charles darwin research center ....

so, the best thing, to me, about the charles darwin research center on santa cruz island in the galapagos is that they are breeding turtles and then repopulating the islands that have had outside influences hurting the indigenous species ....

we saw eggs in incubators and then newborn turtles .... and turtles a bit more grown up and about ready to be let out in the wild ....

it was our last day touring the galapagos islands, and i bought the first souvenir of the week: a charles darwin research station tshirt ..... now, as i blog from my travel journal, my vacation is long over, but i've worn the tee tons of times ....

from the research station, dora pointed us towards the restaurant where we were to have lunch... and she left us to wander down the main street of the town ... the main tourist street anyway .... and we went in some shops .....

 in most of the stores we went in, we didn't buy much, but had fun looking ....

the road we walked on was right along the ocean .... there was a port for small cruise ships to drop their tourists off at the charles darwin station .... and then more of a local port ....

 there were signs all over the place that said don't fee the wildlife .... but the sealions and pelicans can't read ...... they were going for fish scraps as the fishermen cleaned their day's catch .....

i guess it could have been any fishing port in the world ....

go, diego, go ...

so ... when the folks at the darwin research center in the galapagos realized that they had lonesome george, they put out a call world wide for giant turtles, in the hopes of finding george a mate .... they got lots of turtles ... none the right breed ... but they did get others who could help perpetuate their own breeds .... one was from the san diego zoo ... and he was named diego ... get it?

diego is a turtle originally from espanola ... a supersized breed of galapagos turtles ... but the population was anything but supersized .... there were introduced goats on espanola ... and they were breeding like rabbits ... and all those goats did a number on the turtle population by devouring turtle eggs ... not to mention destroying the vegetation that the turtles needed ....

diego was taken to san diego in the 30s .. and returned to galapagos in the 70s ... when there were only a dozen or so espanola female turtles left ... and two males ... two lackluster males ... there was no breeding going ... for no discernible reason, those turtles were not fulfilling their evolutionary duty to perpetuate their species .... and then diego showed up ... he was introduced to the pen where all the non mating espanola turtles lived .... and just having a new guy around got everyone going ..... apparently it was a competition thing ... and three competitors made things much more interesting than two .... and diego and his two guy buddies have been doing their job ever since .... growing their species substantially ...

goats have been eradicated from espanola and turtles have been reintroduced ... success ... a lovely contrast to the fate of lonesome george's species ....

and .... now ... 40 years later, we visited diego and heard his story at the charles darwin research station on santa cruz in the galapagos .... and what was he doing? .... mating ... and making a big old racket of noise so that everyone knew just exactly what he was doing .... below, you can see diego in an upright position ... not with his belly parallel to the ground ....

at least he was trying to be discrete, hiding in some bushes ... but gosh he was loud!

... turtle time ...

on friday of our trip, we went to the charles darwin research station .... it's an interesting place ... when you read about it on trip advisor or a similar online site, the reviews are so varied .... it is astonishing, interesting, educational and chock full of multiples of all 11 subspecies of galapagos turtles .... but, the reason it gets bad reviews, or mixed reviews, is that it is fairly dilapidated .... outdated .... shabby .... it is not spick and span and sanitized like you'd expect a scientific research center to be ... no white coats, chrome, spit and polish .... just turtles and turtle muck in large old fashion pens .... i left a trip advisor review ... and i said it was awesome .... it exactly served its purpose and educated my children and me about the 15 endemic galapagos turtles .... and the 11 that are left ..... all in spite of being struck by a tsunami recently .... the turtles, luckily, were evacuated well ahead of time because of adequate warning ....

that's a picture of george ... lonesome george .... here's his story .... the island of pinta was well recorded as having loads of giant turtles ... pirates came and toted them away to have fresh meat on their long journeys ... in the early 20th century, it was searched for conservation reasons and not a single turtle was found ....years later, george, a very large turtle was found ... presumably then, the last time the island had been searched he had been tiny .... a baby .... and he grew up alone .... so now he's been alive more than 100 years .... they initially tried publicity to find him a mate ... giant turtles were returned from zoos all over the world .... no luck, the returned turtles weren't from pinta .... they got turtle pets back from natives ... none were from pinta .... none were the right species .... they tried introducing him to females from another species ... ones that seemed most similar to him genetically ... the females laid eggs ... but they were not fertilized ... no babies ... no more little georges .... he's the end of his species ... really a sad tale, right?

tomorrow i'll tell you a happier turtle story ... about diego ...

... we interrupt this travel adventure for a brief moment of total joy ....

on thursday, after our day snorkeling and then lizard spotting at south plazas, we made our way back to the galapagos safari camp by way of a boat ride, a short bus ride, a shorter van ride with our trusty driver jaime .... i'd love to tell you that we all went swimming in the gorgeous pool ... but no ... just sophie made it in .... 

 and she jumped in about 40 times while andy tried to get the perfect photo ....

this one seems like the perfect jump for joy:

dinner on thursday night was a ham and vegetable tower on toast for an appetizer ..... entree was curried chicken with the OH MY most divine risotto and some veggies .... then a wine soaked pear for dessert ... delightful .... the family played cards after dinner .... which surely goes to show that this was the easiest day of the trip ... every other day we ate dinner and couldn't wait to get into bed!! ....

on the navigation to south plazas, sophie and i tried to sit at the bow ... we were getting SOAKED ... we had towels around us as we sprawled on the deck , but between the wind and the spray, it was just too cold .... we held out up there for a long time, but finally gave in and returned to the cabin with everyone else ..... it's one of my favorite memories of the week though, giggling with sophie on the bow of the boat, trying not lose our sunscreen bottle overboard or have our towels fly away 

then, on the way back from south plazas, we did sit on the bow of the boat .... and alejandro sat with us ... and it was gorgeous and perfect .... alejandro was looking for whales.... whale season was just starting ... but no luck that day for us .... no whales .... we sat and chatted with alejandro about being a guide and galapagos stuff .... he asked questions about us and home .... 

 this trip day, a snorkel and an island walk was our easiest day ... not too strenuous ... plenty of interesting and magical though .... you can tell from this picture that we're nearing the end of our trip ... some of us have clothes that aren't matching as well as they did at the beginning of the week ...

swallowtail gulls ......

this swallowtail gull has a hatchling in a tiny cave space under that rock ....

that giant land iguana was walking by and seemed intimidating to the gull mom ......

 she pecked him and flapped and squawked ... he never altered his apparent course ... he was just walking by ... but she was very protective and i'm sure felt better once he'd passed .....

in the picture below, you can just make out the baby, it's outlined in white down ....

and here, elsewhere on the island, there is another swallowtail gull parent with a juvenile .. still downy, but out and about .....

south plazas island ....

south plazas island has prickly pear cacti that are outsized compared to other spots in the galapagos ....

 south plazas has beautiful vistas .....

 south plazas is surrounded by turquoise waters full of sealions and marine iguanas ...

 the south side of south plazas is steep, steep cliffs .... four people have died there on tours ... two of the four were naturalist guides .... our guide told us this laughingly from the edge of the cliff ....

at south plazas, swallowtail gulls swoop and dive near the cliffs, and nest on them ....

 from south plazas, north plazas is a stones throw away ... well ... i couldn't throw a stone that far, but someone could ...

 on south plazas, it's nice to hold hands if you're standing near the high cliffs ....

 on south plazas, you'll lose your hat if you aren't careful ....

land iguanas, marine iguanas, and the hybrid iguana ....

on north plazas, there is a path for tourists ... don't leave the path! ... not that you'd really want to ... the path is easily navigable, the rest is brush and rock and cacti .... the path is completely apparent, but there are still arrows in case you can't figure it out ....

south plazas is COVERED in huge land iguanas ... they are everywhere ... if you are scared of lizards, it is covered in a creepy way .... really, everywhere you turn, more giant lizards .....

 the giant land iguanas are a yellow and tan and brown color ....

 there are also smaller black marine iguanas swimming along the coast, hanging out on the rocky edges of the islands ..... interestingly, alejandro told us about a hybrid iguana that only appears on south plazas, where the two iguanas have similar mating seasons ... there are giant lizards whose fathers are marine iguanas (small, black, aquatic) and the mothers are galapagos land iguanas (large, colored, land) ....

here's a hybrid above .... it is a large black land iguana .... that can't breed ... or evolutionarily speaking, not yet anyways .... alejandro said last time there had been a survey of the island, there were five hybrids ... but we saw more than five of them .... so they need to update the survey!

finch ...

how's that for a gorgeous yellow finch?
when darwin was in the galapagos islands, he collected finches and sent them back home (dead) to be studied later ..... we saw loads and loads of finches while we were in the galapagos .... but mostly we saw them from the car ... ground finches and cactus finches ....brownish gray and small .... this one, the only one like it i saw, was bright, bright yellow and very fat .. it seemed particularly fat because i've read beak of the finch about darwin's finches and evolution and in lots of that book the discussion was about evolving during lean times, famines .....clearly, this was not a lean moment .... sophie took this picture ... it makes me like it even more ....

thursday in the galapagos ... sealions ...

i think yesterday's post might have alluded to it being wednesday of my trip .. but that snorkel outing was thursday .... i only know this because i thought i was blogging wednesday, but as i look at my journey journal, i see that i'm on thursday ....

we snorkeled in a channel with astounding schools of fish ....and then we navigated to the plazas islands .... we visited north plazas, but our boat anchored between north and south plazas .... our island, north plazas, was teeeeetiny ....and south plazas was even smaller .... no one is allowed on south plazas ... i'm sure it's loaded with similar lizards and sealions and birds that we saw on north plazas ....

on south plazas we were greeted by loads and loads of sea lions ... it was lovely and loud with them swimming and sitting and carrying on and barking and diving and rolling ...  we saw a juvenile, not a baby, harass its mother until she gave in and nursed ... it was quite dear to see .... we saw a HUGE male, surely the leader of the pack ....

we tried to obey the rules of staying two meters away from wildlife, but as usual, it just wasn't always possible ... especially when the young sealion approaches you .... his mom was not happy at all that he was being so adventurous and breaking the rules ....

42nd post ... about a trip where i was gone 8 days ... hmmmm

so here is a break from the galapagosness of the trip and a bit about the vacationiness .... after our hike, bike and kayak day, we came home to our galapagos home .... the safari camp was same and sweet as ever ... we snacked, showered, napped, read, wrote .... it was wednesday night, the middle of our trip, and i actually caught up on my journal writing .... sophie finished her first harry potter book ( i can now tell you, weeks later, that she is on book five ... that's a lot of reading done!)

we played chess before dinner and then we had our favorite galapagos dinner to date .... appetizer: salad and homemade chicken tenders .... dinner: mushroom pasta carbonara .... dessert: strawberry mousse, mandarina mousse, in a martini glass, with filaments of glass candy stretching up out of it .... fancy! gorgeous! delish!

over breakfast the next day, we marveled again at how well we were being fed! how extraordinary the food is at the galapagos safari camp ..... chocolate pancakes! .... fresh fruit plate! ... cheese and meats and fancy breads ..... and best of all, these cheesy, doughy, small, warm, round balls of breakfast perfection ... we were all in love with them  .... yum ...

ok ... back to the galapagos adventure part:

after breakfast, jaime took us to our yate narel drop off .... we got on the bus with alejandro and headed off to the boat ... onto the panga (don't forget to pout on your lifejacket) ... and to the boat ... and off we went to snorkel ... different than our other boat days, we were snorkeling first ....

 also different than our other boat days, there was no landing, no beach, no spot to rest .....the boat anchored in the channel between santa cruz and baltra ( i think ) .... we got on the panga and were taken around a point and told to jump in and swim back ... where we were dropped, you could not see the boat that we were meant to be swimming back to ... and it seemed very, very, very, very, very, very far to swim ..... we complicated thing by breaking one of our masks ... but alejandro had a spare for us .... have i said, lately, how well he took care of us?

luckily, this was our third day of snorkeling and the kids were confident ... if this had been our first day activity, it would have been much harder to talk them into the water!! in fact, one couple on our boat, traveling with their adult (though very young) daughter, were planning to snorkel, but then when they say where and what and how far, they changed their minds ... basically, i was super proud of my kids ....especially since two of them are usually more cautious than brave .... not criticizing there ... cautious is good ... and easier to parent than brave!!

 

 this photo below is arturo, our panga driver and first mate ... while he did some snorkeling (WOW he can hold his breath) alejandro stayed on the panga above water ....

 we swam for a LONG LONG time ... and it was the coldest water of our trip, i think .... part of the swimming time, sophie got out of the water and into the little boat ... it was similar to our biking the day before, we had someone following to pick up stragglers .. sophie wasn't straggling, but when she needed to rest, she did ... alejandro and arturo let her steer for a bit ...

 we saw no penguins, flamingos, sealions, extraordinary things ... but there was one shark sighting, multiple rays, and OH MY GOODNESS the fish ... the fish here were far more extraordinary than at the other snorkel spots ... maybe because the other big creatures weren't around to bother (and eat) them ....

 there was one particular school of fish that BLEW MY wee MIND ....  i think there were a million of them ... conservatively ... if you told me there were three million, i'd believe you ... it was an enormous school of not so big fish ... silvery white, not stunning in their look at all ... but the stream of them was thick and endless .... endless ... millions of fish ... andy and i were right next to each other, stunned together, and he kept swimming into them .... i have ten pictures of the fish parted, andy NOT in the frame,  where i tried to take pictures of him IN them ... to no avail ... that underwater camera's hang time to the click is infinitely long ... this is the only pic with him in the frame ...

we hiked, we biked, then we kayaked ... but first we had to walk there ....

 after our tour de galapagos, we hopped off our bikes, gave them to the bike guy that had led us down the mountain in his truck .... and there we were at the entrance to the beach .... and the entrance was a narrow path opening .... 

so right off the bikes, we took off our helmets, gathered some things from jaime's following van... things like sunscreen and hats .... and off we walked to our next adventure ..... at el garrapaterro beach on the northern coast of santa cruz ... close to bella vista .....

 we walked half a mile to the beach ... galapagos park designators pay no mind to parking close to where you are going .... all parking lots are far from where you are intending to go!

the ocean was gorgeous ... we saw the same three dutch men from our boat ride the day before and the hike in the morning ... they weren't kayaking though, and seemed surprised by how active we were being ....

and then we kayaked ... we started with dora the explorer and e, drew and jj, andy and so .... midway, after much to do, jj switched to dora's boat and i went to drew .... just in case you are wondering, i did not abandon dora ... she was not tipping me over on purpose .... she was not jumping off the boat and leaving me alone in the front ... she was not trying to get tipped by waves intentionally ....but perhaps those are the reasons jj abandoned ship ....

drew wins the award for most inefficient kayaker ..... andy and so had the best boating success ....

we kayaked long and hard and far ... heading out to a far lagoon was tough .... but, thankfully, getting back was a breeze ... riding the waves in was fun ....

and above? it could have been our christmas picture this year .... so, jj, e, a, and drew in the back ..... i think the combination of water on the lens, rocking boat, and dora figuring out a camera ... and there you go ... a little blurry ....

an interesting bit about this beach: it used to be a place to go visit flamingos in the wild .... but, the last tsunami here left the flamingo pond brackish and unsuitable for flamingos ... so there are none left ... presumably they all flew off and found more suitable homes .... tsunamis have been in the news a lot in the last couple of years .... seemingly new to our news cycle, but they are fairly common occurrences ...  here is an interesting blog post of a tsunami day in the galapagos .... our hotel, galapagos safari camp, is in the highlands, and many people evacuated to it, including our guide, dora ....