Dave & Meredith’s Travel Blog

Today we completed a long-distance mission that we accepted while in the Galapagos in March. There was a place on the island of Floreana called “Post Office Bay” that has a barrel that holds postcards written by people visiting the Galapagos, addressed to others all around the world. The idea is that other visitors rifle through the postcards, take any that are near their homes, and then deliver them when they return. No postage required. There’s a lot of history in that barrel – it dates back to the 18th century when whalers used it to send messages home.

Dave and I are not quite as fast as the postal service, since we picked up the postcards on March 11 and delivered them on August 23. Also, there was no snow, rain, sleet or even a cloud in the sky today as we delivered our mail (unlike the rest of August here!), so we’re not as hardy as the postal service. But, you get what you pay for. We have only been home a few weeks since March, so not too bad.

We delivered four postcards to people who live in Boston and in one of the suburbs that’s not too far from us. We rang the doorbells hoping that the recipients would come out to chat, but unfortunately no one was home at any of the places we visited. We just left the postcards in the mailboxes or under the door with a sticky note saying that Dave and Meredith delivered them (of course we also left our blog address!).

Mission accomplished.

- Meredith

When people talk about the Galapagos, the animals they usually discuss are ones on land such as giant tortoises and iguanas. But we snorkeled every day with good reason: there are many more species underwater. On our first full day in the Islands (our first snorkel), we swam in Darwin Bay at Tower Island. Our guide said we had about a 5% chance of seeing hammerhead sharks and this was our best chance of seeing them on the trip without going scuba diving. So, of course, we saw 6 adults and one baby hammerhead. “Great, Dave!”, you say, “Where are the pictures?”. Since it was our first day and I bought my underwater housing just before we left, this day was the day I brought it in the water without a camera in it to test for leaks. Oh well.

Over the course of our trip, we saw many different types of sea life. We saw lots of other sharks (white-tipped reef, Galapagos), sea turtles, and a huge variety of fish. Most fish were pretty skittish but we had a few including a bullseye puffer that were very curious. There were jellyfish too and I had the welts/scratches for a few days to prove it. We saw huge starfish, marble rays, and some coral too although this is not the place to see huge amounts of colorful coral like the Caribbean or Australia. The highlights included swimming with sea lions and having a school of penguins swim through through our group!

I edited a short (under 5 minutes) video last night of some of the things we saw. Click here for a higher quality version and click here for a lower quality one (the latter is better for slow connections though).

We also saw animals on the surface:

Sea Lions relaxing on their backs

Penguins swimming

A Marine Iguana

Sea turtles coming to the surface to breathe

False Killer Whales right next to our boat!

A Spotted Eagle Ray just under the surface.

- Dave

It’s probably not a surprise to you to learn that I am interested in wildlife conservation. On March 13, we got to visit the Charles Darwin Research Station, which is in the town of Puerto Ayora on Santa Cruz Island. It is part of the Charles Darwin Foundation, which is committed to the conservation of the Galapagos Islands and its varied wildlife.

Although it’s clear to visitors of the Galapagos Islands that much of the wildlife is not afraid of humans (they just ignore you and go on about their business), there are many things which threaten them, and in fact, several species are now extinct or near extinction. For example, various populations of Giant Tortoise species were decimated by sailors and whalers coming through the islands in the 19th and early 20th centuries. Because tortoises can live for a year without food and water, unlike cows, goats, chickens, etc., they were taken as a long-lasting source of fresh meat for crews of ships that were out at sea for long periods at a time. Many whale populations were also severely impacted during this time.

At the Charles Darwin Research Station, we learned about the programs to help eradicate the threats to endemic wildlife (introduced species like cats, dogs, goats and insects are causing significant problems for birds and reptiles in the Galapagos). In addition, we got to see the Research Station’s programs-in-action to help repopulate various species of tortoises, iguanas and finches. We got up close and personal with giant tortoises which are being studied and many of whom are participating in breeding programs (we saw a few in the wild up in the highlands of Santa Cruz as well). We also got to see baby tortoises which are born at the Research Station (either through the breeding program, or through a program to collect eggs from the various species of Giant Tortoise on the different islands). The babies stay at the Research Station for 5 years until their shells are tough enough to withstand attacks from predators. Then each tortoise is released to the proper island that hosts its particular species to help repopulate it over time.

The visit was outstanding. If you are interested in learning more about the Charles Darwin Foundation, please click here.

Meredith and Dave with Giant Tortoise

I cannot get enough of iguanas. They are amazing. Before the trip, I was really looking forward to seeing both the Land Iguana and Marine Iguana of the Galapagos Islands. Imagine how happy I was to discover that the iguanas are different on the various islands!!! Different colors, different features!

Here are pictures of Marine Iguanas:

Many of the Marine Iguanas we saw had this Black-Grey Coloration

But the Marine Iguanas on Espanola are Red and Green!

And here are pictures of Land Iguanas:

A Fine Specimen From Isabela Island

The Male Land Iguanas on South Plaza Island have Bright Yellow Accents (and the Females love to Eat!)

Santa Fe Has its own Pale-Colored Species of Land Iguana

And our Naturalist Guide, Martin, saved the best part until near the end of the trip. On South Plaza Island (and only on South Plaza Island), a male Marine Iguana has mated with a female Land Iguana and produced hybrid offspring!!! AND WE SAW ONE!!! Here it is:

The Holy-Grail: Hybrid Land/Marine Iguana

It’s the same concept as a mule (which is a cross between a horse and a donkey). The offspring is sterile, so it won’t be able to reproduce. But honestly, how incredible is nature? Is anyone else as excited about this as I am???

I just posted pictures that I took in the Galapagos. I divided them into 3 separate galleries to make it a bit more manageable for you to view them. You can click on these links to view Gallery 1, Gallery 2, and Gallery 3. I’ve also created a new link at the top of the page named “Photo Galleries.” This gives you an easy, direct way to find galleries later instead of searching through our blog posts. Enjoy!

Seriously, I’m not sure what I ever did to him to extract such a horrible revenge. I mean, look at him – he’s so handsome and clearly powerful:

Anyway, I said I was sorry about 100 times and he finally let up. But I missed almost a whole day of activities because of him. Sheesh.

I’m not going to spend a lot of time on this topic. Lots of people are familiar with Charles Darwin and the theory of evolution. But I don’t think I can write about the Galapagos Islands without at least touching on this topic, because it was one of the places that sparked Darwin’s mind to come up with his groundbreaking theory (he visited the Islands for 5 weeks during his journey on The Beagle). To read more about his journey, click here.

One of the most important reasons why plants and animals evolved differently in the Galapagos Islands than they did in other places is because of the isolation of the Islands. In an earlier post, I talked about the volcanic “hot spot” that created these islands – that means that the islands were never connected to the mainland. In addition, they’re 600 miles away from the mainland, so some of the species that live in the Galapagos arrived by chance. For example, the Land Iguanas here probably arrived via a vegetation raft. Scientists believe just a small population of Land Iguanas arrived here (maybe even just one male and one female). Therefore, the resulting offspring retained the features of that small population (versus coming from a more varied, larger population), and years of isolation created a separate species from the original mainland iguana that arrived here. Scientists think that all the Marine and Land Iguanas that arrived here had a common ancestor, though of course now there are multiple species.

There are different species of the same genus of animals even within the Galapagos Islands depending on the island – different tortoises, different finches, different boobies, etc. Don’t know what a booby is? There are three main types of this sea bird found in the Galapagos. Blue-Footed, Nazca, and Red-Footed. The Red-Footed Booby even has both brown and white variations. Here are some pictures:

Blue-Footed Booby

Nazca Booby (My Favorite Booby)

Most Red-Footed Boobies have Brown Feathers (above), But a Few Have White Feathers (below)

Okay, that’s enough on evolution for today. In order to give equal time to a competing theory, please feel free to click here for information on the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster.

Most people visit the Galapagos by boat which is what we did. You’d think it would be a lazy, relaxing way to see things – just cruising around by boat. There’s where you’d be wrong. They pack your day. It was tough to find free time and when we went to bed, we were exhausted. I know, I know: trouble in paradise. At the beginning of our trip, the naturalist on board said that he’d know people were happy if he saw that they were really tired at night. I have seen that idea mentioned before but it was in the context of training dogs. I suspect there’s a connection in there somewhere.

Every day’s activities varied a bit and there was even a day or two in there that were very different (spending the day in the town of Puerto Ayora on Santa Cruz Island for instance). That said, there was a “standard” set of things in most days. Here’s a typical one of those:

5:45: Wake-up call. Ugh. I paid to be treated like this? Seriously though, we got up early because the animals are not as active in the mid-day heat. It also meant we were usually first onto the island ahead of groups from other boats.

6:00: Breakfast. Food on board was very good. Nothing gourmet but good and plentiful. For certain, no one ever went hungry.

6:45: Ride the dinghy to an island for a 2-3 hour guided walk. Some dry landings, some wet. In addition to the passengers and crew, the two other people on board are a tour leader and a naturalist. Martin Loyola was our naturalist extraordinaire who grew up in the Galapagos. He would lead our walks and was a wealth of knowledge about all things having to do with plants, wildlife, and geology.

Martin explains features of a hawk skull.

9:30: Return to ship and prepare for snorkeling. This always felt great because even though it was still morning, we were always already extremely hot and sweaty. It was very hot and humid every day.

10:00: Snorkeling. The water was almost always warm and very clear. Martin led these as well and would frequently dive to the bottom to point things out.

12:00: Eat lunch and then rest. People usually spent time on the top deck looking for dolphins or whales.

3:00: Dinghy ride again to shore for another nature walk.

The group and a sea lion. Yes, you can get this close.

Waiting for the dinghy after a walk.

6:30: Back on the boat, the tour leader gives a lecture on relevant topics such as evolution, formation of the islands, local wildlife, history of people in the islands, etc. Our tour leader was Richard Parsons who was taking a break from running his lodge named Bellavista in the mainland cloud forest. Richard assisted Martin on every activity and, like Martin, he had very deep knowledge about anything we could ask him, told entertaining stories, and had a great sense of humor.

Richard and a Brown Pelican.

7:00: Dinner.

8:00: Martin gives a short briefing on activities and schedule for the following day.

8:30: Most people went to bed. I tended to stay up with one or two others to work on that day’s photographs.

Overnight: The boat typically navigates to a new island while people are in bed.

I am no geologist, so this will obviously be a short post. But I thought a good place to start talking about the islands would be in their formation in the first place. BTW, my Aunt Wendy is sharing the blog with her students in Waterloo, NY (hi kids!), so I feel some responsibility to do some educational posts and also feel some pressure to get things right. My dad knows a lot more about this stuff than I ever will, so maybe he can make some informative comments.

The Galapagos Islands were formed by volcanic activity. If you want proof, look at this picture:

Spatter Cones on Bartolome Island

There is a “hot spot” below the seabed in the islands, which is essentially a place where magma escapes through the earth’s crust. As the tectonic plate that the seabed sits on moved above that fixed hot spot over a period of millions of years, the islands were formed. Because the tectonic plate is moving west to east, the oldest islands in the Galapagos are in the east (some of which have eroded to the point that they are completely covered by water again), and the youngest are in the west (Fernandina is the youngest, and is currently located right above the Galapagos hot spot, so its volcanoes are still active). Scientists believe the various islands are between 1 and 10 million years old. You can learn more about hot spots and plate tectonics by clicking here. Many islands and island chains around the world were formed this way, including Hawaii. The thing I find fascinating about this subject is that the theories of plate tectonics and hot spots were so recently formed. People didn’t know much about this stuff just 50 years ago.

Many of the hikes we did on the trip were on lava. One of the days (when we were on Fernandina Island), we walked on a massive lava flow – it was one of my favorite walks. Relatively soon after lava cools (very soon, in geologic terms), some plant species can grow in what seems like impenetrable black rock. Here are a couple pictures from that walk:

Scenes from our Lava Walk

Well, I don’t think I’ve said anything inaccurate about volcanic activity, so I’m going to quit while I’m ahead. Keep this topic in mind though, because it is one of the important factors in the discussion about evolution and why plants and animals are different in the Galapagos than they are in other places.

We’re back in mainland Ecuador after an amazing trip to the Galapagos. We have several posts about the Galapagos to follow this post, and lots of pictures – we hope to get them posted within the next few days.

I’ve updated the itinerary page to match the sites we visited during the trip. Here is a map of the route we took through the Galapagos Islands on our 11-day live-aboard journey (it starts and ends at Baltra Island, which is where the main airport is, and runs in a counter-clockwise direction):

Here is a different map of the islands with a little more detail:

We hardly know where to start to describe the trip. The Galapagos Islands are quite overwhelming (in a good way!) because of the insane amount of flora and fauna, in addition to the many geologic, scientific and conservation topics to discuss. I’m 100% sure that we won’t do justice to these topics, and we’re not going to provide an exhaustive lecture on everything we learned in the Islands. We will touch on some of the things we found fascinating, and in some cases, we’ll provide links to third-party information for those of you who want to learn more.

Some of you have been to the Galapagos Islands. For those who have not, it is a unique experience and I cannot recommend it enough! There are a few different ways to see the islands – we went on a small live-aboard motor yacht with 15 passengers, a tour leader, a naturalist guide, and the ship’s crew. There are also cruises on larger live-aboard ships which may provide more amenities (laundry service would have been nice – we were hiking and snorkeling at the equator after all!), but the larger ships may not be able to travel to all of the islands due to the carrying capacity of the ship. There are also hotels on Santa Cruz Island and many operators that run day-trips around the islands. We chose our operator because it was one of the few who runs trips for longer than one week. We weren’t disappointed, but we also agree that any way you get to see this incredible place is worthwhile. For us, the most important aspect was that we had an excellent guide (Martin Loyola) and tour leader (Richard Parsons).

I hope you enjoy the upcoming posts (remember to read from the bottom up, and definitely look at Dave’s incredible pictures), but keep in mind that the best way to experience this place is to go yourself!