Thursday, June 24 1999 - Fernandina Island  -  Cabo Douglas

Hello fellow travelers,

we are now back in the central part of the archipelago, anchored at Cap Douglas, to the north west of the Island of Fernandina. Fernandina is the youngest of Galapagos Islands, less than 1 million years old, and is volcanically the most active, with eruptions occurring every 3 or 4 years. The last eruption was in 1995 when lava flowed down into the sea.

The sky is brilliant blue again today, and looks as if it will stay that way. The volcano rises gently up behind us, with the top part covered in mist (Garua). Down on the coast are black beaches made of volcanic sand. The greater part of the coast here is made up of old lavas that flowed down into the sea. Small red-brown scoria and spatter cones decorate the flanks of the volcano

Marine Iguana

This is again a good spot for diving, particularly for photographing Marine Iguanas feeding on Ulva. The photography crew is already out and about scouting for good sites, which has left us free for most of this morning.

Michael and Tom are back from filming, having got some good shots, but also having had a small drama. The surge had been so bad, washing them over the rocks that Michael’s weight belt had come off, and he was left to struggle with the camera and try to get his weight belt back on with one hand until Tom came over to help.

While all this was going on we had sort of ‘women’s team dive’, DJ, Monika, Veronica and myself. I was buddied up with Veronica, the visibility was not good, only about 3m and we lost sight of the other two, but this was not problem and we continued on, following our dive plan. In spite of the murky water there was plenty to see. Gringos in great numbers as usual, but also gleaming white, and bright orange Harlequin Wrasses (about 30cm, 1 ft long), and their equally colourful cousins, the Chameleon Wrasse (12cm, 5in long) which are orange, red and green with turquoise stripes. Scorpion Fish, Moray Eels, and Cushion Starfish, which were yellow with black spots.

The high spot of the dive was when a Galapagos Sea Lion came to play with us. She came nosing around us rather like a playful dog, standing on her head and blowing bubbles, and turning over and over, twisting around us. She was close enough to touch. This was something that I had hoped to experience and I was really delighted that we were in the right place at the right time. She shot off into the gloom, but was soon back again performing for us.

Once we surface we saw the Marine Iguanas, out on the rocks, sunning themselves and also a couple of Galapagos Penguins.

Late in the afternoon, we are heading across the northern side of the Island to Punto Espinosa, which is an area where one can go on land. With our usual impeccable timing we arrived just as the last big group of tourists left, so we had the island all to ourselves.

We landed on a narrow promontory composed of pahoehoe lava (ropey basalt lava) with intervening small, white organic beaches (composed of shells and sea urchin spines). Due to volcanic uplift in 1975 the promontory and the old landing stage are now about 50cm above their original level.

The lava extending down into the sea was completely covered with a carpet of bright green Ulva. Needless to say with so much food around, Marine Iguanas were everywhere clambering over the rocks, swimming in the tidal pools and munching on the seaweed. On land they were again stretched out basking together in large groups on the rocks. With their dark coloring and patches of dry pale dead skin they blended perfectly in with the dark basalt rocks - so much so that one had to careful not to tread on them by mistake. Among the living examples were also the mummified remains of the El Niño victims. Dried out corpses of Marine Iguanas that had starved to death as the waters warmed and the Ulva died.

taking a rest in a fork of a tree 

This promontory also has its fair share of sea lions - usually one Beach master to each tiny white cove of sand. We saw one big bull with 8 females. The bulls were all posturing and barking loudly, each defending their little patch of territory and harem of females.

One female had a tiny pup - born only a few hours previously. She lay stretched out on the beach with the tiny pup suckling.

Supposedly this was also a good spot for seeing the Flightless Cormorants, another sea bird endemic to the Galapagos, however we only saw one, and that from a distance. Also at a distance was a large, elegant ‘Great Blue Heron’, perched elegantly on the lava waiting for small fish to swim by.

As darkness fell we had to return to the boat, but will be anchoring here overnight, and so hopefully will gat a chance to see more in the morning

Signing off for today

Janet.