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When flying to the Galapagos, the excitement already starts at the airport. Before boarding all luggage goes through an agricultural inspection to make sure you don't bring fruits, seeds or animals that can upset the islands' fragile ecosystem. It is a constant struggle to preserve the island in the way it has been for thousands of years. Most of the damage to the ecosystem was probably done in the period after the first discovery in the 16
thcentury. At the time, ships introduced dogs, cats, rats and horses which all posed a threat to endemic species. A few hundred years later most islands in the Archipelago have now been restored to a more original balance.
The Galapagos Islands have a lot to offer in the skies, on land as well as under water; and we were determined to explore all three. To explore the bird- and land-life we booked a last-minute cruise of several of the islands. We went aboard the “Galaven” straight after arriving to the Galapagos, which took us on a five day tour of Santa Cruz, Floreana, Espagnola and San Cristobal islands. To us, there are really three aspects that make the Galapagos so
special. Firstly, the Archipelago is very well preserved and everything is strongly regulated which means that all land, beaches and coastal waters are pure and untouched. No trash anywhere, very few people and many animals. Second, you can find animals here that cannot be found anywhere else on the planet. Marine iguanas are a good example of this. Finally, due to lack of predators and only relatively recent human interaction, animals are not afraid of humans at all, which means you can observe them from very close by. We walked by nesting albatrosses, passed centimeters away from sunbathing marine iguanas and played with sea lions while snorkeling and diving.
Most places we saw are truly from a picture book! We never saw beaches so beautiful and oceans so full of life. Each day on the cruise was a mix of hikes, snorkeling and good food in between. The company was great as well; there were a total of 16 people on board: Dutch, Swiss, Australian, British. We saw blue-footed boobies, frigate birds (that look like prehistoric pterodactyls when soaring high in the sky) and waved albatrosses. The latter are very interesting birds. They are very romantic birds that, like
the Macaws we saw in the jungle, choose a mate for life. Also, after growing to adulthood they can spend many years flying over the oceans without ever touching down. During that time, they sleep while gliding. On land we see huge grasshoppers, the famous giant tortoises, land iguanas, and marine iguanas (which, despite what their name might make you think, spend most of their time on land). We snorkel with beautiful fish, sharks, turtles and penguins.
One experience that really made an impression, was snorkeling with sea lions. After our cruise the two of us went snorkeling in a bay not far from the only town on San Cristobal. The mostly rocky bay was a small oasis of animals. There were sea lions lazying on the rocks, blue-footed boobies doing dive-bombs to catch fish, pelicans digesting their catch and a heron patiently waiting for his. After we snorkeled to the center of the bay we spotted two young sea lions playing together. One would swim down to pick up a rock, swim up and then drop it. The other would then go down to catch it before it hit the bottom. When they got bored of this, they
would blow air bubbles and play with them. Or just swimming around, 'dancing' around each other. Even more exciting, we could interact with them! When they were at the surface to breathe, and we would swim down they would follow us and swim around us. It was so exciting to build a connection with these animals. It makes you wonder how things could have been if the human race would have had a less insatiable appetite for lands, food and other resources.
The second part of our Galapagos stay consisted of an 8 day scuba diving live-aboard around the islands. A live-aboard trip is basically a cruise along beautiful dive spots, with about 2-4 dives a day. The Galapagos islands is considered one of the best places to dive in the world, so as passionate divers, this was something that we did not want to miss. The high season for diving here is June to October, when the Humboldt current brings in cold water, and the dive sites have strong currents. Since large fish prefer colder water and strong currents, that is a good time to see schools of hammerhead sharks, whale sharks, ocean sunfish (mola mola), manta rays
and massive schools of mobulas and eagle rays. In most good dive sites around the world, you would already be lucky to see any one of these. Here you have a chance of seeing all of them.
However, our live-aboard was in mid May just before the Humboldt current comes in full steam. Diving in this transitional period means you can get lucky, or not. Unfortunately all dive sites had pretty high temperatures (around 26 degrees) and weak currents, which was good for comfortable diving but bad for spotting all this amazing wildlife. The high temperatures mean that most of the aforementioned animals stay at depths well below 35 meters, which is not diveable by recreational divers like ourselves.
Having said that, we had amazing dives and saw things that we had never seen before. We saw small groups of hammerheads swimming right up to us; an ocean sunfish - what a bizarre animal!; massive Galapagos sharks of up to 3.5 meters long; dolphins, which are rare to see while diving; sea lions playing with us while diving in the shallows; flightless cormorants diving for fish; a large 'herd' of golden cow rays; marine iguanas feeding on algae;
seahorses. So altogether absolutely impressive!
The on-board experience was also great. The cabins in the Galapagos Aggressor were very spacious and comfortable, the food was delicious and the staff was helpful and professional. Unfortunately, I (Hylke), got to see the on-board side of things a bit more than I would have liked. Halfway through the trip I got an issue with my ear. Early on in dive 10 of the trip, my ear started hurting when going down and making a very loud screeching noise when equalizing. The issue went away at first and I completed the dive without any problems. At this point I should probably not have gone back in the water, but since the problem had gone away I hoped it was temporary. The 11
th dive the problem reoccurred, yet this time my ear was constantly painful. As a result, Bianca attached to another buddy group and I surfaced with one of the guides. At the surface I realized that air would come out of my ear when putting pressure on my ears while equalizing. A symptom that I had seen before several years ago: a sign of a punctured eardrum. For me this meant the
diving is over for the remainder of our trip. At least I was able to dive at Darwin and Wolf islands, where some of the most remarkable and remote sites are and where we saw most of the interesting animals.
From here we move on to Mexico for two weeks of sun, beach and delicious Mexican food!
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Dana
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The wild life in the Galapagos
These photos are really out of ordinary. The guys from discovery channel would envy some of them. :)