Galapagos, Puerto Ayorta

It was an overcast day and despite being on the equator, it was cold and I was wearing a fleece. A picture of the dock side from the boat.

 A picture of the boat that had been my home whilst going around the various islands.

 The landing stage where small boats and water taxis can moor...

 sea lions seem to be at home whatever the surroundings such as this one sleeping on a boat....

 this sea lion was using the benches...presumably waiting for a water taxi...

 another sleeping sea lion...

 and a close up of a sleeping sea lion.

 I walked past the cemetery and I had to take a few photos of funeral architecture Galapagos style.

 And finally the tortoise breeding centre which breed the tortoises. Each island has its own species of tortoise and the centre works wonders in preserving the various different species.

 One of the tortoise enclosures.

Some of the baby tortoises, all carefully numbered.

 This is the most famous tortoise, Lonesome George, the last Pinta tortoise who was discovered in 1971 and was already over fifty years old. With his death in 2012, the Pinta tortoise was extinct and this is one of the drivers for the centre to work so hard to preserve the other species of tortoises.

Galapagos, Black Turtle Island and Dragon Hill

 We were going to another island and a different ecosystem. We went in the Zodiacs and picked our way through some mangrove swamps on Black Turtle Bay (also called Caleta Tortuga Negra) on Isla Santa Cruz.

It was a haven of fauna and a favourite fishing ground. A pelican fishing with a noddy perched on his head. This was a common sight of a noddy perched on a pelican. The pelican dives into the water and scoops up fish and a lot of water in its pouch. It then squeezes the water out and then swallows whatever fish it has caught. Whilst the pelican is draining off the water, sometimes the fish also escape, and this is the opportunity for the noddy to get a quick easy meal as it can grab the fish as it escapes from the pelicans beak.

The mangrove swamps came down to the beach...

and enveloped some of the rocks on the beach...

but they do get flooded. The tidal range on the islands isn't very great until there is a storm. You can see how high the tide can be as there is a distinct line between the black trunks that get flooded and the grey upper branches.

A heron taking a break from fishing...

and another fisherman...

and a blue footed bobby.

Around us the water was teeming with fish including two metre long sharks. Plus just below the surface was an eagle ray.

And a great sight was a line of golden rays that swept underneath us. When the got to the edge of the mangrove they turned clockwise as if they were responding to a military command and swept back beneath the boats and back the way they had come.

More blue footed bobbies standing on a rock with some flooded mangrove swamp that was standing in the water. The mangove plant stand in salt water and inevitably pick up salt. They get rid of surplus salt by pushing it into certain leaves that turn yellow and drop off into the water.

After Black Turtle Bay we moved along the coast to Cerro Dragon or Dragon Hill for a walk and another snorkel.

Here were black marine iguanas whose main food is algae that grows on the rocks underwater. They are good swimmers but need to warm up before they go swimming.

They get a lot of salt in their diet and have evolved a special way of getting rid of it. They had glands in their nostrils and they 'sneeze' out surplus salt...so it is best not to stand in front of them.

This is a dry island and much of the vegetation is cactus or drought resistant plants.

But the plants also give a lot of shade and hiding places and inland were a number of iguanas.

 These two males were having a fight circling each other with occasional grappling and biting.

 a close up of one of the iguanas...

 and this is what they were fighting over, a female.

And then it was back to the beach for another snorkel and a whole host of fish such as hieroglyphic hawkfish, panamic fanged blenny, burrito grunt, king angelfish, Cortez rainbow wrasse just to name a few but regretably I had no waterproof camera. Then we moved on to circumnavigate the island to reach Puerto Ayorta which is the capital of the Galapagos.

Galapagos, Isla Bartolome

We cruised overnight from Isla Genovesa to Isla Bartolome, a small island just off the coast of the much larger Isla Santiago and arrived just after dawn.

     

Other sea lions played in the surf such as these two rolling around on the beach.

As we made our way up to the summit of the island, there were plenty of lizards such as this female lava lizard.

It is a pretty barren place with no surface water and little soil, just naked solidified lava and ash.

To preserve the delicate balance of the ecosystem, there are board walks for visitors...

and steps up to the summit...

with views down to the bay...

and a clear view of a small vent away from the main crater flooded by the sea,

A single Galapagos penguin taking a rest, the only one that I saw in all the time that I was on the islands.

The sea lion was still sleeping on the landing stage although it had turned around but showed no intention of  going back to the sea.

Then the Zodiacs took us across the channel to Isla Santiago to look at a recent lava flow and some of the shapes made by the lava as it set.

 We were watched by a heron...

 and finally back to the beach for more snorkelling off an empty beach in beautifully clear waters.