Thursday, January 3, 2019; Coleta Tortuga Negra and Las Bachas, Santa Cruz Island

 Thursday, January 3, 2019; Coleta Tortuga Negra and Las Bachas, Santa Cruz Island

After the breakneck pace of the last several days, today should be more relaxing.  The weather has changed, with the blue sky and bright equatorial sun taking front and center stage.  

We found ourselves anchored off the north end of Santa Cruz Island, within sight of the 3 wind turbines that mark the Baltra Island Airport.  There is also a freighter visible unloading its wares between Baltra and Santa Cruz islands.  Our anchorage at Coleta Tortuga Negra stands several hundred yards out from the reefs that protect the mangroves that rim this cove.  There are areas where the white sand can be seen through the emerald green water, in stark contrast to the black basalt that forms the reef. 

Breakfast was at 7:00AM and featured savory yellow potato pancakes with eggs sunny side up and the usual papaya and pineapple platter.  There has also been toast, cereals, and yogurt available each morning.  All our coffee drinkers  have  gotten the hang of the Saeco Lirika espresso and coffee maker, and are appreciative of the quality of the coffee service, although if decaf is your bag, it’s only available as freeze dried.  

Great Blue Heron in Mangroves.

Our 8:00AM excursion took the form of a Zodiac ride into the mangrove lined cove.  There are pelicans, brown noddies and blue footed boobies actively fishing the shoals that lie within the cove.  This area seems to support a tremendous amount of bait fish, and species that feed on them.  Sometimes, you can see the water boil above some of the shallower reefs as snappers and mullet chase the smaller bait to the surface to feed on them. It was also something to see the blue footed boobies making very shallow angle high speed dives to feed on the fish that were so close to the surface without crashing into the underlying reef.  We had several opportunities to improve our booby photo collections as several were hanging out on a rocky outcropping near the entrance to the mangrove lined cove.  

Blue Footed Booby on reef.

There are a lot of sea turtles both swimming and mating in this area.  It was possible to see tortuga very close to our anchored boat as they typically had a coupled pair in the center of a group of 3-5 tortuga.  Nadine explained that multiple males take turns with the poor female, who has to struggle to get a breath of air as the males ride on top of her.  As we motored into the sheltered part of the cove, we saw a couple sea turtles splashing and struggling on the surface. It looked like there was some biting going on between them.  

This cove is a nursery for fish fry. We could see schools of fry as small as an inch in length swimming about.  There are also some small black tipped shark that can be seen swimming under the surface.  

As we got into the sheltered part of the cove, the water became quite murky, precluding visualization of the muddy bottom and underwater photography.  In addition to the shark, there are lots of small puffer fish that swim near the surface and are easy to spot. We motored across open parts of the cove, while hand oars were used in the smaller side branches.  There were several areas where everyone had to duck down low so we could glide under the mangrove canopy.  

Brown Noddy

Pelican in breeding plumage

Blue Footed Booby regards us.

Blue Footed Booby

Blue Footed Booby

Blue Footed Booby

The warmer temperatures were easily appreciated by most of our group on the Zodiac ride.  This tempered our enthusiasm for spending 2 hours on the white sand beach at Las Bachas, which was scheduled for the afternoon.  

After returning to the Galaxy II, we had lunch, which featured chicken, beef, and fava bean salad.  Pasta with pesto sauce, red cabbage salad, ripe tomato slices, baby corn and marinated mushrooms were available sides.  Dessert was a Jackfruit cocktail that was very sweet.  We motored the short distance from Coleta Tortuga Negra to Las Bachas after lunch.  

Tortugas putting rabbits to shame.

Getting a round of Bang! before the afternoon starts.

Las Bachas appears to be a very busy and relatively crowded destination.  One of the guide books in the living room area describe this as a popular beach, which is frequently the first tour destination for land based Galapagos tours from Santa Cruz and boats based in Baltra Island.  As we finished lunch, several small boats arrived and dropped anchor nearby.  They ferried their passengers ashore about 1:30PM. We are scheduled to go ashore at 2:30PM, and to do a walking/hike of the area at 4:00PM, when the light and temperature will be more suitable for best viewing.  We negotiated with Nadine to allow those who didn’t want to roast in the sun on the beach to remain aboard the boat until the hiking time.  About half the group ended relaxing on the boat while the other half went on shore to swim and enjoy some beach time.

The beach at Las Bachas is a nice fine white sand beach made up of coral sand.  It didn’t have the rough gravel like the red beach we landed on yesterday had.  We learned that Las Bachas got its name from a US Navy barge that wrecked on the beach during WWII.  The locals mispronounced barge as bachas, and the name stuck.  Las Bachas is actually a couple of beaches strung together separated by dikes of lava flows extending out into the water.  Those that did swim reported seeing some fish, but the fine sand and surf action limited visibility.  Those who stayed on the boat enjoyed the shade of the sun deck cover, and a view of turtles and rays swimming in the waters around the boat.  

When 4:00PM rolled around, everyone was delivered to the beach for our interpretive hike.  We learned from Nadine that this particular beach is favored by sea turtles for nesting because the white sands offer optimal temperatures for incubation of their eggs.  These sea turtles are something like salmon in that they return to their place of birth to lay their eggs, and individual sea turtles return to the same part of the same beach season after season.  These sea turtles are prolific in producing about 80 eggs per clutch, and a female may lay several clutches of eggs each year.  We learned to recognize the tracks left by sea turtles climbing up the beach, and then returning back to the water.  This is a nocturnal activity. 

Nadine demonstrates how sea turtles build their nests.

A turtle went up this dune last night.

The eggs hatch after 3-4 months.  Any turtles that hatch during daylight will be eaten by various animals including frigate birds, hawks, noddies, snakes and hermit crabs.  Only those that hatch out during the dead of night will stand a chance at making it into the ocean.  We could see the turtle tracks leading to the nesting areas, which were out of bounds.  

Lava Gull

Pintail duck

We walked over the beach dune to visit the brackish pond on its backside, where there were a few marine iguanas and shore birds. There were no sea lions despoiling this brackish pond.  Nadine explained that the iguanas prefer to sleep around the brackish pond because it is generally warmer.  We saw a couple new birds around this pond including a lava gull, pintail ducks and black-necked stilts.

We then walked down the beach and explored some tide pools where we saw small endemic hermit crabs that had black legs with a bright red stripe like piping on trouser legs.  

There were a lot of wading birds including turnstones and plovers working the tide pools.  

Ireland of the Galapagos

The lava forming the tide pools were remarkably slippery, belying the rough gross appearance of the lava surface. There is a thin film of very slippery algae coating the black lava.  There are interesting formations of the lava in this area including ridges and areas with hexagonal tiles that will someday become basalt columns.  

Nadine points out interesting creatures in the tide pools.

Unlike the tide pools we have in the Pacific Northwest, these tide pools are devoid of barnacles, anemones or mussels.  These warmer temperatures must make the tide pools too warm to sustain the organisms we have in our tide pools.

As we walked back, we saw a school of rays swimming along the beach, and at one point, they got swept up in a cresting wave so that we could see them in the wave.  That was pretty cool. We had also seen a 4’ long shark swimming towards the beach, disappearing into the turbid waters above the surf line.

The boat motored a short distance from Las Bachas to Baltra Island marina, just next to the airport, where the boat dropped anchor.  We dinner featuring either chicken with plum sauce or amber jack steak with asparagus.  Dessert was key lime pie.

Several people watched a movie called The Galapagos Affair- Satan Came to Eden, a murder mystery based on a true life story from the 1930’s.  

The crew disembarked along with Konrad, Drake, Riley, Ciara and Tom to provide a cheering section and relief players for the Galaxy II soccer team.  

Tomorrow is our last full day in the Galapagos, and will start with a 6:00AM wake up, dry landing at Bahia Sullivan on Santiago at 6:30AM to explore some lava flows, breakfast at 8:00AM, 9:30AM deep water snorkeling, and lunch at noon.  The boat will then motor to Isla Bartolome Island for more deep water snorkeling at 2:00PM, a dry landing at 3:45PM followed by a Zodiac ride, and then our final farewell briefing.  It looks like we will wind up our tour with a bang.