Passion 4 Travel

Galapagos - Espanola

A rough 10-hour overnight bumpy rolling roller coaster of a boat ride landed us in the rather quieter Garner Bay on Espanola Island the next morning. Espanola is the oldest and southernmost of the islands, 61km2 in size and estimated to be 3.5 million years old. We first went for a walk up the white sandy beach avoiding sleeping sea lions up to the mid-beach rocks, which are as far as we were permitted to go. Here Hood Mockingbirds, a subspecies of Mockingbird endemic to just this island, were picking flies off the sea lions. On the rocks were Sally Lightfoot crabs and a unique subspecies of marine iguana. Only on this island are the marine iguanas black and coloured, usually red but sometimes green or other colours. On every other island they are totally black. We had two snorkels, one off the beach where we saw a sting ray as well as lots more dinner plate sized fish and a second off the panga where a couple of sea lions came and played & swam with us in the water for a good time.

The afternoon, still on Espanola but on the western side, we stopped at Punta Suarez where we followed a 2km trail through the rookery of the Waved Albatross, one of which was nesting right on the edge of the path. Espanola is the nesting site to virtually the entire worlds population of these birds and it's the only albatross that nests at the equator and in the tropics. Large numbers of the yet unseen Nasca Boobies (formerly known as Masked Boobies) were seen nesting as well as other seabirds including our old friends the Blue-footed Boobies. Red-billed tropic birds were also quite abundant as were more of the red-coloured marine iguanas and yet more sea lions. A huge blowhole where the surf is forced through a natural rock formation (spraying the cliffs with water and keeping it green during the dry season) spouting seawater 15-20m in the air was also here. If you've ever watched the BBC Galapagos Series they showed it on there. We also saw Galapagos Doves, a Striped Galapagos snake and a Galapagos Hawk. Here the Tortoise breeding programme will eventually indirectly help the hawk increase its numbers. The young, forced from their parents' territory when they are old enough due to lack of space, have no food in the highlands because the giant tortoise was almost wiped out. With the captive breeding programme the first rehabilitated tortoises will soon be breeding and therefore providing a source of food for the hawks.