Isabella and Fernandina Islands - January 30, 2007

We sailed overnight from the south end of Isabella Island to the north end where you can really get a sense of the volcanic origins of the Galapagos archipelago. In the morning we crossed the equator into the Southern Hemisphere and had a little celebration on board.

We took a Zodiac ride along the sheer cliffs of Isabella to look for wildlife and saw our first sea turtles up close as well as a new mammal species, the Galapagos fur seals. Unlike the sea lions the fur seals aren’t that curious about humans and keep their distance. We also caught a sighting of a giant mola mola (ocean sunfish) that leaped out of the water a couple of times and then swam under our Zodiac.

This was our first chance to see two famous bird species here: the Galapagos penguin and the Galapagos cormorant. Both are flightless birds. The cormorant’s wings are nothing but vestiges of normal wings. Then don’t use them to swim while the penguin does use its wings to swim. Then nest in the same areas but eat different kinds of fish and so don’t compete with one another.

I tried to go for a swim but the sea turtles kept getting in the way….. Watching them swim and eat under water was fascinating. Some of them were huge! We also got to see the flightless cormorant swimming underwater.

After snorkeling we weighed anchor and headed for Fernandina Island which is the youngest island in the archipelago (probably less than 300,000 years old). The landscape of the island is mostly jet black lava flow. Here we saw female iguanas nesting and fighting over nesting spots. It was also a great place to see nesting cormorants and some other little shorebirds we hadn’t seen on other islands.

On our way from Isabella to Fernandina we saw a school of hundreds of dolphins leaping out of the water. But perhaps even more special we encountered a sperm whale sunning at the surface. We were fortunate that we were able to get quite close to him and watched him for a few minutes. It had been over a year since the naturalists on board had seen a sperm whale. There are less than 50 or so known to be in the area. We got a great sighting of the fluke just before the whale took a dive for deeper waters.

Tomorrow we head for Santa Cruz Island and will go into the highlands to look for wild tortoises and more of Darwin’s finches!


Weather:
Sunny: 80-85 F; winds variable
Water temperature: 72 F

Isabella Island (north end)

Birds:
Frigate birds
Red tropic bird
Blue footed boobies (diving for fish)

Other cool stuff:
Mola mola
Golden ray (HUGE)
Sperm whale !!!!!
Galapagos fur seal (sea bear)
Galapagos flightless cormorant
Galapagos flightless penguin
Marine iguana
Eastern Pacific sea turtles
Many kinds of fish which I’ll list later (King angel fish, banded blenny, Creole fish, etc.)

Fernandina Island

Birds:
Striated heron
Wandering tattler
Semi-palmated plover
Ruddy turnstone
Galapagos flightless cormorant
Galapagos flightless penguin

Other cools stuff:
Nesting marine iguanas
Sally lightfoot crabs