30 June 2008: After an afternoon of snorkeling with the sea lions and fish at Las Tintoreras, we walked around the town of Puerto Villamil, Isabela. In Galapagos, there is always something to see.

Oh, if you do go there, be sure to check out the local bakery where you can get yummy freshly baked bread and pastries. Our favorite was the sugar sticks. Their opening/closing times are irregular.

These mangrove trees have their roots exposed during low tide, but are submerged completely during high tide.

View from Hotel Albemarle

 The tiny fishing village of Puerto Villamil- hardly anyone around in the afternoon

 A lookout point

 Around Las Tintoreras

 Our Marine Iguana friend

Houses

 Grace

 Beach

Marine Iguana

The most wonderful thing we did in Galapagos was snorkeling in the clear waters. At Las Tintoreras, we had such a blast snorkeling with the sea lions! The playful sea lions absolutely love human company, and would swim so fast around us, blowing bubbles into our face, waving their flipper at us! How amazing is that! Plus, they look at you with such big round eyes, it made us almost want to hug them, but no, we weren’t allowed to touch them. There were at least ten sea lions in the area where we snorkeled, so almost everywhere we swam, we would encounter them. Many of them are almost as tall as us. We took videos of them underwater and some photos too.

It was such immense joy swimming with the playful and wild sea lions 

These sea lions are so playful in nature - they even picked up a tree branch and started playing with it among themselves.

Sea lions are not the only animals we encountered while snorkeling. In another spot, we snorkeled among a few white-tipped sharks and a large manta ray - another amazing experience. Plus, there were many colorful fish around too.

Grace looking out to sea

 The boat that took us here from Isabela island

 

Ah…Galapagos…the surprise doesn’t end. The Blue-footed Booby (Sula nebouxii excisa) is the bird one shouldn’t miss when visiting Galapagos. This booby has bright blue feet, and is such a beautiful bird. These large diving seabirds have dagger-like bills. We would usually see them flying in the air or diving into the sea in large numbers, but here around Las Tintoreras, we saw their nesting site. There are roughly 20,000 pairs of Blue-footed Boobies in the Galapagos, which is approximately half of the world’s population.

What’s spectacular to watch is their plunge diving into the sea to catch fish. We had never seen a bird diving straight into the water to catch fish before. The boobies are graceful when fishing in a flock and that is one of the main attractions of the Galapagos. They often start their dive from 15 meters or more and accelerate their dive by aiming towards the water before folding their wings and becoming arrow-like. We’ll show you the photos in another post.

Colonies of Blue-footed Boobies

29 and 30 June 2008: A short distance from Isabela island is a small island known as ‘Las Tintoreras’. It is here that we had one of the most amazing experiences of our lives, snorkeling with fish and sea mammals. Las Tintoreras is one of the main breeding sites for the unique marine iguanas. But we weren’t there just to see them. Also living here are some of the best known animals of Galapagos, such as sea lions, fur seals, blue-footed boobies, frigatebird, sea turtles, sharks, manta rays and penguins. No - we didn’t mistype, they do have penguins here! Although the waters of Galapagos are also renowned for their healthy populations of the largest marine animals such whales and dolphins, we didn’t get a chance to spot any of them.

We enjoyed Las Tintoreras so much that we went there twice. To get there, we had to hire someone to take us on a motorboat from Isabela. The boat ride took around 10 minutes, and along the way we saw sea lions swimming in the waters and also lying on top of fishing boats, and also spotted the Galapagos green turtle swimming near the water surface.

Pedro making sure that the videocam works fine inside the underwater case

The water is quite cold during the garua season, so we had to put on wet suits for snorkeling.

 

Sea lions are a common sight here!

The endemic Galapagos Sea Lion (Zalophus wollebacki) is found throughout the Galapagos islands and is the largest animal found on land in Galapagos. Their normal population is estimated to be around 50,000, but this can be reduced by a major El Nino event which affects their food supply severely. They have no fear of humans, and appear to like human company! They can be found anywhere around the islands.

See the sea lion in the water?

They are so playful and inquisitive, to the delight of many people.

 

Las Tintoreras

This area here is full of sharks resting, so to avoid disturbing them, no one is allowed to swim in this particular spot.

 

Galapagos Penguins! On the Equator! Unbelievable.

The Galapagos Penguin (Sphensicus mendiculus) is one of the smallest penguins in the world. It is the only penguin to breed entirely in the tropics, and the only one to be found in the northern hemisphere — only in Galapagos!

The current penguin population is thought to be around 1400 individuals and is considered endangered. During El Nino events, their population will suffer a big drop due to shortage of their food supply (small fish get decimated during El Nino). Combine the outcome of the annual El Nino with slow reproductive rate and restricted breeding area, the Galapagos penguin is clearly endangered.

Unfortunately, the penguins here are not given as much attention as other animals such as the giant tortoise or sea lion. We urge the scientists at the Charles Darwin foundation to conduct more studies on these penguins and to develop a programme to ensure their survival.

Sea Lion meets Penguin on the Equator

Galapagos Penguin

 The sign that greeted us when we reached the small island

 On Las Tintoreras

 Aa (pronounced ‘Ah Ah’) lava on Las Tintoreras creates a bizarre-looking landscape

 Thousands of marine iguanas are found here

 Oommmm….

The American Oystercatcher

Marine iguanas

 Marine iguanas

 Crashing waves

This area is where marine iguanas have their egg nests

 Protected area

 Marine iguanas huddling together for heat

Pretty big marine iguanas here

 Soaking in the sun

A molting marine iguana sunning itself

Another one

 Sally Lightfoot Crab

It’s difficult to describe the magical wonder of exploring Galapagos -the islands on the Pacific Ocean which reinforced Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution after his 1835 visit to this natural laboratory of evolution. We truly enjoyed observing the marine iguanas, the world’s only sea-going lizard, in the wild, snorting out salt water through their nostrils (which was incidentally the only noise they ever make), coming to the shore from a swim, or simply sunning their cold-blooded bodies on the lava rocks. At night, the marine iguana sleeps in burrows to conserve their body heat.

The subspecies of marine iguanas on Isabela island is the largest of all the seven subspecies. When we saw these big iguanas, we were over-awed by their huge size.

Like all other native animals in Galapagos, the marine iguanas are given a protected status enforced by Ecuadorian and international authorities.

 Here’s the giant marine iguana (Amblyrhynchus cristatus albemarlensis)

 A giant marine iguana on the sandy beach

 

 

Look how its magnificent crest runs down from head to the tail

To many people, it may look like a hideous creature. Even Charles Darwin wrote this of the marine iguana: “It is a hideous-looking creature, of a dirty black colour, stupid, and sluggish in its movements.” We find it so beautiful that we would spent hours just photographing them. And contrary to its looks, it is very gentle and tame. The juveniles are slightly afraid of us stepping on them though.

 Don’t miss it - the giant marine iguana is near the center of this photo. It’s so big that it could be overlooked for a rock from a distance. In fact, we always had to walk very carefully on the rocks so as not to step on the black marine iguanas.

 A pelican swooping in for a meal

 

 Grace and the gentle giant that is more than 1-meter long

 This is a young Hybrid Iguana - the result of a marine and land iguana mating together

The young are vulnerable to predation by frigatebirds, herons, hawks, snakes, as well as wild cats and dogs on the island.

 Marine Iguana

After swimming in the cold waters of the Humboldt and Cromwell currents, the ectothermic marine iguanas must warm up by basking on the volcanic rock, both before and after feeding trips.

Pedro with an almost black giant marine iguana

No one but us here

 A crab

 A hybrid iguana has a characteristic band of markings on its back

 Hybrid iguana

Isla Isabela’s English name is ‘Albermarle’

 Another marine iguana coming ashore from the sea