Isabela & Fernandina Island
It is hard to imagine how these areas were in past times when pirates, buccaneers and whalers roamed the Galápagos. It is breathtaking here. Every moment you spend on the sea, on land or anywhere else in Galápagos for that matter, you feel the call of nature to such an extent that it will absorb and hypnotize your soul. You then think that if there is a paradise on the planet, this must be it!
From the moment we started our day, the birds around Roca Redonda and the bottlenose dolphins gave us a show as they approached the National Geographic Polaris. They reminded us what it means for animals to maintain free, which provides their lack of fear to human beings.
Perhaps our most memorable moment was the one we had with sea turtles swimming in front of our eyes like butterflies gliding in the water. They would pop up to the surface to take a breath before they dove to forage on seaweed, completely unaware of our presence.
When walking on the lava one could imagine the struggle for survival these plants and animals had in order to survive. There was no chance for the weak, only for those who could change and adapt in order to pass on their genes; making them stronger in a harsh environment. To walk over the lava felt like walking on the moon, almost no signs of life.
Time and evolution seem to have been suspended on the island long enough for the marine iguanas not to have learned to fear man. They let us walk right by them without a care in the world. Perhaps the most bizarre of the animals we saw today was the flightless cormorant, a bird that has lost the aptitude to fly due to its lack of predators and its abundance of food in very shallow waters. They do not exist anywhere in the world except for around the island of Fernandina and the western coast of Isabela. They remain completely unaware of our presence. We returned to the National Geographic Polaris with our souls reenergized by Mother Nature and her enchantments.
It is hard to imagine how these areas were in past times when pirates, buccaneers and whalers roamed the Galápagos. It is breathtaking here. Every moment you spend on the sea, on land or anywhere else in Galápagos for that matter, you feel the call of nature to such an extent that it will absorb and hypnotize your soul. You then think that if there is a paradise on the planet, this must be it!
From the moment we started our day, the birds around Roca Redonda and the bottlenose dolphins gave us a show as they approached the National Geographic Polaris. They reminded us what it means for animals to maintain free, which provides their lack of fear to human beings.
Perhaps our most memorable moment was the one we had with sea turtles swimming in front of our eyes like butterflies gliding in the water. They would pop up to the surface to take a breath before they dove to forage on seaweed, completely unaware of our presence.
When walking on the lava one could imagine the struggle for survival these plants and animals had in order to survive. There was no chance for the weak, only for those who could change and adapt in order to pass on their genes; making them stronger in a harsh environment. To walk over the lava felt like walking on the moon, almost no signs of life.
Time and evolution seem to have been suspended on the island long enough for the marine iguanas not to have learned to fear man. They let us walk right by them without a care in the world. Perhaps the most bizarre of the animals we saw today was the flightless cormorant, a bird that has lost the aptitude to fly due to its lack of predators and its abundance of food in very shallow waters. They do not exist anywhere in the world except for around the island of Fernandina and the western coast of Isabela. They remain completely unaware of our presence. We returned to the National Geographic Polaris with our souls reenergized by Mother Nature and her enchantments.
