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Published: August 12th 2007
The Flamingo 1.
Our new home for the next 8 days.STOP! Stop what you´re doing right now, put down that book, switch off the remote, leave the dishes, hey even quit your job (you never really liked it anyway)! Done that? Excellent, now go and book a trip to the Galapagos Islands. We promise you, it will be one of the most amazing things you ever do. We had the most incredible 8 days, words could never do it justice but don´t worry we'll give it a bash anyway.
A quick interlude, as you may be aware we are slightly behind in updating this blog however the site has been down for the past two weeks and hence we had to load these pics twice, aaaagh. Anyways here goes again!
Well truth is, there is not any just way of properly describing how the Galapagos are without actually being there in person.
It was made famous by the expeditions and scientific writings of Charles Darwin, who arrived on The Beagle way back in 1835. His book "The Origin of the Species” fundamentally altered the way we view ourselves as a race.
Galapagos is located on the pacific coast of Ecuador about 1,000km west. Five million years ago volcanoes
All the Shipmates.
Our new mates sharing the Galapagos experience. Our guide Orlando is in the front. Yours truly(x 2) are either side of him. erupted from beneath the Pacific Ocean. Magma exploded and rocks uplifted to create a ring of 13 islands, 17 islets, and 47 reefs. It is where, unlike anywhere else in the world, wildlife roams freely, unafraid of humans. Which makes it a great place to get up close and personal with the animals in their natural habitat! There are also species of plants, animals and prehistoric reptiles found nowhere else, so bring on those dinosaurs.
The only way to see the Galapagos is firstly a 3 hour flight from Quito and then joining a cruise boat/yacht for a pre-planned itinerary of either 4, 5 or 8 day trips around the various islands. We opted for the 8 day cruise.
When we arrived at Baltra Island we were met with what would be our 2 guides and also the other 18 excited passengers who would be our shipmates for this trip. We were then shipped (no pun intended) by bus to our abode and transport, a grand yacht called, "The Flamingo 1". She would be home for the next 8 days, actually the longest time we would spend in the same place in the last 2.5 months, well not really
in the same place as the boat would be moving, but you know what we mean. Our fellow shipmates consisted of mainly English with a few Welsh and Americans thrown in for good measure.
We were advised to do the trip on one of the better class boats, at a better price of course, but that’s the bank manager’s problem now. And we are so glad we did. As we mentioned The Flamingo 1 was grand and so was everything about the service we received. We were treated to a 3 course meal 3 times a day, drinks and snacks every time we re boarded, our private cabins cleaned twice a day and of course two fantastic naturalist guides.
From here on out we would be island hopping. Every day consisted of anchoring in the bay of one of the islands, splitting into 2 groups (that’s 10 in each group for the accountants that do not have their calculators with them) and the panga’s(zodiacs/rubber ducks/inflatable’s/or whatever else you wish to call them) would take us to shore.
Our daily routine went something like this: breakfast at 7, disembark at 8 for morning activities - usually a walk
Not too close son!
Rob getting close to one of the sun bathing Sea Lions. around the island, followed by another activity - usually snorkelling, back to the boat for lunch around 12, free time - usually an hour or two relaxing on board to let lunch digest while the boat sailed, disembark for afternoon activity - usually another walk or snorkelling at a different location to the morning, back on board to freshen up, quick beer before the briefing for the next days activities and then dinner around 7pm, another quick beer and glass of wine(or two-bottles!!) then bed. We usually sailed through the night so needless to say there were many a rocky night spent on board but lucky enough we discovered we had quite good sea legs as we did not get sick. The benefit of sailing through the night was that we were already in a new place at a different island when we awoke.
We actually crossed the equator line 4 times in total so in true sea faring fashion we were visited by Neptune and his motley crew for a ceremony to present us with our new names, and drink some horrible green concoction (what happened to seamen drinking rum, the royal navy will be shocked!). Robert was
Party on board!
The dining area all set for one of the two birthdays we helped celebrate. to become known as, ‘The Marine Iguana; and Wendy as, ‘The Galapagos Blue Butterfly’.
Back to the animals.....wow. The most mind boggling part of the trip was how close we were able to get to them and really experience it first hand. They are completely unperturbed by human presence. Sea lions lounge on the beach as you walk past and can hardly be bothered to look up from their sunbathing. The status of the islands as world heritage listed Nature Park meant that it was not over run with tourists and most of the time we felt like we were the only ones experiencing the islands and wildlife.
The first day was a bit daunting and it took us a while to get used to the idea of getting really close to the animals, however by the 3rd day we had to pay attention as we would often find ourselves almost stepping on them.
We saw so many weird and wonderful landscapes, plants, trees and animals. Too many to mention them all so we will spare you the details and only mention ones that made an impact on us.
So here they are.......loads of boobies (no not
that type): the Red, blue and masked. The blue footed boobies mating dance with the males dancing on one foot then the other and spreading his wings was majestic, see pics. Equally the albatross mating ritual of crossing their beaks like a swordfight was also special. Hundreds of marine and land iguanas. The marine iguana is not a natural swimmer and has adapted himself to the environment to survive the harsh realities of the Galapagos. They spend most of the day lying in the sun warming their bodies and then they dive in the cold water to feed of the bottom of the ocean. They can only do this for a maximum of around 20 min and then it’s back to the sun to increase their body temperatures again. There were also giant tortoises, lava lizards, pelicans, cormorants, hawks, loads of varieties of finches and the brightly coloured red Sally Lightfoot crabs. Not to mention the shorted eared owl, he gets special mention as only a few of us ended up seeing him and it was by pure chance. The rest of the group was in front of us and passed him by, when we got to the spot where
he was we were actually looking at the rocks behind him until someone shouted, hey what’s that? We where literally looking right through him, now that’s good camouflage. So the pics on the blog are proof that yes we saw him and it was not a tall story for in the bar afterwards, although there certainly was a few of those.
We swam with sea lions, penguins, marine iguanas, an amazing array of marine fish, turtles, rays and thankfully no sharks, although some of the others apparently saw them, probably another bar story. One evening before dinner we witnessed a few bridal whales passing and of course just manage a pic.
Far and away the most memorable experience we will take away with us from here is the time we spent swimming with sea lions. Having both grown up with the sea and water, for whatever strange reason, we never spent much time diving and snorkelling so this trip was the most snorkelling we had ever done. Treading water as a group of sea lions play around you, as they repeatedly zip up to you, look you square in the eyes and then zip away again as if
The professional snorklers
Well at least we look the part. they´re daring you to follow them, is something that we will remember with a smile for a long time to come. Each time we´d snorkel we´d be accompanied by sea lions. Also on one occasion about 8 of us floated next to penguins and watched in awe as they dived for and chased the fish and of course we almost forgot to mention the time we saw an Iguana feeding of the bottom of the ocean and when we swam to the surface he headed straight for us, it appeared that this prehistoric monster was going to get us!
In all we met some wonderful people and one of the shipmates had a camera that put the BBC to shame so hence we nicknamed him BBC, sorry Howard but could not resist. Yes he did have a bigger one than Rob, must be the male ego thing (Hey Nick he even puts you to shame and that is saying something). However Rob’s was still very busy as we took in excess of 2,500 photos.
With all these photos we had a hard time deciding which ones to put on the blog so after censoring them first (sorry but
Check me!
A male Frigate bird in all his glory trying to attract a female. our mothers see this site) we decided on a combination of the good, the bad and the ugly ones. However still excuse us if there may be too many pics, or too little in fact. We have also tried to arrange them according to when they were taken.
So after 8 days on the island we quite honestly were not ready to return to the mainland. We could have got quite used to the serene way of life that was our tour of the Galapagos. The islands themselves have a stark beauty. As the tips of huge submarine volcanoes the rough volcanic terrain is one of the things that make the islands so unusual and therefore interesting but it´s the animals themselves that are the hypnotizing and memorable experience.
Check you later
R & W(Iguana and Butterfly)
PS - with so many pics this blog covers 4 pages so please do not forget to check them all out.
"Hence both in space and time, we seem to be brought somewhat near to that great fact - the mystery of mysteries - the first appearance of new beings on this earth." Charles Darwin, from Voyage of the
Beagle, 1845.
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Nick
non-member comment
Surely not bigger than mine!!!
Nice blog & photos guys. I see you´re still running about 2 months behind on the updates though!!! Bringing back some happy memories of my own trip to the Galapagos. Am down in Bariloche snowboarding at the moment... where are you guys??