Galapagos Islands

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Lots of photos for this one - hard to choose between them all! Exciting new technological developments too - underwater photography, and videos (though be warned, they're not exactly high action videos, especially the tortoise one.....). So....

I'd always assumed that the Galapagos islands must have once been joined to the mainland. Not the case. They are volcanic islands moving very slowly towards the mainland, the most Westerly islands being the youngest. So how did the animals get there? Birds and fish - that's obvious. The other animals are thought to have drifted there on logs and other debris, washed out to sea from rivers on the mainland during the rainy season. Animals like tortoises can survive for long periods without fresh water, but there are no native amphibians on the islands because they would not survive such a long journey without fresh water.

We flew to San Cristobal and as soon as we arrived at the jetty to wait for our boat, we were met by pelicans perched on the rocks, blue-footed boobies dive-bombing into the sea, loads of red sally-lightfoot crabs and sealions lazing on the rocks. Being very excited to see the sealions, it was a few minutes before I noticed the sealion under the bench next to me, another commandeering an entire bench and several lying across the steps down to the water. So cute, and not in the least bit bothered by all the people gawping and taking photos. We boarded our boat, the Sulidae, which resembled a pirate ship, though unfortunately no sign of Johnny Depp anywhere.

Throughout the trip we saw more blue-footed boobies and pelicans, Nazca boobies, magnificent frigates, land iguanas, marine iguanas (quite cute in a gremlin sort of way - the naughty gremlins that is - a sort of evil mischievous look on their faces) and giant tortoises (some in captivity as part of breeding programs and others roaming freely about). We saw Lonesome George - the last of his particular species of tortoise. All attempts to persuade him to breed with another species have failed, so they're hopefully going to put him back on his island to live out his last 50 years or so. On Isla Isabella we walked up to the crater of one of the volcanoes, over a large expanse of solidified lava. We visited Post Office Bay, where in days of old, passing ships would leave their mail, and homeward-bound ships would pick it up. The tradition continues and the barrel there is full of unstamped postcards, though sadly none that I could take back to Stoke. We walked through a giant lava tunnel, formed when lava on the outside cools but inside it's still hot and flowing. We saw turtles swimming in lagoons, popping their heads above the surface every few minutes for a cute little gasp of air. The snorkelling and diving was fantastic - in one dive we saw 40 or 50 hammerhead sharks, hundreds of barracudas and a family of 9 or 10 eagle rays swimming around. Brilliant.

So very cute

We snorkelled with the sealions; the puppies were so playful - one in particular kept playing chicken - he'd swim straight for your face then at the last minute, turn away. Loads of boats in the harbour had sealions lying on their decks, shoving each other off if they got in each other's way. On San Cristobal, the sealions come to sleep on the beach at night so you can sit and watch them from one of the restaurants. The big mean sealions kept barking at a very cute little scrawny one who was waddling around trying to find its mum. Poor little thing. Sealions are now officially the cutest animals ever (even if their barking does sound like someone with their head in the toilet!). I thought about taking one home, but then Harry might get jealous. Inspired by all this wildlife, the next stop was Puerto Lopez, to see the whales.

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Photos

The Sulidae
our very own pirate ship