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Published: July 25th 2010
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Overnight you could hear the sea lion calls from the rocky shores of South Plaza, a mere 50 metres from our anchored boat. Sea lions make a mixture of barking, yacking, belching and an almost baa-ing noise from the babies. This got us excited about the island ahead, even more so when we woke to good sunshine! South Plaza is home to a large colony of sea lions, and the beach at the lower end of the island is broken up into 20m sections, with one dominant male hosting 20 female sea lions. During mating season the male will go from 600lbs , spending 2 weeks mating, patrolling and fighting, no time to fish or eat. At the end of the period, the males scared and slim escape to the bachelor colony at the other side of the island, the cliff, to slowly relax and recover. As a result of this lifestyle, males live for 14 years compared to 20 years for females. The females are left pregnant and raise the baby for 5 months whilst getting pregnant again. If a female goes a year without getting pregnant, the original baby hangs around longer, getting attached and killing any subsequent babies.
In order to avoid this, the mother is forced to reject and sometimes kill the original. Watching the youngsters play in the bays, jumping over each other and lolling on the waves, Sophie and I got excited about potentially swimming with them again this afternoon!
The shore was also occupied by marine iguanas who slow their heartbeat from 43bpm to 9bpm in order to survive for 20-30 minutes underwater feeding on algae 1km out to sea. Their long flat tail makes them extremely strong swimmers. The island is also inhabited by land iguanas and is the only place where the two can cross breed, creating an iguana which swims, eats algae and climbs cactuses to eat the fruit. We walked round the edge of the island, taking plenty of photos along the shore and cliff. The cliff edge housed swallow tailed gulls' nests, some seen sitting on eggs, as well as providing the perfect launch pad and gliding spot. We spent some time standing on the cliff edge under the soaring birds, but weren't as lucky as Erica who they shared their droppings with!
The pre lunch drive in the yacht to Santa Fe was pretty choppy but
we arrived to a sheltered, relatively shallow cove in blazing sunshine, fantastic for our last afternoon. This sheltered cover encouraged hundreds of fish to chew on the algae formed on the edges of the boat, and pelicans to gather at its rear waiting for food. The water was crystal blue and allowed us to see clearly right to the bottom. We donned snorkelling ger and jumped in the zodiacs ready to explore this paradise. Billy our new guide led us out of the cove to the rocks and we all jumped out the boat into a giant school of grey blue fish, sloshing around in the waves next to the rocks. There were thousands of the, all around us, amazing to see. Jumping back in the zodiacs, we headed back into the cove and started the ultimate in eco-tourism... well kind of. The boats cruised along, Billy shouts "sea turtles", we all dive off the boat ready in only our snorkelling gear and swim after this docile creature armed with underwater camera! Then back onto the zodiacs, Billy shouts "eagle rays" and we dive off the boat into a huge collection of rays, white bellies, spotted backs and giant spines
coming out of their backs. After doing this a few times we headed to the rocks at one end of a bay and disembarked to swim along the coast. The others swam off following Billy, but we were oblivious, out heads down watching the fish (and jagged rocks) below, leaving us alone in the water. And lucky we were, as two sea lions swam over, intent on swimming rings around us, playing with our brightly coloured flippers. After several minutes of this we realized the group was gone and swam along the shallow waters, along the bay towards them. Not 10 metres from them we came to an instant stop... a white tipped shark resting on the sand in the murkier 1metre deep water! As the sand settled, we realised us and the group were swimming between not one or two, but about 15 white tipped sharks! Just resting there in the floor dotted around us and semi circled in front of us! Fantastic! Amazingly, despite the apprehension of some of the group, Soph included, we appeared a mere annoyance to them as they swam away a few feet each time I got too close with the camera or one
of us accidentally kicked one! An outstanding site to end out last snorkelling trip in the Galapagos, what an unbelievable swim: turtles, rays, sea lions and sharks!
After showers we headed onto Santa Fe island for a last wet landing, onto a beach filled with sea lions. Their noises the soundtrack to the Galapagos (along with the blue footed boobies mating dance song). We followed a trail round a sparse forest of Prickly Pear Cactus and completed our set of Galapagos animals with a Galapagos snake and Galapagos dove.
Back on board the boat the sun roof provided the most spectacular evening view, revealing our boat was surrounded by literally 100 eagle rays just floating beneath the surface. Our final, spectacular buffet dinner was preceded by goodbye cocktails and thanking the crew. Just one choppy journey back to our start point in the Galapagos.
How Sophie Sees It To tell you the truth, whilst this afternoon's snorkel was amazing, I was rather anxious. The water was less than a metre deep, so you had to remain face down constantly to avoid the sharp rocks and coral and avoid disturbance with your feet, probably why we lost
the group! It also meant we were nerve-wrackingly close to the sharks and sting rays, which you couldn't even see until you were right above them as the water was murky. To top it off, William had told us the story of Charles that morning... the killer sea lion! The very reason we weren't allowed to swim at South Plaza Island. Apparently in the early days of tourism on the islands, crowds would flock to South Plaza island to feed the land iguanas (of course, this is forbidden now). The iguanas came to rely on this as a source of food and became lazy in their own search for food. When tourists arrived the hungry iguanas would clamber over each other, advancing quickly towards their free hand out. Not being blessed with good looks, the reptiles scared the visitors, who would retreat and fall into the water, where Charles would attack them; trespassers on his patch. The bites would get terribly infected and could be fatal. Charles was also known to jump into boats to attack trespassers, and his descendants do the same. William told us he would rather swim alongside sharks than male sea lions, especially during mating season.
So this is why tourists can no longer swim on South Plaza, and why I was a little nervous during our afternoon snorkel!
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