Galapagos Style

The later afternoon sky presented a colorful background for the silhouette of a hawk.

The plants in the Galapagos are as notable as the animals.  In fact, Darwin took many more plant samples than animal samples and had more pages in his journal devoted to plant life than animals.

Baby sea lions are delightful.  We kept a respectful distance.  Respectful for the babies, and respectful of the wishes of the parents.

We were in the Galapagos during Christmas week, and some of the succulents were in bloom.

This is a close up of the bark of the cactus-tree that I showed in the second photo above.  It had a thin layer of bark that surrounded the tree like crust on a loaf of bread.

The Beauty of Galapagos

One of the tips that wildlife photographers often give is to get low with the camera and shoot the subject from eye level.  I think that was good advice for this iguana photo.

This is typical of the terrain of the Galapagos.  We took trips on zodiacs from our ship to view the wildlife on the rocks along the shoreline, and we were in the water snorkeling every day but one.

We are from Arizona, so one thing we know how to do is to take photographs of cactus silhouetted against the late afternoon sky.

The Galapagos penguins are the smallest and rarest penguins in the world.  The Humbolt current brought them north along the coast of South American, and then all the way out to the Galapagos.  It was a treat to see penguins as far north as the Equator.

We explored coves looking for wildlife.  We later went snorkeling here and saw sea lions, penguins, and even a few sharks.

Galapagos Sights

Whenever we went ashore in the Galapagos, we were usually greeted by lots of these Sally Lightfoot crabs.  I don't know who Sally Lightfoot is, and I hope she is OK with having these crabs named after her.

We visited the Gallapagos on a National Geographic/Lindblad cruise.  That is our ship, the National Geographic Islander.  It is about half the size of the other National Geographic ship that cruises the Gallapagos.  It had 46 passengers and 33 crew.  That was a good size.

The galapagos iguanas are different than the iguanas that we see in Costa Rica.  There are also marine iguanas in the Galapagos.  They swim and dive in the ocean.

This island is called Chinese Hat island, for obvious reasons.  Cruising is the only practical way to visit the Galapagos, as most of the islands are uninhabited (by humans) and have no facilities.

This heron stalked fish along the rocky coast.  Many of the Galapagos islands are volcanic rock outcroppings, with little vegetation.

Gorgeous Galapagos

People go to the Galapagos to encounter its unique and friendly wildlife.  We were surprised to see this owl right beside our trail in the middle of the day.  With most of the islands unoccupied and protected by being within a national park, many of the animals are not afraid of humans.

We visited the Galapagos during Christmas week, at the end of the dry season.  These succulents, similar to ice plants, were in bloom.

It seems strange to have cacti so close to the ocean.  The climate in the Galapagos is obviously drier than other Pacific islands, such as those in Hawaii or Polynesia.

The most common animals on the islands are iguanas and birds.  The iguanas hiss and spit.

This is a swallow-tailed gull, one of the many species of birds that populate the Galapagos.  We visited one island that had 250,000 birds.  Darwin observed differences between the birds of the different islands, particularly the mockingbirds, which helped him deduce the principles of evolution.

Galapagos Tortoises

Giant tortoises are probably the most famous animals in the Galapagos Islands, and the Galapagos were named after the Spanish word for tortoises.  The tortoises are huge, reaching 400 pounds (880 kg) and 5.9 feet (1.8 m.).   They live in the wild on only a few of the islands.

During the last 500 years, the number of Galapagos tortoises declined from an estimated 250,000 to just 3,000 in the 1970's.  Conservation efforts have increased the population to about 20,000 today.   Several of the species have become extinct, including "Lonesome George," that last of his species, who died within the past two years.

We went up into the highlands and stopped at a field where there were dozens of giant tortoises walking around, eating, and quite comfortable with people taking their photos, as shown by my husband's photo of me taking pictures of the tortoises.

It seemed like the tortoises were eating almost all of the time, as they must consume lots of grass to provide nutrition for a body of their large size and weight.  Most of the decline in their population was due to the use of tortoises for food for sailors on whaling ships.  They would typically capture more than a hundred tortoises per ship, as they could be kept on the ships easily and eaten when needed.  

Darwin failed to study the tortoises in a scientific way.  He collected specimens and made detailed studies of differentiation in mockingbirds and other species to arrive at the theory of evolution.  He did not do so for the tortoises, even though he noted in his journal that people who lived on the islands could tell what island a tortoise came from just by looking at the shape of the shell in an adult.  He failed until years later to recognize the support for the theory of evolution that can be deduced from the differences that have evolved in tortoises that have lived in separate colonies on the different islands, or even among tortoises living on the same island but separated by lava fields that they cannot cross.

Undersea Life in the Galapagos Islands

This week we are showing another set of underwater photos from our recent trip to the Galapagos islands.  The colorful fish were delightful.  The fish on the left side of this photo is a blue-chin parrotfish.

A challenge when trying to photograph fish underwater is that it is easy to take a photo of fish swimming away, but it is unusual to get a good photo of a fish swimming right at you, like the one above.

This is a panamic cushion starfish.  My husband and I snorkel, but do not scuba dive.  Dave held his breath and swam down to the bottom to get this close-up photo.

Unfortunately, the little wildlife guide that we bought did not give the name of this fish.

We particularly loved swimming with sea lions.  This one swam right underneath us so close that this quick photo captured his whiskers.  During our one-week National Geographic/Lindblad Galapagos cruise, we snorkeled every day except the one day we spent on the island where the Darwin Research Station and many Galapagos Tortoises are located.

The Undersea World of the Galapagos

We returned a week ago from a trip to the Galapagos and Peru. One of the thrills of the Galapagos was swimming with sea lions.  At times sea lions would swoop around around us, but the were so fast it was difficult to photograph them.

The colors of sea creatures are amazing.  Although the Galapagos are known for the diversity of the animals on the islands, the sea life is also diverse.

We saw lots of tropical fish in the Galapagos, including streamer hogfishes such as this one.

This was the only photo of a penguin under water that we were able to take.  The Galapagos penguins zipped by us very quickly while we were swimming.  The Galapagos Islands have diverse sea life because they are at the confluence of ocean currents that come from different directions.  The Humbolt current that runs up the coast of South America brought penguins, even though the Galapagos are tropical islands that straddle the equator.

This is a spotted eagle ray.  My husband, Dave, swam over the top of him, at a safe distance, and took a video of the ray swimming.  Before our recent trip we bought two new underwater cameras so that we could each take photographs.  We were waiting for the new Nikon AW 1 underwater camera to come out, which it did about a month before our trip.  It is a better quality than the point-and-shoot underwater cameras.  While underwater, it is much easier to operate a zoom by turning the lens barrel than a push button control.  The camera even takes full resolution still photos at the same time that a video is shooting, which made this photo possible.