12-24-11 ISLA BARTOMOLÉ, GALAPAGOS: We left Santa Cruz after bedtime and motored around the island to the fueling station on Baltra. We left the boat on zodiacs while the crew serviced the boat and went to North Seymour Island with our guide, Christian. North Seymour is a flat, weathered volcanic island where we walked the trail seeing land and marine iguanas, frigate birds nesting, immatures and males frigate birds with their red pouches inflated, blue footed boobies and their immatures, sea lions, mocking birds, lizards, the usual set of creatures. Then we snorkeled from the zodiacs. There was a bit of surf that carried us along the rocky beach, seeing tropical fish.
We motored on to Bartolomé, chaperoned by an octet of frigate birds and a pair of dolphins. We lunched on the boat. Bartolomé is a younger island with lots of uncolonized brownish-red lava fields. After arriving, we spent a few hours on the beach by Pinnacle Rock, some of us snorkeling. That rock is the iconic image of the Galapagos. On the beach there were trails left by female sea turtles laying eggs. Some of the snorkelers saw a shark, everybody, including the shark, swam off in a different direction. They also saw a swimming penguin. We share all the beaches with sea lions. We all saw a skate, or manta, platter-sized, in the shallow surf.
In late afternoon we zodiaced around Pinnacle Rock and saw a pair of the Galapagos penguins and then climbed the resident volcano on a set of steps that weren’t there on our last visit 28 years ago. There were lava flows of pahoehoe lava, lava bombs and lava tubes, mostly unroofed, and lots of parasitic, tuff cones, little secondary sites of eruption, and a nice sunset. The island is barely colonized by tequelia, a small gray shrub, and a few cactus and a few lizards.
This male frigate bird was giving us the eye, checkin' out our boat before either of us had breakfast. That red thing on his neck is inflated during mating season and is attractive to the lady frigates.
Oops, land iguana on North Seymour, we did see some in the wild.
Blue footed booby. Now why did they call it that?
Baby blue foot.
Ladies, here he is.
Snorkeling-North Seymour Island.
Small ray in shallow surf near Pinnacle Rock.
Galapagos penguin, male, also near Pinnacle Rock.
The flank of the volcano on Bartolome, sparsely covered with first colonizers.
Pinnacle Rock is the root of a volcano remaining after the rest has weathered and eroded.
No comments:
Post a Comment