Bartolome Island
We returned to the central archipelago for our last day in Galapagos and squeezed in visits to two islands. Bartolome is always full of unexpected events; today was truly spectacular. A short stroll over a sand dune to a second beach gave us a lot of wonderful nature, with at least twenty white-tipped reef sharks, mating green sea turtles, two Galapagos sharks and a young hawk. The latter was inspecting us from the air and after couple of minutes decided to gives a spectacular photographic moment as it landed on top of the trail marker, just five feet away from where we stood.
The walk over the sand dune itself was worthy of notice. Sand dunes are popularly associated with deserts, but here in the Galapagos Islands is quite common to see them along the coastal areas.
Dune formation requires plentiful supplies of sand as well as certain other conditions, like strong winds that blow sand or dust constantly. That suggests the complexity of dune formation. Most dunes are between 10 and 300 feet high; occasionally they even attain 1,500 feet. The windward side commonly has a slope of 10 to 15 degrees; the leeward sides 30 to 34 degrees.
The kind of dune that we have in Galapagos seems to be determined mainly by three variables: wind direction and strength, amount of vegetation cover and sand supply, Particle size is also an influence. The presence of vegetation deflects wind, holds sand and reduces wind velocity: these features characterize the type of dune called “blowout”. There are different types of sand dunes found around our planet: dome-shaped, circular, elliptical, barchan, parabolic, blowout, linear, star, transverse and longitudinal. Rafael Pesantes, Naturalist
We returned to the central archipelago for our last day in Galapagos and squeezed in visits to two islands. Bartolome is always full of unexpected events; today was truly spectacular. A short stroll over a sand dune to a second beach gave us a lot of wonderful nature, with at least twenty white-tipped reef sharks, mating green sea turtles, two Galapagos sharks and a young hawk. The latter was inspecting us from the air and after couple of minutes decided to gives a spectacular photographic moment as it landed on top of the trail marker, just five feet away from where we stood.
The walk over the sand dune itself was worthy of notice. Sand dunes are popularly associated with deserts, but here in the Galapagos Islands is quite common to see them along the coastal areas.
Dune formation requires plentiful supplies of sand as well as certain other conditions, like strong winds that blow sand or dust constantly. That suggests the complexity of dune formation. Most dunes are between 10 and 300 feet high; occasionally they even attain 1,500 feet. The windward side commonly has a slope of 10 to 15 degrees; the leeward sides 30 to 34 degrees.
The kind of dune that we have in Galapagos seems to be determined mainly by three variables: wind direction and strength, amount of vegetation cover and sand supply, Particle size is also an influence. The presence of vegetation deflects wind, holds sand and reduces wind velocity: these features characterize the type of dune called “blowout”. There are different types of sand dunes found around our planet: dome-shaped, circular, elliptical, barchan, parabolic, blowout, linear, star, transverse and longitudinal. Rafael Pesantes, Naturalist
