Santiago: Puerto Egas … Snorkeling & Beach Time

Monday, 9 July (Part IV)

First the snorkeling.

I can’t tell you much about it since I didn’t participate.  Mui’s not much for words.  His succinct description often consists of three words: “It was great.”  He did say a few more words when he came out of the water this morning: “Boy, that water is cold!”  Not that it stopped him from staying out for the duration of the snorkel!  He was certainly glad that I had nagged him into buying a full body snorkeling skin to wear under the long-sleeved, short-legged wetsuit.  (I refrained from saying, “I told you so.”)

All geared up, Mui’s ready for his first-ever cool-water snorkel.

I can’t get Mui to put pen to paper (yeah, I write enough for the both of us).  He takes underwater videos, though.  Here’s a two-minute video he put together for our — yours and mine, that is — virtual snorkeling pleasure.

(The IDs are from the marine life guide in the cabin; but it turned out to be inadequate, so we resorted to the internet, too.  If you disagree with any of the IDs, drop us a comment so that we can make corrections.)

Enjoy the sea lion and the colorful fish!

OK, now that Mui’s in the water, let’s move onto my time on the beach.

As great as the walk to the grottoes was (post here), my favorite part of the morning was the time I spent on the beach while most everyone else was snorkeling.

Why?  Well, it wasn’t because I saw anything I had not already seen earlier in the morning.  The time on the beach was my favorite, because the TIME WAS MINE, AND MINE ALONE.  At my own pace.  Stopping when I wanted to stop; for as long as I wanted to stop.  Sitting quietly and spending time with one species or another.

So, here’s a photo essay of MY TIME!

these sea lions were snoozing here when we landed two hours ago; nothing has changed.

In a cove nearby, I find two more sea lions.  Yes, they are sleeping too.

This poor sea lion was hounded by point & shooters and had to find respite in the ocean.
There’s nothing wrong with using a P&S camera; but people … we’re here to enjoy
the wildlife without changing their behavior … please be considerate of them.

I have to admit that the hounding worked in Mui’s favor.  When I saw that the sea lion was headed towards Mui, I called it out to his attention.  That sea lion he was swimming with in the video … this is the one.

snorkelers, look up; there’s a brown pelican flying over you.

Immature Sally Lightfoot Crabs don’t have the brilliant colors of the adults.
the dark coloring serves as excellent camouflage against the lava rocks.

Yellow warblers are like a ray of sunshine on this drab day.

lava lizards — male (above) and female (below).

Sea lions sleep right side up or upside down — it doesn’t seem to matter to them.

The far end of the beach from the snorkelers and pangas.  I have this area to myself entirely.

I find the textures of the eroded cliffs fascinating.

This is the best I can do with the ghost crabs on this beach; they have an amazing
sense of motion and scurry down into their burrows at the slightest vibration.

I'm afraid I have another series of marine iguanas to share with you.  Sorry about the clipped claws; I was keeping an eye on the waves coming ashore and not paying full attention to my composition :-)

All too soon, it was time to head back to the ship.  Mui was amongst the last to leave the water, and we dallied as long as we could.  But when it was time for the last zodiac to leave, we had no choice but to embark it for the short ride to the Xpedition.

As a brown pelican looks on, the zodiacs start heading back to the Xpedition.

back aboard, snorkelers rinse their wetsuits before giving them to a naturalist to hang.
the snorkel bag, with the rest of the gear, is also rinsed before being hung to dry.

A great morning; a great first landing.  Now to get a bite to eat and rest before the afternoon excursion.  Another island awaits us.

Santiago: Puerto Egas … Imps of Darkness

Monday, 9 July (Part III)

Sure, the marine iguanas deserve their own post because they are an endemic species that can’t be seen anywhere else in the world.  But the real reason I’m writing about them separately is because I couldn’t pick just one or two photos from the hundreds I took during this outing.  Just be glad we saw only a small portion of the hundreds of thousands of marine iguanas that inhabit the Galápagos Islands.

I’d have to say that while they aren’t handsome, the iguanas do have a quirky charm.  In fact, describing them as being “so ugly that they are cute” is quite apt.

Our first sighting of these creatures was like a scene out of a Jurassic Park movie.  Piled upon one another to keep warm, they looked like miniature dinosaurs with scaly faces and bodies.  Perhaps that’s why Darwin was revolted by them.  He wrote, and I quote:

The black Lava rocks on the beach are frequented by large (2-3 ft), disgusting clumsy Lizards.  They are as black as the porous rocks over which they crawl & seek their prey from the Sea.  I call them 'imps of darkness'.  They assuredly well become the land they inhabit.

On the light colored beaches, the iguanas were easy to spot; not so much when they were on the lava; especially the really dark colored ones that had little hint of color.  They had absolutely no fear of us, and we had to be careful where we stepped when we were amongst them in particularly well-populated areas.

Scientists believe that marine iguanas are descended from South American land iguanas — most likely green iguanas.  It is thought that millions of years ago they drifted out to sea on debris, rafting across the ocean and eventually coming ashore in the Galápagos, probably on islands that have long since become submerged.  Spreading from there, several subspecies then developed on different islands.

The marine iguanas of Santiago are an endemic subspecies named A. c. mertensi.

Despite Darwin’s description of the iguanas, they are not always black in color.  In addition to those that are grey, some — like the ones we saw at Puerto Egas — have hints of color.  The most colorful ones are on Española, which we won’t be visiting on this itinerary.

The fierce looking features of marine iguanas bely a gentle nature.  Despite their seeming interest in the stillborn sea lion pup (post here), we didn’t see anything to contradict that.  Though they have been reported to eat grasshoppers and crabs, they are essentially herbivores whose diet consists of underwater algae and seaweed.

The NatGeo website describes some of their adaptations as follows:

Their short, blunt snouts and small, razor-sharp teeth help them scrape the algae off rocks, and their laterally flattened tails let them move crocodile-like through the water.  Their claws are long and sharp for clinging to rocks on shore or underwater in heavy currents.  They have dark gray coloring to better absorb sunlight after their forays into the frigid Galápagos waters.  And they even have special glands that clean their blood of extra salt, which they ingest while feeding.

An ‘Imp of Darkness’ in B&W.
(the iguana looks like it’s stalking the semipalmated plover in the background;
not really the case.)

After basking in the sun to warm their bodies, marine iguanas dive into the chilly ocean waters to feed on aquatic vegetation.  They return to land to warm themselves again when their bodies cool down and their metabolism slows.  They repeat this rest-feed cycle throughout the day until they’ve gotten sufficient food.  In total, however, only about 5% of their time is actually spent feeding in the water.

One reference describes marine iguanas as “refugees from a Hollywood movie.”

Please, don’t turn away from me!

This warm sand feels so good after my swim!

Enough of the marine iguanas; there will be more to come.  So, now … moving onto our beach time at Puerto Egas.

Santiago: Puerto Egas … Drama Happens

Monday, 9 July (Part II)

You never know what you’re going to see when you go out to view wildlife in their natural habitat.

In August 2010, we were bear watching on the Katmai Peninsula of Alaska when we witnessed a sow kill the cub of another sow, and then proceed to eat it!  (Post here.)  The event was unusual — primarily because it was a sow doing the killing and not a boar.  To our knowledge, our small group of four was the only witness to the events from its first moment to its last.  It was high drama, and as sad as it was to see, we accepted it as part of the natural cycle of things.

The characters in the drama at Geographic Bay were these two sows and their cubs.

What we witnessed this morning is nowhere near as dramatic as the cub kill, but it did involve wildlife, death, and survival instincts.

When we first came upon the Galápagos sea lion resting on the rocks, we didn’t think much of it.  After all, it was another sea lion doing what it does best on land — sleep.  Then we started noticing little details.  Like the marine iguana in the foreground, which blended in so well with the dark, volcanic rock that it didn’t stand out initially.  Like the other marine iguanas that were likewise near-invisible until they moved slightly.  Like the pink fetus of a sea lion pup.  Wait, what was that again?  You read that right.  Lying there on the ground, not far from the cow, was a recently birthed fetus.

Sadness immediately washed over us, especially when the cow rose up and waddled over to sniff at the pink flesh of its dead pup.  It kept nudging at the lifeless body as though it was trying to get it to move, or trying to understand what had happened.  (Hard not to anthropomorphize in such situations.)  How sad that the sea lion had miscarried, if that’s what had happened, or given birth to a stillborn.

We took our photos and theorized amongst us as to what might have happened.  Then our attention was captured by the majestic Galápagos hawk that was perched on a rock nearby and we turned to take pictures of it.  I don’t think anyone really gave thought to why the hawk happened to be there.  I know I didn’t; I was just glad that we were seeing the only endemic predator on the islands so early in our trip.  And if the naturalist said anything, we didn’t hear that either; like several other photography buffs, we had already fallen behind and were out of earshot.

Anyway, not that we forgot about the sea lion, but our time on land was short and the next group was coming up behind us.  So, we hurried along to join Fatima a short ways down the trail.

We were photographing another species endemic to the islands when a commotion behind us caught our attention.  We whirled around to see the sea lion waddling as fast as it could towards a ledge, the dead pup clutched in its mouth.  Not far behind came the hawk.  It looked like the hawk was running on the ground, but it had probably just come in for a landing and was trying to get closer after it had made an attempt to make off with what it saw as easy food.  Harsh?  Yes?  Reality of the cycle of life?  Again, yes.

Like some weird sequence in a dream, the drama had another set of audience — marine iguanas had perked up during the commotion to raise their heads and watch the action.  They’ve been reported to eat grasshoppers and crustaceans in addition to their regular diet of algae, so perhaps they were hoping for some scraps to feed on.

The sea lion won this standoff, managing to get off the rock ledge and onto the beach.  At that point, we had to move on.  Our thoughts, however, kept returning to what we had witnessed, wondering about the eventual outcome.

As might be expected, this drama was a topic of conversation after we returned to the ship.  Curious about what might have happened after we left, we spoke to the groups that were behind us.  Some reported seeing the sea lion placing the body under the ledge, while others reported that they saw the sea lion dipping the body into the water lapping at the edge of the small patch of sand.  The hawk was still waiting around for its chance to abscond with the carcass, and at least one Sally lightfoot crab had taken up position for its share.

Scenes that we did not witness.
[Images courtesy of the Xpedition naturalists.]

Life is filled with dramas, big and small, and you never know when you might witness one.

---

UPDATE: From a blog entry my friend MBZ shared …

Since the beginning of the 2011 breeding season, scientists from the University of San Francisco de Quito have observed mass mortality of newborn pups, miscarriages and stillbirths on and near San Cristobal Island in the eastern region of the Galapagos Islands.

Mortality rates for pups have reached almost 60% compared with an average of 5 – 15% in a normal year. …  To read more, click here.

Hopefully, whatever is causing the demises on San Cristobal has not jumped to Santiago and the other islands.

Santiago: Puerto Egas

Monday, 9 July (Part I)
Temps: 82F(28C) / 72F (22C)

Overnight, the ship repositioned to and anchored off Santiago Island (aka, San Salvador, or as the British named it, James Island).  The fourth largest island of the archipelago, it’s the second one Darwin visited.  At the time, he noted that there was a healthy population of the now-extinct land iguanas on the island:

I cannot give a more forcible proof of their numbers, than by stating that when we were left at James Island, we could not for some time find a spot free from their burrows on which to pitch our single tent.

(Land iguanas are still present on some of the other islands, by the way, and we hope to see them at some point during our trip.)

During the 17th and 18th centuries, Santiago was a popular anchorage for sailors, pirates, and whalers who came to the island to make repairs to their ships, and provision themselves with fresh water, meat (tortoise was favored), and firewood.  I don’t recollect seeing any other ships here today; at least not within sight of our anchorage.

Xpedition from Santiago Island.

We were up and at ‘em well before sunrise.  (Though the Galápagos is an hour behind, we’re operating on Quito time, so sunrise is always around 7:00a).  All was quiet around the ship.  Except for a few people who wandered by the Beagle Grill to pick up a cup of coffee, or camera buffs who came by hoping for a colorful sunrise, I had the aft deck to myself.  It was a peaceful time conducive to cogitating about our trip.  I caught up on my notes and read for a bit, often distracted by a bird flying by or dive-bombing into the waters around the ship.

When Mui showed up shortly after 7:00a with his carried-from-the-buffet breakfast, I went down to get a plate for myself.  At 8:00a, Mui went to the snorkeling briefing, which covered procedures to follow, what creatures he could expect to see, and where he could expect to see them.  I stayed behind to wander the outside decks, contemplating our first landing.  Would we see the fur seals that make their home on Santiago?  Or would we be skunked?  Would there be marine iguanas by the hundreds?  Or would we be skunked?  What about birds?  Would we see any of the ones that are endemic to the islands?  The answers would have to wait until 9:15a when we disembarked for our morning excursion!

Pan de Azucar (Sugarloaf) Volcano — Santiago Island

The morning itinerary called for a landing at Puerto Egas, the site of a salt-mining operation in the 1920s and 1960s; we saw the ruins of one of the buildings on the beach where we landed.  From what I understand, the business failed because the cost of salt on the continent was so cheap that it didn’t warrant exploiting the islands.

The arrow points to the site of our morning landing.
[map courtesy of the GalapagosIslands.com website]

Of the two excursions offered — a long walk and optional snorkel vs a short walk and optional snorkel — we opted for the long walk on a 1¼-mile (2 km) long, reasonably flat and sandy trail.  We covered the trail in about two hours; far from strenuous.  The landing was a wet one, so we wore our water shoes, and opted to change out of them and put on trail hikers once we were on the beach.  (We picked up inexpensive water aerobics shoes from Walmart for about $7 with the intent of leaving them behind at the end of the trip.)

We landed at a black sand beach where we were greeted by one of the few mammals that can be found on land in the islands — the Galápagos sea lion.  Well, greeted is probably the wrong word since it slept the entire time we were getting ready for our walk.  With a population about 50,000-strong, these sea lions are a subspecies of the California sea lions.  It is believed they originated from stray individuals that found their way here from the west coast of Mexico.

Galápagos sea lion — the welcoming committee is sleeping on the job.
[endemic subspecies]

Of the two trails at this site, we followed the coastal one that ends at the fur seal grottoes.  There was so much to see along the way that I wondered if we would make it that far before we had to turn back.  No worries; we did!  At first, Mui and I tried to keep up with the group so we could hear Fatima’s commentary, but it didn’t take long for us to fall behind.  Oh well!

The terrain we hiked was quite varied.  It wasn’t difficult, by any means, but when we stepped off the trail to explore the rocky areas, we had to pay attention to where we put our feet.  Not just because there might be an iguana or other creature in our way, but because the rocks had grooves and dips, and could also be slippery where the sea had washed across them.

at the far end of the landing beach are eroded cliffs;
brilliantly colored Sally Lightfoot crabs stand out against the black rock.

From this spot the varied terrain is easily viewed.

Eroded lava rock is all along the shoreline.

The oldest lava flows on the island are more than 750,000 years old.

The lava flows have interesting shapes and textures.

Opuntia (Prickly Pear Cactus)

I was going to post pictures of the wildlife we encountered in the order we came upon them, but that seemed a bit too willy-nilly, so I’m going to group them and provide a few comments about each in the caption.  Look for the link if you’d like a bit more information.  A few exceptions to what I just wrote — the marine iguanas, which can only be found in the Galápagos, deserve their own post; as does a drama that unfolded before our eyes.

Reptiles

 

Marine Iguanas won’t win any beauty contests, but I find them charming nonetheless.
[endemic species]

According to Fatima, The red throat patch identifies this lava lizard as female.
these lizards stood surprisingly still when we came across them on the trail; not at
all like their skittish counterparts in other parts of the world, which dart away at
the slightest sound or movement.  they are the most abundant of the reptiles here.
[seven endemic subspecies; they differ by the island on which they are found.]

Lava lizards are considered to be dwarf iguanas.  The ones that live in areas of
volcanic rock have adapted to have darker skin so that they can blend in better.

locusts and birds

A quick word about the Galápagos finches.  They are commonly called Darwin’s finches as he was the first to collect them from the islands when he visited during the second voyage of the Beagle.  There are somewhere around 13-15 species of these birds, all of which evolved from a single species.  As they are very similar in size and appearance, Fatima wouldn’t hazard a guess as to which kind we were seeing except to say they were ground finches.

Galápagos grasshopper (painted locust) These locusts form a large part of the diet of the Galápagos Hawk and lava lizards. [endemic species]

As the various species of Darwin’s finches adapted to their habitat, the size and shape of their bills started to reflect their specializations — crushing bills, grasping bills, or probing bills. [endemic species]

the Galápagos hawk evolved from the Swainson’s Hawk, which arrived in the islands
approx. 300,000 years ago.  They developed broad wingspans and tails to allow them
to soar over the islands.  They are at the top of the food chain.
[the only endemic predator in the islands]

(By the way, without giving anything away, this hawk was one of the protagonists in the drama we witnessed.)

In the Galápagos, the slaty gray form of the green-backed heron is commonly
referred to as the lava heron.  Its color allows it to blend in with the lava rocks.
This heron is sometimes considered a subspecies of the Striated Heron.  IT has a
Longer, stouter bill which is useful since a major portion of its diet consists of crabs.
[endemic species]

I’m at a loss on this heron.  I thought I was taking a photo of another lava heron, but its
feathers are quite different and not nearly as dark as the first one.  there have been
sightings of the less common Striated heron.  Anyone know for sure?

Update: My friend MBz thinks this is a lava heron, just a different morph.  I trust her opinion.

Yellow Warblers are not endemic to the islands.  They are often seen darting
along the shoreline, where they have figured out that there are more bugs to eat.
missing the reddish cap that is common to males, I am guessing this one’s a female.

The Galápagos Mockingbird descended from the Ecuadorian long-tailed mockingbird.
There are four species that occur in the archipelago.  Several sources mention
that they had the greatest early influence on Darwin’s theory of natural selection.
[Endemic species]

American Oystercatchers use their bills, which are flattened on the sides, like a
shucking knife to open clams and other mollusks.  They are not endemic to the islands.

Yellow-Crowned Night Herons — juvenile on the left, and an immature (I think) on the right,
with a blurry adult in the background scratching away.
Shy on the mainland, in the islands this non-endemic species is bold, and active day and night.

Yellow-crowned night heron (adult) The great majority of their diet consists of crustaceans, but they’re noT above eating lizards and small birds.

dark brown feathers on the neck indicate that this brown pelican is AN adult in breeding plumage. [endemic subspecies]

Crustaceans

(There were some ghost crabs on the beach, but they quickly retreated into their burrows at the slightest vibration they felt from people wandering around; perhaps I’ll have better luck on a different island.)

John Steinbeck wrote of the Sally Lightfoot Crab: “These little crabs, with brilliant
cloisonné carapaces, walk on their tiptoes, They have remarkable eyes and an
extremely fast reaction time.”

MAMMALS

And finally … the end of the trail at the grottoes.

Galápagos fur seals are actually a type of sea lion.  Their thick coat looks furrier
than that of the sea lion; hence the name, and the reason why they were hunted to
near extinction.  Less tolerant of the sun and heat, they prefer the rocky coastline
where shade is available; these grottoes on Santiago are perfect in that respect.
[endemic species]

And on that note, we began the walk back to our landing beach.  Plenty more to come from this morning …