Urbina Bay & Punta Moreno, Southern Isabela Island
We slept all night, peacefully anchored off Fernandina Island. Captain Wilfido had the boson hoist the anchor at 5:00 a.m. and it was a short, smooth navigation across to the shore of southern Isabela, at the base of Volcan Alcedo. Gazing up the steep slopes of this volcano, I am flooded with emotions and memories. Two decades ago I lived in a tent on the rim of this crater for a year and a half while researching possible competition between the introduced donkeys and the endemic giant tortoises.
There are an estimated 5000 + tortoises inhabiting Volcan Alcedo, and during the 1980’s a competitor far more destructive than the donkeys reached this crater from the farmlands and towns in the south: goats. They thrived in the green highlands of Alcedo and rapidly spread to the northern volcanoes of Darwin and Wolf. By the early 2000’s there were over 50, 000 goats on the island! Happily both the goats and the donkeys have now been eradicated and the northern three volcanoes are free of these introduced herbivores. We found several goat skulls and bone as we hiked, evidence of the successful eradication project. Better yet, we were delighted to find one of the Alcedo tortoises – a large female – who was parked in the shade below a Cordia bush along the trail at Urbina Bay.
This morning we offered long hike and short hike options. The weather was splendid: cool, with a cloud cover for the inland hike, and then the sun came out when we returned to the beach and were ready for a swim. Both the long hikers and the short found large colorful land iguanas that readily posed for countless close up photos, a hawk’s nest, many Darwin finches and a few mocking birds. Many of our guests enjoyed a dip in the refreshingly chilly ocean before returning to the ship for lunch.
The afternoon options were a lava hike or a panga ride. The hikers made a dry landing directly on the expansive lava flows that stretch between Sierra Negra and Cerro Azul. The surprise on this hike is a handful of brackish lagoons where we observed common gallinules, a half dozen brilliant pink flamingoes – incongruous in the middle of the barren lava fields – and a couple of feeding pintail ducks. Highlights of the panga ride were nesting cormorants and pelicans, rays and sea turtles, penguins both on land and in the water and a pile of humongous marine iguanas sunning in the last rays of the setting sun.
We slept all night, peacefully anchored off Fernandina Island. Captain Wilfido had the boson hoist the anchor at 5:00 a.m. and it was a short, smooth navigation across to the shore of southern Isabela, at the base of Volcan Alcedo. Gazing up the steep slopes of this volcano, I am flooded with emotions and memories. Two decades ago I lived in a tent on the rim of this crater for a year and a half while researching possible competition between the introduced donkeys and the endemic giant tortoises.
There are an estimated 5000 + tortoises inhabiting Volcan Alcedo, and during the 1980’s a competitor far more destructive than the donkeys reached this crater from the farmlands and towns in the south: goats. They thrived in the green highlands of Alcedo and rapidly spread to the northern volcanoes of Darwin and Wolf. By the early 2000’s there were over 50, 000 goats on the island! Happily both the goats and the donkeys have now been eradicated and the northern three volcanoes are free of these introduced herbivores. We found several goat skulls and bone as we hiked, evidence of the successful eradication project. Better yet, we were delighted to find one of the Alcedo tortoises – a large female – who was parked in the shade below a Cordia bush along the trail at Urbina Bay.
This morning we offered long hike and short hike options. The weather was splendid: cool, with a cloud cover for the inland hike, and then the sun came out when we returned to the beach and were ready for a swim. Both the long hikers and the short found large colorful land iguanas that readily posed for countless close up photos, a hawk’s nest, many Darwin finches and a few mocking birds. Many of our guests enjoyed a dip in the refreshingly chilly ocean before returning to the ship for lunch.
The afternoon options were a lava hike or a panga ride. The hikers made a dry landing directly on the expansive lava flows that stretch between Sierra Negra and Cerro Azul. The surprise on this hike is a handful of brackish lagoons where we observed common gallinules, a half dozen brilliant pink flamingoes – incongruous in the middle of the barren lava fields – and a couple of feeding pintail ducks. Highlights of the panga ride were nesting cormorants and pelicans, rays and sea turtles, penguins both on land and in the water and a pile of humongous marine iguanas sunning in the last rays of the setting sun.
