Up and out early for our high intensity walk around the island. This was the day that was supposed to be the “Survival of the fittest” hike – 4 miles through the inland and up a small mountain. Unfortunately, due to the rain, the trails have been washed out, so we aren’t going to see who’s the fittest of our group. Bummer – we were really looking forward to some good aerobic activity, but it’s just not going to happen on this trip. Cathy doesn’t know what she’s going to do when she hits the Insignia. It’s been so long since she’s exercised on a machine, she may not make it very long at all! Ed of course has been hitting the treadmill whenever he can – but Cathy isn’t doing that bike – it’s just too uncomfortable – and in the heat – it’s just not worth it!
Richard is up and about – but still not quite 100%, so he waves farewell to us as the 3 of us (Michelle took the low intensity zodiac ride and Ellen is sleeping in) head out on our adventure with Jorge (the naturalist). Jorge the cruise director, has already said that the snorkeling is not good today, it’s too cloudy and the waters are rough. Ed, Cathy and Maggi gamely grab their gear though, just in case they want to go in anyway. The ride to James Bay is a little bumpy, but nothing too bad (Cathy is rather enjoying these little sea rides- which is incredibly odd since she’ll get sick the back seat of a car! But on the zodiac, she’s like a pro – go figure!). Getting out of the zodiac is another issue. One at a time on each side, you gotta go and you gotta go fast. When the guides say go – jump – the waves, the undertow, it was pretty brutal. First guy fell right in – soaked all the way (including camera equipment!). Cathy made it out fine, Ed got a little wet, but Maggi went face first – not a pretty landing. How do some of these people do this? We are all relatively young and agile and we’re having problems – we’re just amazed at the older folks who are hopping out of these zodiacs.
On the beach and organized, we head out into the interior a bit in search of shore birds and iguanas (lovely, more iguanas!). We saw quite a few birds, the little fly catchers are teeny and so friendly. A couple just sat on the path in front of us and hopped about while we took pictures. Then they flew at the guys with the big camera lenses and hovered right in front of the lens looking in. It was marvelous. We were all so enamored, we couldn’t even get a picture of it! Peter had a bird do that to him, and he took a picture but doesn’t think it turned out because of the focus. Truly amazing that they are so unafraid.
We continued our walk searching for yellow warblers, more fly catchers, Galapagos hawks and other birds. Learned more about cactus – about the birds reproducing, or not as the case may be because there hasn’t been enough rain. They won’t reproduce if they don’t think they can get enough food for the babies, and the rain is what brings the growth and allows them to get food. It’s hot, but not too unbearable as there is a nice breeze. As we turned toward the coast, the breeze picked up dramatically, and even with the sun it was actually pleasant. We strolled down the rocky coast (all lava) and found oyster catchers and a couple of fur seals sleeping away (you can recognize them by their ears, which are bigger and stick out of their heads more than the sea lions’ ears). We also watched the great Galapagos toilet – a very unique blow hole type formation that really did look like it was flushing when the water went out – even went out in a circular motion!
Stumbled upon a lava heron and then – of all things – saw a great blue heron (which Jorge said was unusual). She was sitting on the lava ledge, just watching us walk by. We took it as a sign that we are being watched over by Nancy – since we’ve seen the same type (we of course want to believe it’s the same heron) at the ash ceremony and that we saw on our last trip.
After looking at Sally Lightfoot crabs, more iguanas and birds, we headed back to the beach for swimming and/or snorkeling. Yeah, right. Not a chance. We had already decided we weren’t going near that water, it was just too brutal looking. Not even for a swim, and when we returned, there was an older gentleman who was supposedly a very strong swimmer who had virtually washed up on the beach. It took 3 guides to grab him under the arms, pull him out and put him under a tree to cool off and relax. The good news is that he just had the breath knocked out of him, and he is fine, but it was a very scary moment. Needless to say that sealed our fate – we were outta there. (Later, talking to Dick, he said the snorkeling was great once you got out around the rocks – he had some awesome pictures to prove it too. Works for us – we’re just as happy looking at his pictures!)
Of course, the decision was terribly easy, the actual implementation wasn’t. Getting back on that zodiac was really difficult. One at a time, these old plump people were being pushed up on the boat – basically belly flopping in the zodiac. Ok, so you figure, the young nimble ones wont have that problem. Ha! Wrong. Ed made it in relatively easily, but Cathy couldn’t get up on the boat, and in the scramble managed to scrap the heck out of her knee (she now matched the other Maggie with her war wound). Maggi got in but got soaked again. The ride back was bumpy, but at least we were all on the darn zodiac. Wow – that was tough!
It’s a busy day back on board with a Life in the Galapagos talk with one of the Naturalists before lunch and a culinary demonstration after! The Naturalist talk with Manuel was very interesting. He is a marine biologist by trade and worked on fishing ships around the islands making sure they were following the Ecuadorian wildlife guidelines. He was out and around the Galapagos a lot on these vessels and decided he really wanted a change, wanted to give something back instead of always being the heavy handed “man” type. So, he became a Naturalist in 1989. Originally from Guayaquil, he and his family got Galapagos residency permits (which he said was much easier to do before 1998 when they began to clamp down on issuing them), and took a one month course to become a guide (now it’s 3 months and only open to residents of Galapagos; this last session 300 applied and only 50 were accepted.)
He explained that there are no Park Rangers as such in the Galapagos National Park, but the Naturalists act as rangers and report in every week about activities around the islands, visitors, wildlife activity, good/bad ships, fishing vessels, etc. There are only 60 visiting areas in the Park, and the Park controls all of them very strictly. The Xpedition goes to the same places all the time, and other ships do the same. The maximum number of people in any given area is 100 at a time (some areas can’t withstand that many tourists, and are restricted to a much smaller number, some as little as 16 people at a time). June, July and August are the best times to come to the islands because there isn’t much difference in the temperature between the sea and the air. There is a lot of animal activity and you can typically see a lot more and different things. Last year there sere 143,000 visitors to the islands. The Ecuadorian government controls the number of visitors, to protect the islands, but it seems to get a little bigger every year.
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