Fernandina Island
Today has been a day full of excitement; we found the unexpected and welcomed it with joy. If I am asked to describe everything we saw today, I have to admit that my memory could betray me. We awoke this morning on the western side of the Galápagos, only to find ourselves surrounded by beautiful and majestic volcanoes. The morning Zodiac ride along Punta Vicente Roca, at Isabela Island, revealed the geology of this region. As we cruised by, a manta ray, penguins, flightless cormorants, fur sea lions and an incredible amount of iguanas were seen. Even the lately elusive “mola mola” or giant sunfish was spotted by most of our guests.
The landing on Fernandina Island in the afternoon was also full of exploration and discovery. There are very few places on earth that can compare with Fernandina Island.
Fernandina, besides being one of the most pristine islands in the world, is also the newest island on this archipelago, the Galápagos. With no more than three hundred thousand years of age, it is considered a “baby” among this chain of volcanoes which started to rise from the bottom of the ocean somewhere between four and five million years ago.
The more “exercise oriented” of our guests departed on a hike that led us to the lava fields on Fernandina. Such a barren and uninviting area is expected to be desolate; instead, life worked its way (as it usually does) and in between cracks and crevasses lots of invertebrates protected themselves from the tormenting equatorial sun.
After exploring the tide pools on the northern side of the island, we were making our way back to the ship, when we were stopped by a Galápagos hawk working on its afternoon meal. It was a little too graphic for some of us (watching the hawk munching on a recently dead sea lion) but life is hard for a lot of the species found around here and of course the inevitable always happens – only the fittest survive. The hawk stopped its feast as if posing for pictures and, totally oblivious of our sorrow for the sea lion, it reassumed his business as we continued out to the landing site.
As we got closer to the ship, the sight of dolphins near by made us change our course, and to an encounter with dolphins we went. We spent at least half an hour playing, or I should say, the dolphins spent more than half an hour playing with us since riding the bow of the Zodiac seems to be a fun thing to do for the dolphins. It was one of those days you did not want to end, but we were chased back to the ship by the darkness of the encroaching night (I have to admit that we had the bar and some cocktails in mind too!). With the dolphins behind us and in the last light from the disappearing sunset, we folded our memories and stored them, at least until we have an opportunity to pull them back out and show our loved ones this place full of fantasies and where the unexpected might occur…
Today has been a day full of excitement; we found the unexpected and welcomed it with joy. If I am asked to describe everything we saw today, I have to admit that my memory could betray me. We awoke this morning on the western side of the Galápagos, only to find ourselves surrounded by beautiful and majestic volcanoes. The morning Zodiac ride along Punta Vicente Roca, at Isabela Island, revealed the geology of this region. As we cruised by, a manta ray, penguins, flightless cormorants, fur sea lions and an incredible amount of iguanas were seen. Even the lately elusive “mola mola” or giant sunfish was spotted by most of our guests.
The landing on Fernandina Island in the afternoon was also full of exploration and discovery. There are very few places on earth that can compare with Fernandina Island.
Fernandina, besides being one of the most pristine islands in the world, is also the newest island on this archipelago, the Galápagos. With no more than three hundred thousand years of age, it is considered a “baby” among this chain of volcanoes which started to rise from the bottom of the ocean somewhere between four and five million years ago.
The more “exercise oriented” of our guests departed on a hike that led us to the lava fields on Fernandina. Such a barren and uninviting area is expected to be desolate; instead, life worked its way (as it usually does) and in between cracks and crevasses lots of invertebrates protected themselves from the tormenting equatorial sun.
After exploring the tide pools on the northern side of the island, we were making our way back to the ship, when we were stopped by a Galápagos hawk working on its afternoon meal. It was a little too graphic for some of us (watching the hawk munching on a recently dead sea lion) but life is hard for a lot of the species found around here and of course the inevitable always happens – only the fittest survive. The hawk stopped its feast as if posing for pictures and, totally oblivious of our sorrow for the sea lion, it reassumed his business as we continued out to the landing site.
As we got closer to the ship, the sight of dolphins near by made us change our course, and to an encounter with dolphins we went. We spent at least half an hour playing, or I should say, the dolphins spent more than half an hour playing with us since riding the bow of the Zodiac seems to be a fun thing to do for the dolphins. It was one of those days you did not want to end, but we were chased back to the ship by the darkness of the encroaching night (I have to admit that we had the bar and some cocktails in mind too!). With the dolphins behind us and in the last light from the disappearing sunset, we folded our memories and stored them, at least until we have an opportunity to pull them back out and show our loved ones this place full of fantasies and where the unexpected might occur…
