Ecuador Day 8 - Galapagos Fernandina and the Equator

We crossed the equator twice last night, as we sailed over the north end of seahorse shaped Isabela. This morning we visited Fernandina, the youngest island in the Galapagos. In geologic terms, it’s an infant. Its volcano last erupted two years ago, to the other side of the island than where we visited.  Similar to Hawaii, the Galápagos Islands were formed by a common hot spot. In Hawaii, the oldest islands are to the west while the Big Island, the furthest east, still has a very active volcano. We’ve walked on lava there where we could feel the heat of the new rock through our shoes, and saw a small tree burst into flames when slowly oozing lava reached its base. In the Galapagos, the Nazca plate above the hot spot moves in the opposite direction from Hawaii’s. So the oldest islands are to the east. In a million years, Fernandina will have moved 37 miles southwest and a new island will have emerged. While Isabela and Fernandina have active volcanoes, nothing dramatic is going on right now. We could, however, see steam from one of Isabela’s volcanos, which hovered as a low cloud belt around the mountain. 

Isabela is in the distance. 

We landed on the northwest corner of Fernandina and set off on a hike over the lava. The lava flow is from an 1820 eruption that startled a bunch of people who were visiting the island. After quickly abandoning the island and sailing into water that began to boil, the winds stopped and they thought their goose (and everything else) was cooked. Luckily, they were rescued, lived to tell the tale, and that’s how we know what year the lava was formed. 

Fernandina has by far the largest population of marine iguanas in all the Galapagos - probably around 40% of them all. Estimates range from 15,000 to over 100,000. We saw a mess of them. Literally. (The collective noun for a group of iguanas is a “mess”.) And messy they are. They gather in big heaps, occasionally spitting (the way they excrete excess salt from feeding in sea water). Mostly they are frozen in silent contemplation of something or nothing, but occasionally they wander into the water, leaving tail tracks behind. Or they clamber over each other to get that little bit of extra body heat from a neighbor, or get that much closer to the equatorial sun. The biggest males bounce their heads like bobble heads to intimidate their rivals and show they are not to be trifled with. All around is a certain “je ne sais qua” in the air: eau de iguana. 

The sandy places will soon become an iguana incubator. The females bury their eggs in the sand, and then they’re on their own. We did see a few baby iguanas, but the main laying season is still to come. 

When a Bryde’s whale beached itself on the island about 20 years ago, naturalists buried the carcass in the sand. Two years later, they dug it up and discovered only clean white bones remained. The spinal cord was moved some distance from the water, and is slowly degrading in the tropical sun. The discs between the vertebrae are the size of lunch plates. 

One of the true pioneer plants here is the Galapagos lava cactus. A few seeds managed to make it onto the lava and germinate. As the branches flower and die, they fall to the ground and decompose into the first traces of soil. Eventually other seeds will make their way into the new soil and begin to take hold. 

Several sensors have been placed around the island to monitor seismic activity. Animals in the area can also sense when an eruption may occur. 

The iguana skeleton was, unsurprisingly, quite flexible. Most interesting were the three-pointed teeth.

Seal pup grabbing a snack

Big mess of iguanas

Razer snake. Harmless to people, but lethal to small lava lizards and other little critters. Galapagos snakes are constrictors, who squeeze their prey until they suffocate. 

We also saw a flightless cormorant and a solitary little Galápagos penguin. 

We returned to the ship just in time to suit up for some deep water snorkeling. Water temperature was a chilly 66 degrees. My hands were cold for a while afterwards, but once we got moving, the rest of me was fine. I liked this water entry and exit much better from the zodiac. You slide off the side to get in, and climb up a short ladder to return to the zodiac. Much smoother, much less gritty. 

We were told our snorkeling site was one of the most remote parts of the Galapagos. The water here, as yesterday, is not as clear as tropical seas. The cooler temperatures support the growth of plankton and other suspended particles. But the wildlife was great, and we saw things you don’t commonly see off of, say, the coast of Bermuda. There were marine iguanas skimming along the surface, their heads protruding from the water. We saw a couple of large pale rays, and several sea turtles. 

The Pacific green turtle can weigh over 330 lbs and have a shell length over 4 ft. 

This out-of-focus beauty is a sunflower sea star. They range in color from brown to purple, orange or yellow red. The can reach up to 3.3 ft in diameter, though I’d guess this one was about half that. The number of legs can vary from as few as 5 to a few dozen like the specimen below. 

I was having fun with our new underwater camera, hovering over a sea turtle who decided it was time to take a breath.

I loved how her colors changed as she reached the sunlight. She surfaced so close to me that I had to paddle backwards to avoid touching her. I lifted my face from the water and looked over at the guy who popped up next to me. We both just grinned. 

Back to the boat with enough time to shower, eat lunch and head to a talk from the resident author, Susan Orlean. She gave a talk last evening, sort of an informal book club gathering to discuss the origin story of her collection of essays, “On Animals”. Today she spoke about the boundaries crossed and ethical concerns when humans take a wild animal and use it in situations that render it not exactly tame, but unequipped to ever live a truly free life. I was excited to see she was going to be a guest speaker on the ship, and enjoyed getting to hear her speak.

We cruised past a collapsed crater and adjacent smaller volcano at the tip of Isabela’s seahorse nose (see map above). Tomorrow we’ll be at the belly button and chest. 

Greg stayed in our cabin all day because he wasn’t feeling well. He took a COVID test in our cabin this afternoon, and it was positive. The doctor’s office is next door to our cabin, so he went to see her. The test was confirmed. She tested me; I was negative. So I packed everything up and was moved to a cabin on the top floor. I’ll be tested again in 48 hours. In the meantime, I can continue activities, eat in the dining room, and am supposed to mask in public areas (which I do anyway). I’m hoping that my bout last month boosted my immunity enough that I’ll stay negative, but there are lots of new strains evolving so we shall see. Greg didn’t get sick when I got it, and he had the bivalent booster just a couple weeks before this trip. There is no logic to this disease. 

He’s doing fine so far. A dry cough and headache. The doctor will check on him a couple times a day. We’re both hoping it continues to be a mild case. 

The NG Endeavour II detoured north in the late afternoon for an another equator crossing, this time when everyone was awake. Thankfully, there were none of the shenanigans to which sailers of yore were subjected for their first crossing of the imaginary line. It was a lovely evening for wine tasting and music on the top deck. There was a countdown to the moment. A couple of our guides rushed to unfurl a long ribbon across the deck, and everyone crossed under in a kind of limbo maneuver. It was silly, but fun, and obligatory to receive our official pin commemorating the occasion. They even had a special equator drink. (Greg was following our progress from our cabin with his GPS.).