Bartolome and Santiago Islands
Today we had an exciting day on the central realm of the archipelago. Bartolome in the early morning offered us an amazing view of its very famous pinnacle rock surrounded by calm, blue seas.
This was a great opportunity to observe sea birds from the top of the island, as well as the great geological formations covered with very little vegetation. After our climb to the top of the island, we returned aboard to have a delicious breakfast to replenish our energies, and to get ready to snorkel for the first time.
As we got ashore, we went to explore the northern side of the island and discovered a newly hatched pacific green sea turtle being chased by a ghost crab.
Normally baby sea turtles will emerge from their nests protected by the dark of the night; however, that little baby was out under the hot sunrays trying to reach the water.
Just as the baby reached the first waves crashing on the shore, a brown pelican, two white tipped reef sharks and quite a number of frigate birds appeared out of nowhere looking very interested in the baby turtle. In the blink of an eye the baby turtle was gone, taken by one of the opportunistic frigate birds. It took us all by surprise at first, but this reminded us one more time that the Galápagos is a delicate well-balanced ecosystem and that nature is wise, even in situations like this.
We left Bartolome behind and sailed off towards Santiago Island. We spent our afternoon observing a lot of wildlife along the irregular lava shores of Puerto Egas. We saw several Galápagos painted locusts mating, Darwin finches nesting, herons feeding on crabs and some spiders knitting their webs.
Galápagos is an amazing, very active ecosystem and no matter where we looked, there was something going on. It felt great to know that nothing that surrounded us was planted there for us, it just happened to exist. Today we were pure spectators on the Galápagos life and death daily drama, and it was great to be on the front seat for the show!
Today we had an exciting day on the central realm of the archipelago. Bartolome in the early morning offered us an amazing view of its very famous pinnacle rock surrounded by calm, blue seas.
This was a great opportunity to observe sea birds from the top of the island, as well as the great geological formations covered with very little vegetation. After our climb to the top of the island, we returned aboard to have a delicious breakfast to replenish our energies, and to get ready to snorkel for the first time.
As we got ashore, we went to explore the northern side of the island and discovered a newly hatched pacific green sea turtle being chased by a ghost crab.
Normally baby sea turtles will emerge from their nests protected by the dark of the night; however, that little baby was out under the hot sunrays trying to reach the water.
Just as the baby reached the first waves crashing on the shore, a brown pelican, two white tipped reef sharks and quite a number of frigate birds appeared out of nowhere looking very interested in the baby turtle. In the blink of an eye the baby turtle was gone, taken by one of the opportunistic frigate birds. It took us all by surprise at first, but this reminded us one more time that the Galápagos is a delicate well-balanced ecosystem and that nature is wise, even in situations like this.
We left Bartolome behind and sailed off towards Santiago Island. We spent our afternoon observing a lot of wildlife along the irregular lava shores of Puerto Egas. We saw several Galápagos painted locusts mating, Darwin finches nesting, herons feeding on crabs and some spiders knitting their webs.
Galápagos is an amazing, very active ecosystem and no matter where we looked, there was something going on. It felt great to know that nothing that surrounded us was planted there for us, it just happened to exist. Today we were pure spectators on the Galápagos life and death daily drama, and it was great to be on the front seat for the show!
