guide. Whilst this genuinely protects the islands, it also severely restricts what you can or can't see. As such, it is only ever possible to see the briefest glimpse of what these islands have to offer. This doesn't stop what you can see being very impressive indeed, though. As Cara mentioned, the wildlife here is as fearless of humans as you will find anywhere, and the chance to sidle up beside snorting marine iguanas and 1 tonne bull sea lions is as good as any nature lover could ever hope for. Anyway, enough rambling nonsense. Back to our trip.

From Puerto Ayora, we needed to get back up to the airport as the boat would be sailing from Isla Baltra, a small island just to the north of Isla Santa Cruz and where the airport was located. We took a taxi up to the bus terminal, caught the bus to the northern tip of the island, hopped onto the small ferry to carry us across the narrow stretch of water to Baltra and onto the next bus to take us to the airport. There we met our guide for the week, a native islander called Adrian, who was to take us back to the boat. We hopped back onto the bus back down to the channel, where we discovered the boat had gone to refuel and wouldn't be back for an hour. The sun was blazing now and with no shade, we loaded our worldly goods back onto the bus and headed back to the airport. As soon as we exited the bus at the airport, we were harried onto another bus that would take us to the port on Baltra where the boat was now stationed. Once there, a dinghy came to collect us and we were finally on our home for the week, the Yate Amigo. This kind of half-arsed run-around is typical of the kind of organisation we have experienced in Ecuador and although tired, hot and grumpy, we were not too surprised. The boat was decent enough and typical of the standard you would find in the price category we could afford. Most importantly, the cabins were air-conditioned at night although any attempt to sleep in one during the day proved a bit uncomfortable. The rest of the passengers were already aboard having started their trip in Puerto Ayora the previous Friday. Everybody was very friendly and most people came over to introduce themselves. The boat left port and motored around the headland to a sheltered bay where the afternoon's first activity was snorkelling with a local sea lion population, amongst other things. We had an hour to kill before we had to leave, and I was a touch overexcited to be there. I could see some sea lions mucking about in the water near the boat so decided I was going to snorkel with them for a while before we had to go. I threw on my shorts, grabbed the mask, snorkel and fins and jumped in the water. It took a few minutes to swim over to them but once I was there the young sea lions all crowded around me to check me out. It is quite an incredible experience playing around in crystal clear water with a dozen young sea lions. They have no fear whatsoever and love to show off their swimming skills and let you know just how cumbersome we humans are in the water. Their favourite trick seems to be to swim straight at you and when they are just a few inches from your face, blow bubbles at you and turn away sharply, then hang upside down in the water a couple of feet away , staring at you to see how you react. My usual reaction was to laugh my backside off, which isn't always a good idea when you're trying to breath through a snorkel. This trip was turning out to be everything I had hoped and more, and we had barely even set off yet. After a while, the sea lions got bored with the docile lump they obviously took me to be and swam off to find other amusement. I headed back to the boat. As we weren't even supposed to be in the water here, nobody had put the ladder off the back of the platform so I had a difficult time trying to haul myself out of the water. The platform was a couple of feet off the surface so I grabbed the edge and tried to haul myself up, not very easy when the only exercise I'd had in the last few months was restricted to my beer arm. I managed to get up onto my elbows but when I planted my hands down and pushed up, one of my hands slipped off the edge of the platform and I fell heavily and caught my ribcage on the edge. Something made a nasty pinging noise and my chest fairly exploded in pain. I grabbed onto a rail and dragged the rest of my body onto the boat. For the first minute minute I just lay there, trying to catch my breath and cursing my own stupidity. Everytime I inhaled my chest hurt and it was a while before the pain subsided. Well done Mik, onboard the boat barely an hour on your trip of a lifetime and you may well have cracked a rib. Sterling start to the week. Just to add insult to injury, as I lay there I realised that it was almost a year to the day since I cracked a couple of other ribs by punching myself in the chest in a snowboarding accident. I was certainly my own worst enemy. It didn't really affect me too much on the rest of the trip and only really hurt when I laid down. I couldn't get comfortable in my bunk and every time I moved in my sleep, the pain woke me up. Needless to say I didn't get much sleep. What an idiot!

We set off on our snorkelling trip proper, and although uncomfortable, I soon forgot about it as the sharks and rays swam around us and the sea lions dived into the water to embarrass us. Later that afternoon we had a land excursion onto one of the small islands off Santa Cruz. There we saw hundreds more sea lions up on land and in the water, land iguanas, marine iguanas, and all sorts of endemic birds, insects and plants you find nowhere else in the world.

We saw too much and did too many things in the next week for me to list them all here, so I'll just mention a few. On one occasion we were snorkelling in a very narrow channel between two enormous rocks that came straight out of the water on either side. As soon as we jumped into the water, we were immediately spotted a group of Galapagos sharks circling beneath us. We followed them through the channel for a while before they figured we were not breakfast and buggered off. We also had groups of large spotted eagle rays passing us, turtles and a few whitetip reef sharks to add to the fun. We visited several beautiful, white sandy beaches that were completely deserted except for us and the sea lions basking on the sand. We would splash about in the shallows and the sea lions would swim around us and show off their impressive aquabatics. There were colourful sally lightfoot crabs everywhere and marine iguanas would swim out of the sea and trundle past back to their burrows in the sand. We visited islands where blue-footed boobies would stare at us and do their amusing foot lifting dance and magnificent frigate birds that stretched out their wings and inflate the enormous, red throat sacs to show off to the ladies. On our fourth day, we were heading back to Puerto Ayora across a sea that was as still as a millpond, when the skipper of the boat shouted out we had dolphins up ahead. We all crowded to the front of the boat and watched while off in the distance, seemingly hundreds of dolphins made their way toward us. We could see some of them leaping out of the water and generally enjoying the dolphin life. As they reached the boat, groups of them broke off to ride our bough waves and as we stood on the deck of the boat, we were treated to watching dozens of dolphins surfing the waves. This lasted for about 20 minutes before the dolphins drifted off, one by one, to rejoin the group.

After dinner, we would grab a beer and go and sit on the back of the boat to see what wildlife would gather, attracted by our lighting. First, the small fish would come in, then we would see schools of rays drift by to check us out. Pretty soon, the sharks would arrive, and we often saw juvenile blacktip reef sharks chasing the small fish right out of the water. A few sealions would also come and join the fun, either chasing the fish or climbing into our dinghy to have a snooze or just play around with each other. On our final evening as we were sitting at the back of the boat, watching some Galapagos sharks and sealions chase the little guys all over the place, the skipper and another one of the crew hopped into the small launch with their snorkelling equipment and headed off into the darkness. We asked them if they were planning on snaffling a few lobsters for tea, but they said no, that would be illegal and they just fancied a moonlight dip and to watch a few fish. Of course! When they returned a few hours later, the skipper had an armful of urchin spines and they both looked knackered. The captain put a lit cigarette to his skin to try and tease the spines out. What did you see, we asked. Just a few sharks and rays, they said. No lobsters, then? Definitely no lobsters they assured us. After they went below deck, we pulled in the launch, lifted up the front hatch and there, wondering what the hell was going on, were 2 dozen fat lobsters, waiting for us tourists to bugger off to bed.

Everybody else had already been on the boat for 4 days when we joined, and after our first 4 days, they all disembarked and we were joined by a new group of people. On the whole, Cara and I were very lucky with the people we did the cruise with. There weren't any really annoying sorts or any big egos to deal with, and everybody was friendly and accommodating. Very fortunate considering we were all cooped up on a small boat for days on end. A few of the characters are worth a mention.
Franz was a 76 year old Austrian and had been travelling with his wife. Unfortunately she had left the boat the day we boarded due to ill health but Franz stayed aboard. We discovered why when we saw him getting chummy with the 4 German and Swiss girls who surrounded and fussed over him the rest of the trip. He was in heaven. Franz was a bit of a photographer and was always lagging behind on the shore trips to set up his equipment and take his shots. Apparently his photos were used in school textbooks back home in Austria and whenever he was told he couldn't do something he would say "but it is for ze children" until he got his own way. Pretty soon we discovered the only things Franz like photographing was all the young ladies on the boat, preferably while they were in their bikinis. But it was okay, because it was all for ze children. What sort of schoolbooks are these, Franz? Another good source of amusement was Paul, a psychologist from the states who had taken early retirement and was off seeing the world. Paul's catchphrase was "Get crazy in the funhouse or you'll be end up crazy in the madhouse" and he was a great laugh. After having the same breakfast for a week he resorted to throwing his bread out of the window and gulping his cereal straight out of the bowl, letting the milk dribble down his beard for effect. Another reason I liked Paul so much was that he is the spitting image of the actor Peter Falk. He even had the Columbo squint when he was talking to you. Other noteworthies were Seth, who did the best marine iguana impression known to man and Cheyne, an Australian guy who knew more about sharks than me and was thus idolised as the font of all wisdom.

Our routine on the boat was fairly laidback, with the exception of having to get up at 6.30 every morning. Breakfast was at 7am, followed by a shore visit, followed by an hour's snorkelling somewhere. Lunch was usually followed by a nap for most and a bit of reading by the remainder. In the late afternoon, we usually had a bit more snorkelling followed by another shore trip. All this was regulated by our guide clanging a big bell on deck to call us to attention. By the end of the week, I was salivating like one of Pavlov's dogs every time the bell rang. The food could best be described as "healthy" with lots of fish and fruit and other muck I wouldn't normally eat, but there was plenty of it so I wasn't too concerned. Our cabins were pretty cramped, and the only rule seemed to be that the largest people went into the smallest cabins. My bunk was too low to be able to sit up and lying down was too bloody painful, so I took to napping in the saloon propped up against the side of the boat. By the end of the week I was grateful for any sleep I could get. On our last day, we were ferried back to the airport where we missed our flight and had to sit around waiting for the next one, then back to the mainland.

We had a fantastic time on the islands, and I would say it was one of the best experiences, not just of this trip, but of my entire life. I definitely want to come back here again, and I would more than likely do it exactly the same way as we did it this visit.

Mik