Wednesday, January 2, 2019; Puerto Egas- Santiago Island and Rabida Island

Wednesday, January 2, 2019; Puerto Egas, Santiago Island and Rabida Island   

We had the luxury of sleeping in until 7:00AM after the ship did a lot of rocking during its transit from Punta Vicente Roca on Isabela Island to our anchorage in Puerto Egas on Santiago Island.  The ship dropped anchor around 2:30AM.  

We awoke to calm water with two boats anchored near by, and evidence of prior human habitation on the headland above the beach.  There was a water tank and rotted out cottage where people had lived while mining salt from a nearby caldera basin.     Breakfast featured scrambled eggs and banana pancakes.   

Marine Iguana takes his morning beach stroll

Marine Iguana takes his morning beach stroll/swim.

Our morning activities started with a wet landing onto a fine sandy beach.  As we prepared to board the Zodiacs, we watched storm petrels doing their peculiar dance on the surface of the calm water where they appear to dance on the surface with their non-webbed feet with wings outstretched, pecking quickly at something near the surface of the water.  This is a peculiar behavior that is quite interesting to observe from the boat. 

A storm petrel does it's curious water ballet.

The sand on this beach is composed mostly of decomposed volcanic ash sediments which form sedimentary sandstone like formations on the headlands. There is a natural bridge formation at the end of the beach that looks like a miniaturized version of the Lands End formation that Cabo San Lucas is so famous for.  There is also some decomposed lava mixed in, along with bits of shell and pencil urchin spines. 

   

As we prepared for the day, it began to rain, so we donned our rain gear for the first time on this trip. We made a wet landing onto the beach, which proved to be much finer in texture than the beach we did our last wet landing on.  This meant it was not necessary to change from Teva or Keen sandals into other shoes because the sandals didn’t fill up with coarse and and rocks.

It was raining pretty steadily for a while, getting us wet, but thanks to the temperature around 78 degrees, it was not uncomfortable.

We walked along the beach and rounded the corner to a vista of small tidal pools and coves formed by lava fingers extending out into the sea. There was a small tidal pool that connected with the ocean via a narrow channel.  Inside this little pool were several sea lion pups that were having the time of their lives.

Beyond the sea lion pup play pool were other tidal pools being worked by oyster catchers, a blue heron, lava herons, turnstones and other wading shore birds.  One of the lava herons came right up among us looking for crabs in the fissures of the lava we were walking on.   There was another formation that looked like an elevated jacuzzi tub for sally foot crabs. 

A little further down the beach, there was a finger of lava extending out into the water with natural land bridges and a hidden tunnel that emerged under a bowl that the locals nick named “Darwin’s Toilet”, which demonstrates a remarkably regular flushing and draining action, with an occasional blow hole waterspout action with particularly strong swells.  The water under the land bridges was an incredible emerald color, and this was teaming with sea lions playing in the current and surf.  Hiding next to one of the land bridges overlooking a seal grotto was a yellow crowned night heron.   

Darwin's Toilet

Darwin's Toilet

Darwin's Toilet

Land bridges and sea lion grottos

Land bridges and sea lion grottos

Land bridges and sea lion grottos

Land bridges and sea lion grottos

Land bridges and sea lion grottos

Yellow Crowned Night Heron

The brown sedimentary lava formations were atop black basalt with large pores.  This created an interesting landscape. Just above the beach was an area that had been flooded by storms several years ago. 

The vegetation was recovering, with a grove of young white barked incense trees.  It had just started raining within the last few weeks, so these incense trees were just budding out with bright green foliage. Within this foliage were finch nests.  We got to watch a male Galapagos finch with black plumage preparing a nest for a potential mate to check out. 

We were being followed by a pair of Galapagos flycatchers. One of these was particularly interested in Terri’s 400mm telephoto lens.  Perhaps it was seeing it’s reflection in the lens, but it flew up to the lens and actually landed on the lens shade to check it out up close while Terri was trying to take its buddy’s picture. 

  

Galapagos flycatcher

We looped back along a sandy trail that took us past a perched Galapagos hawk.  Not more than 200’ further down the trail were several Galapagos doves.  

Galapagos Hawk

Galapagos Dove

There are also prickly pear like cactus on this island, but they don’t grow nearly as tall as those found on Isabela island, and their spines aren’t nearly as stiff or sharp as those found on Isabela.  These are distinct species of cactus.  

Nadine pointed out a very low growing heather-like plant, Tiquilia nesiotica. It is a pioneer species in the Galapagos. We also spotted an abandoned honeycomb nest left by an invasive wasp that the National Park service has been working on eradicating.     

We reboarded the Zodiacs with our wet departure technique and shuttled back to the boat to change into our snorkeling gear and grab some Oreos or Chips Ahoy cookies for a quick snack. We are getting more facile at getting into and out of our wet suits, and will soon be spitting salt out of our nostrils like our marine iguana cousins.  

The Zodiacs shuttled us back out to just south of the Puerto Egas marker, where we entered the water.  We worked our way back to the north east edge of Puerto Egas.  Along the way, several of our party, including Nadine, spotted 3 white tipped sharks.  Drake found a medium sized octopus hiding under a rock, while Mark B managed to find a huge conch shell. John found a nice flag cabrilla lurking under a shelf. The sea lions seemed a bit more shy around us at this site.  

Flag Cabrilla fish

Black Striped Salema- Favorite food of Galapagos penguins.

It began raining quite hard while we were in the water.  We could actually hear the sound of the rainfall underwater. John tried to dive down into a large school of salema, only to find that it was impossible to penetrate the school, which moved like there was an invisible shield forming a barrier just 18” beyond his fingertips.

  

Lunch featured an octopus chili, ham steaks, cucumber salad and parsnips. We motored to Rabida island as we ate lunch. There was a short period of downtime before our arrival where the Price’s Nintendo switch came out to entertain him, Konrad, Drake, Ciara and John.  Others were reading or napping.   

When we arrived at Rabida island, we were greeted by an enormous red cliff face with brick red beach.  The cliff face appeared to have been part of a caldera that had collapsed into the sea.  

We got back into our snorkeling gear and the Zodiacs took us around a point where we put into the water.  We snorkeled our way around the rocky point back to the red beach area. Some of the group did spot some white tipped sharks. 

Galapagos mullet school streams by just under the surface.

Mexican Hogfish wearing lipstick?

Parrotfish. Can you spot the octopus?

There was also an octopus, lots of different kinds of sea stars in all sorts of colors, and even a few sightings of the shy Galapagos eel, which lives in burrows in the sand, and look like blades of grass sticking up out of the sand. There were of course innumerable schools of surgeon fish, parrot fish, wrasse, hog fish, black striped salema and snappers.  Two more unusual fish were a stone scorpion fish and hieroglyphic hawkfish.

Spot the Stonefish?

Hieroglyphic hawkfish.

Once we rounded the point and approached the red sand beach, the Zodiacs picked us up and we returned to the Galaxy II for a quick shower and change into our wet landing hiking clothes.  

We did a wet landing on the red beach.  There was a single emaciated looking sea lion pup near the top of the beach while a couple of older sea lions fooled around in the surf.

We found holes in the beach that gave away the location of some industrious, if shy ghost crabs. This time, I managed to snap one's picture.  These crabs feed by sucking organic material out of the sand, leaving little pellets of sand radiating around their burrows.

Our hike took us over the top of the red beach to a lagoon occupied by a lone Galapagos sea lion resting with one fin prominently held up in the air, while the rest of him was submerged in the shallow water. 

Nessie of Rabida Island?

It was his impression of a great white shark or possibly the Loch Ness monster.  It was almost comical.  There were a few wading birds hunting insects around the salt crusted edges of this lagoon.  

This area had been populated in the past by flamingos, but several years ago, male sea lions had discovered it, and taken it over.  They were noisy and obnoxious neighbors, so the flamingos left, and never returned.  Apparently, humans aren’t the only ones responsible for environmental disturbances. 

As we left the lagoon area, we were greeted by a family of Galapagos mocking birds.  There appeared to be two adults and a teenager chick that was making a racket and begging to be fed by the adults.  They must have had a nest near by. 

    

We started climbing out of the lagoon area and had an overview of the vertical strata of vegetation. The lowest area around the lagoon is populated by salt tolerant plants like the Mangrove and other bushes.  This area stays green. Above this was an area that was a more desert environment with very little rainfall. This is populated by cacti and incense trees, which appeared ghostly white.  The recent beginning of the wet season has put a few bright green buds on some of these trees.  Far above this area is a another band of green, kept that way by fog precipitation and condensation during the so-called dry season.

  

We spied a Galapagos racer snake, a constrictor, sunning himself on the rust colored rocks. He fortunately wasn't in a mood to give us chase.  

Our hike took us on a loop to the top of a ridge, to an overlook on the far side, then back over the ridge down to the red beach.  

Lichens growing in the incense trees.

This little fella popped up on the trail right behind us.

We watched a group of pelicans diving into the surf close to the beach, catching their dinner, while brown noddies loitered around hoping to pick up any dropped catch. 

Gang of brown noddies circle the pelicans.

Brown noddy keeping an eye on the pelicans.

Yellow crowned night heron stalks nearby.

Pelican and Rabida tree cactus.

Take only pictures. Leave only footprints.

Rabida's red sand, upper surf line.

The Zodiacs picked us up in the surf, and we returned to the Galaxy II.   

Adios Isla Rabida

We showered and dressed for our daily briefing as the boat motored to our next stop Caleta Tortuga Negra, on Santa Cruz Island.  There was a strong swell surging north to south as we traversed west to east. This resulted in rather severe rocking of the boat, despite it’s catamaran design.  There were just a hand full of frigate birds that followed us briefly, but as the ship began swinging side to side, they abandoned their unstable perches on our radar arch and eventually flew off.  

We carefully headed down, and staged a minor mutiny to insist on the briefing be moved from the windowless forward briefing room to the living room area in front of the bar. There we could see out the windows to help prevent a repeat of the sea sickness epidemic that occurred after the last briefing in the briefing room under similar sea conditions.  

We will have a rather relaxed day tomorrow with a morning Zodiac ride, and afternoon wet landing for casual swimming on a beach. That seems like a radical departure from our breakneck pace of activities so far.  A day without two snorkeling excursions will make us feel like slackers. Perhaps it will be a welcome break.  

We wound up the evening with more Mexican Train and Hearts.