Isabela & Fernandina Islands
We sailed about a hundred nautical miles in a north-westerly direction overnight, after two exciting days spent exploring the southern part of the Galápagos Archipelago, to cross the equator line and awake just to the north of the large island of Isabela, alongside a remote rocky outcrop called Roca Redonda due to its seemingly round shape from a distance. This rock was immortalized by Herman Melville in his short Piazza Tales, as he wrote about his powerful impressions of the area – he anchored in the lee of this rock and actually climbed to the top of the sheer 500-foot cliffs! Nowadays, this remnant of a once-huge volcano, most of which has collapsed into the ocean, is home to hundreds of sea birds that nest in the towering cliffs and feed in the surrounding waters. These include such unique species as Galápagos shearwaters, storm petrels, red-billed tropicbirds, Nazca boobies, frigates and the endemic swallow-tailed gulls.
After taking in this impressive sight, we sailed on towards the main island of Isabela, home to fascinating geology and even more mesmerizing wildlife! In this area, not only are we situated right on top of the Galápagos hot spot, so surrounded by active volcanoes and islands still in formation, but we are also in areas of abundant upwellings of the nutrient-rich Cromwell Current and thus a haven for marine life. Among the sightings both from Zodiacs and in the water we were delighted to be able to count both endemic Galápagos pinnipeds (Galápagos sea lion and fur seal), both our endemic flightless birds (the penguin and the flightless cormorant), the largest and the most numerous of the marine iguanas and countless sea turtles everywhere we looked. We were also excited by the astonishing sighting of the largest and strangest of the bony fishes: the enormous oceanic sunfish.
The late afternoon found us exploring possibly the largest completely pristine island in the world – the true jewel in the crown of the Galápagos, and the island that really shows us how this unusual world all began – Fernandina. We strolled along naked black lava flows, marvelling at the fluidity of the patterns in the stone and startled by the realization that some of the lava was in fact pile of iguanas! The low tides exposed mangrove areas and tidal pools, and the strange flightless cormorants tended their nests and stretched their stubby little relictual wings out against the oranges and purples of the sun setting on another magical day in the Galápagos.
We sailed about a hundred nautical miles in a north-westerly direction overnight, after two exciting days spent exploring the southern part of the Galápagos Archipelago, to cross the equator line and awake just to the north of the large island of Isabela, alongside a remote rocky outcrop called Roca Redonda due to its seemingly round shape from a distance. This rock was immortalized by Herman Melville in his short Piazza Tales, as he wrote about his powerful impressions of the area – he anchored in the lee of this rock and actually climbed to the top of the sheer 500-foot cliffs! Nowadays, this remnant of a once-huge volcano, most of which has collapsed into the ocean, is home to hundreds of sea birds that nest in the towering cliffs and feed in the surrounding waters. These include such unique species as Galápagos shearwaters, storm petrels, red-billed tropicbirds, Nazca boobies, frigates and the endemic swallow-tailed gulls.
After taking in this impressive sight, we sailed on towards the main island of Isabela, home to fascinating geology and even more mesmerizing wildlife! In this area, not only are we situated right on top of the Galápagos hot spot, so surrounded by active volcanoes and islands still in formation, but we are also in areas of abundant upwellings of the nutrient-rich Cromwell Current and thus a haven for marine life. Among the sightings both from Zodiacs and in the water we were delighted to be able to count both endemic Galápagos pinnipeds (Galápagos sea lion and fur seal), both our endemic flightless birds (the penguin and the flightless cormorant), the largest and the most numerous of the marine iguanas and countless sea turtles everywhere we looked. We were also excited by the astonishing sighting of the largest and strangest of the bony fishes: the enormous oceanic sunfish.
The late afternoon found us exploring possibly the largest completely pristine island in the world – the true jewel in the crown of the Galápagos, and the island that really shows us how this unusual world all began – Fernandina. We strolled along naked black lava flows, marvelling at the fluidity of the patterns in the stone and startled by the realization that some of the lava was in fact pile of iguanas! The low tides exposed mangrove areas and tidal pools, and the strange flightless cormorants tended their nests and stretched their stubby little relictual wings out against the oranges and purples of the sun setting on another magical day in the Galápagos.
