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Published: March 29th 2012
Yes.
He did say sharks.
We’ve just returned to Quito after a fantastico (and I mean FANTASTICO) four days in the Galapagos Islands and now we are back up near the top of the Colon. What an amazing time.
We left the Colon at 6:00am four days ago and were taken to the airport. From there it was a two and a half hour flight out to Baltra, one of the Galapagos islands with an airport. We were met by our guide, Billy, and taken to the boat. A few minutes later, we were standing on the deck of a fantastic catamaran – Queen Beatriz - drinking a delightful exotic fruit juice in the glorious sunshine, meeting our fellow intrepid travellers. It's a nice group of people, six from Canada, two from Australia, five from the UK (including us) and a young couple from Norway.
Luis (pronounced Lewis), our cruise director, welcomed us aboard and showed us to our rooms. This was the G6 Gap Adventures Deluxe cruise and the rooms were fantastic, like a hotel room with air-conditioning and en-suite toilet and shower. The ship set sail (well, motored off) and after a delightful buffet lunch,
it was time to go snorkelling.
No sooner had we entered the water than Billy shouted out “hammerhead shark”!! Unfortunately, we were at the back of the group and didn’t see it, a few of the others saw it though and some managed to photograph it (I had no underwater camera this time so the underwater shots with this blog are reproduced by kind permission of our fellow intrepid travellers).
A few minutes later, one of the group shouted over to us “Big shark, coming your way”. Surprisingly, my initial reaction was “Ooh, where?” and we put our faces back in the water to see a large white tip shark swim right underneath us !!
Not long later, there were more shouts of “shark” and we saw a number of white tip sharks, from about 4 to 6 ft, there was even a couple circling each other, I’d say about 10 ft, directly underneath us.
I’ve learned a lot about sharks in the last few days, so let’s just talk about that for a minute.
I’ve learned:
a) You’re not supposed to kiss them on the lips.
b) You’re not supposed to punch
them in the face.
c) In fact, you’re not supposed to do anything to them at all, just leave them to themselves and they will leave you to yourself.
They do not recognise us as predators, and we are not food to them, so they actually have no interest at all in us. The popular image of sharks (as per Jaws) is a Hollywood myth. It is true that there are occasional shark attacks (there are about 12 fatalities a year in the world), but these are typically as a result of some sort of intentional, or unintentional provocation.
For example, surfers have a bit of trouble with sharks. It is thought that the movement of a surfboard is misinterpreted as a wounded seal, and so their reflex action is to bite it. Other provocations are things like the extreme sport of shark feeding. People with a metal glove hand-feeding sharks can occasionally lose an arm.
They are scavengers of the sea. Cleaning up corpses, or feeding on wounded animals. If you are bleeding profusely (eg. not a cut, say you have lost a hand) and sharks are nearby, you will be . . . .
cleaned.
So you see, they are actually not dangerous animals (in Egypt, they call them “chicken fish” because they are more scared of people than we are of them).
Once you’ve got your head round that, then it is an amazing experience to see sharks in the wild swimming right by you.
We also saw a large black stingray gracefully fly past us, as well as the occasional large unusual fish and some big shoals.
Fantastico.
After about an hour, it was time to come in. Snacks were being served on the bar deck, and it was time for a few beers and to get to know people. As we sat there on the deck, sun setting over the ocean, a flock of frigates (huge birds, wingspan of about three feet, looking like pterodactyls) soared in the wake of the boat, only feet away from us. Followed by a delicious dinner, we were soon tucked into bo-bos, being rocked gently to sleep.
Next day we were up at the crack of dawn (Luis piped music into the rooms to wake us up gently) to go look at marine iguanas. Billy, our guide, was amazing.
Not only was he really knowledgeable (5 years University doing Biology, amongst other things, followed by a Masters degree) and could answer most of the questions posed to him, he also rearranged the itinerary so we missed all the other boats and we usually had the environment all to ourselves. On top of that, he had a bit of a wicked sense of humour. “What do sharks eat?”, said Moi. “Oh, various things, English, Italian, they like pizza” was his reply. Then he went on to tell us about the scavenging and cleaning.
We landed on a weird island that was mostly lava, and immediately there was a marine iguana there right in front of us. They have no predators, and so have no defensive mechanisms and are really placid. “You could stamp on them and they wouldn’t even move” said Billy, and he was right too (joke).
We looked round the island, saw a load of sharks swimming down a natural channel in the lava, seals, pelicans, blue-footed boobys, frigates, loads of red crabs. Amazing.
Back on board, lovely juice, and then off for more snorkelling. This time, a seal came and swam amongst us, weaving
and diving, coming right up to us and then somersaulting at the last minute.
Next, we went to visit a giant tortoise sanctuary. There are various sub-species of giant tortoise on the islands and some of them are now endangered species as a result of man introducing predators, rats, dogs, cats, horses, goats and pigs. In fact, they have a program (known as the Judas program) to try and eliminate goats for the Galapagos (apparently, its worked in New Zealand). They get an incredibly attractive goat (not sure who does the selection, or what the selection criteria for a beautiful goat is, maybe they hold a Miss Goat World competition judged by a panel of salacious, sleazy goats), I assume in season, tag her and let her free on the island. Eventually, this beautiful goat attracts the males and they gather round her, at which point, the helicopters fly in and they shoot all the goats except the Judas goat.
Sounds to me like it might be a viable candidate for human population control.
Back to the boat, more snacks, relaxing on the bar deck and then a delicious dinner, after which we went on to the
top deck and got a fantastic view of the stars (Orion is now on its side, and the Southern Cross is quite low down. We could also see the plough, but the North Star was below the horizon. And so is never visible from here).
Next morning was an early start too. This time to a seal nursery. Loads of seals of various shapes and sizes swam around the dinghies and barked at us from the shore line. Then off to a beach, where there is this famous barrel known as the Pirates Post Office. People who visit the Galapagos islands leave postcards in the barrel, and other people who also visit check to see if there’s any within their home district. If there is, they take them and deliver them personally. (Unfortunately, the boat only had one postcard per person available, otherwise we would have sent as many as we could). They can take days, weeks, sometimes years before they turn up.
Snorkelling again. Lots of fish, another giant ray. This is the life.
That afternoon we visited an active volcano, one of the largest calderas in the world (11 kilometres across). The last eruption was
in 2008 and you can still see the fresh lava flow.
Back for lunch then more snorkelling round a rugged lava island known as Devil’s crown. Huge fish, huge shoals, some sharks, another ray, and the highlight of this session, a giant turtle. It swam slowly underneath us and we watch it for about 15 minutes as it came to the surface for air, before gliding off into the blue.
Dinner, beer, wine, stars, bo-bos.
Last day, we were up at the crack of dawn to visit the Charles Darwin Research Station (another tortoise sanctuary) for a quick tour then for us it was time to come home. Took a few hours before we arrived back at the Colon, knackered, but full of exquisite memories.
Everyone should come here at some time in their lives (note: it's getting more expensive as they want to limit the number of tourists each year), just to drink in the nature. This is how nature really is – wild, raw, and not afraid of man.
Oh yes, and we saw a few Darwin finches too.
Off to Buenos Aires tomorrow, tango and dinner tomorrow so better press my
tuxedo.
How to capture it in words, it’s so difficult. Perhaps some poetry:
Mainland Equador?
Not too sure.
Haven’t spent the time.
Isles of Galapagos
You kidding us?
The environment is sublime.
The wildlife is abundant
Both on land and in sea
The only thing that's out of place
I suppose is really me.
I've learned that life self-regulates
To ensure that it survives
Except that is for human beings
Over 7 billion lives.
Hang on a sec I say to me
And all the human race
I only want to tell you that
The world's a beautiful place.
So isn't it about time we started behaving like proper grown-ups and stopped screwing it up ?
I think so.
Galapagos - would we return ?
I think we have to.
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The Travel Camel
Shane Dallas
Gorgeous framing and colours!