Galapagos Trip 2023 -- The Last Post

Well, it has been over two months since we returned from our epic trip to Galapagos on the yacht La Pinta.  It really was epic in so many ways.

To go to the beginning of the Galapagos blog posts (which also includes a directory of links to all of the 17 subsequent Galapagos posts) go here:  Galapagos Trip 2023--Overview

Map of La Pinta's "Western Galapagos" Cruise (courtesy of Metropolitan Touring)

I have spread out  my experience of the trip as long as I can by working on geocache posts, iNaturalist posts, this blog, and more recently a photo slideshow (see the end of this blog post).  But sadly, and I do truly mean sadly, all good things must come to an end.  This is the last "Galapagos Trip 2023" blog post.

Before I leave the Galapagos trip for good, here is a summary of a few items.

Geocaches.  We found and logged four geocaches, all in Galapagos.  These were our first geocaches outside the U.S.  We don't do geocaching much at all anymore, but they do often lead us to discover interesting things when traveling to new places.   That was certainly the case here.

• GCCF97      Rabida Mickey Mouse
  
• GC88ZDF   It could be a "Very Bad Day"
• GC3ND9R   Galápagos Post Office Barrel
• GC521N2     Green Sand Beach Earthcache 

iNaturalist.  I tried to post all animals/birds/fish/insects/etc that we got clear pictures of on iNaturalist.  The AI identifier and the real people responses really helped us identify all of the various critters, most of which were new to us.  I also posted a few plants, but those were less useful, largely because I did not take the detailed pictures of leaves and stems often necessary for unambiguous id.  Whatever I posted, I tried to post only one species for location, although I posted both male and female or adult and juvenile if they were visually different.

The statistics as of today are  146 observations of 70 different species. 

 

 

The 146 observations posted to iNaturalist broke down as follows:

68 birds, 46.58%

19 reptiles, 13.01%

9 mammals, 6.16%

8 ray-finned fishes, 5.48%

3 insects, 2.05%

2 fungi, 1.37%

1 mollusk, 0.68%

1 arachnid, 0.68%

15 other animals, 10.27%

20 plants, 13.7%

 

 

 

 

 

 

Here are links to our actual iNaturalist posts:

• All 140 iNaturalist observations in chronological order.  The pictures shown on the grid are our pictures.  Using the links at the top, you can view the data in different forms.  Click on each picture to go to the actual post.  https://www.inaturalist.org/observations?d1=2023-05-10&d2=2023-05-19&order=asc&order_by=observed_on&place_id=any&user_id=alchemist2000&verifiable=any

• All 70 observed species in descending order of our number of observations.  The pictures in this grid are standard iNaturalist pics, not ours.  HOWEVER, if you click on the word "observations" at the bottom of each picture, it will show our observations for that species.  https://www.inaturalist.org/observations?d1=2023-05-10&d2=2023-05-19&order=asc&order_by=observed_on&place_id=any&user_id=alchemist2000&verifiable=any&view=species  

• Finally, to see our iNaturalist observations by date:
• May11,  Guayaquil
  
• May 12,  North Seymour Island
  
• May 13,  Punta Vincente Roca, Punta Espinoza
  
• May 14 ,  Urbina Bay, Tagus Cove
  
• May 15 ,  Rabida Island
  
• May 16 ,  Santa Cruz Island
  
• May 17 ,  Onslow Islet, Post Office Bay, Champion Islet
  

 

Galapagos Big 15:  Altogether we saw 11 of the "Galapagos Big 15":  flightless cormorants, Galapagos hawk, blue footed booby, land iguana, marine iguana, Galapagos penguin, Galapagos sea lion, Galapagos fur seal, American flamingo, frigate birds, and Galapagos giant tortoises.  

 

Of the Galapagos 15, we did NOT see Galapagos albatross, Nazca booby, Red-footed booby, or Santa Fe land iguana.   These are seen on islands that we did not visit.

 

We also saw many other birds including at least three species of Darwin finches, at least two and possibly three types of sharks, a manta ray, sea turtles, multiple lava lizards, many fish, multiple types of starfish, crabs, and multiple interesting plants.

 

Underwater Adventures.  For multiple health and personal reasons we did not go snorkeling.  However, the underwater world is a major part of Galapagos.  We got a glimpse of that on the glass-bottom boat.  

 

Fortunately we also got a glimpse of that world via video.   Dai Mar Tamarack was the UnCruise Guest Expedition Guide onboard our cruise.  

 

Dai Mar Tamarack and friend

 

We felt so fortunate to meet Dai Mar.  His enthusiasm was infectious and his presence on the cruise was a huge plus.  He has graciously given me permission to include his video montage here.  The video is just over 2.5 minutes. It does have sound.

 

 

 

I can't thank Gwen, Paul, and James enough for somehow finding time in their very busy schedules to take this trip with us.  Somehow none of us thought to get a group shot of all of us together.  Duh!  Here they are.

Thanks to the Frog for taking me on this trip despite his dislike of bouncing around on ships.  He, by the way, gets credit for essentially all of the great critter shots.  I filled in with people or context shots and any pictures that required more reach.  Thanks to the naturalist guides for several of the shots, especially those with both of us in the picture.

Photo Slideshow.  Finally, I put together a photo slideshow of our trip.  This was a totally new endeavor for me.  I muddled along by trial and error.  As it turned out, I did not allow enough time for each shot so you may have to pause the show if you want to see something in more detail   At least this way it is still shorter than Oppenheimer.  

 

As it stands, the slideshow is almost 5 minutes long.  It does have sound, although it sounds terrible on an iPhone.  You can hardly see the pictures on a small screen anyway.  Best results are full screen on a computer.   If the button below does not work, use this link:   https://clipchamp.com/watch/sbQIYgkRl8K 

 

 

UPDATE -- UPDATE -- UPDATE    January 12, 2024

I used Microsoft ClipChamp to create the video which appeared in the original post, but Microsoft has announced they are discontinuing saving of the files.  That means the original embedded video and the url will soon no longer work.  I have created the video as a YouTube video (see below) and hopefully it will work. The new url on YouTube is https://youtu.be/wBpdUIao8ZQ   As before, it is best at full screen on a computer.

 

 

 

Galapagos 2023 -- To Guayaquil and on to DFW

It was Thursday, May 18, our day for disembarking from La Pinta and returning to Guayaquil.  We were up early and, as requested, had our checked bags outside our door before breakfast.  The ship had left Cormorant Point around midnight and arrived off Baltra Island about 6 am.  It would be a very fast turnaround for the ship's crew to prepare for the next set of guests, so we had to have everything out of the room and would not be able to return once we went down to the dining room for breakfast.

Back to Guayaquil.  Once breakfast was finished we retraced our steps from the day we arrived, i.e. a panga ride to the passenger dock, followed by a short bus ride to the airport.  We then hung out in the VIP Lounge until our 10:25 am flight was called.  The flight was 2 hours and there was an hour time change, so we arrived about 1:30 in Guayaquil.  We made our way back to the Wydham by bus.  Our flight back home was not until 6 am on Friday, so we were staying another night in Guayaquil.

This was the first time we had driven between the Guayaquil Airport and the Wyndham in daylight.  It is unfortunate that the current violence in the city made much exploration impractical.  Yes, there was some obvious poverty, but there were other very interesting things even on this very short drive. Some of the wide divided streets were nicely landscaped.  The whimsical monkey sculpture definitely brought a smile to my face.  It is apparently one of several sculptures by Juan Sánchez Andrade around town.  (Sorry.  I could not take a picture and I could not find a free photo online I could post.  Do check out the monkey sculpture.)

Dinner along the river.  It took awhile for the hotel to make up our room, but it was eventually ready.  We later met up with Paul, Gwen, and James for an early dinner.   As it turned out, they had a large late lunch, so we ate and they had happy hour.  After walking around a bit, we finally allowed ourselves to be pulled in by a couple of the multitude of young people touting the restaurants just down from the hotel  We chose one of their outside tables and had the area nearly to ourselves.  Despite my fear of a mismatch between the waitress's English and our Spanish, we even got what we ordered!

Hotel Wyndham in the foreground with the boardwalk along the river, including many restaurants one level up. (https://hotelwyndhamguayaquil.com-hotel.com/en/)

Morning comes early.  We were up early on Friday to check out and take an early (3 am I think) hotel shuttle to the airport for our 6 am flight to Miami.  The streets were nearly deserted since there was  a 1 am to 5 am curfew.  It was also strange to see an armored vehicle at the entrance to the drive leading to the airport.  However, there were no problems and we were soon through security.  We spent a relaxing time in the VIP lounge with Gwen and Paul, who were leaving at almost the same time as we were, but going via Panama City. 

On to Miami.  It was beginning to get light as we finally left Guayaquil 

Looking up the Daule River, the western of the two rivers which combine to form the Guayas River,  as we take off from Guayaquil

The flight to Miami was uneventful.  I was on the wrong side of the plane to see the Panama Canal, but I could see some of Cuba as we passed overhead.  

Matanzas, Cuba, City of Bridges

Once we got to Miami International, everything ground to a slow crawl  It took forever at baggage claim, then there were extremely long lines at customs (despite filling out our forms online), and another long line to go back through security despite  having Pre-check.  We made it to the gate on time, but our flight was delayed due to  weather in Dallas.

Flight to DFW a new experience.  We finally made it onto our flight, which turned out to be a different flying experience,   The plane was a Boeing 777-200ER, which is a huge plane: 212 economy seats in a 3-4-3 arrangement (Thank goodness we weren't squeezed in there!); 24 premium economy, 2-4-2; and, where we were, 37 business seats in 1-2-1 arrangement (i.e. 9 rows and one extra).  Each seat in business class was a little cubicle with a lie flat seat.  This plane was likely one that normally would have been on international flights, but was currently being repurposed until tthe international flights come back completely from the pandemic.

The seats would probably have been wonderful if we needed to sleep, but I actually did not like the arrangement much for this daytime flight.  The window seats, where I was, alternate forward and backward.  I was facing backward.  (This is apparently one of two arrangements for the 777-200ER, called the Zodiac arrangement.) The Frog was across the aisle in his little cubicle in the center so I could not really interact with him.  Worst of all, ALL carry-ons had to be in the overhead bins.  There is no space for easily accessible "under seat" items.  I hate getting up in the middle of a flight to retrieve items from the overheads.

It took me a long while to figure out how to use the controls for various features.  The entire business section was full and it was obvious it was a new experience for the other folks as well.  I did end up watching a Tom Hanks movie, which was great,  American did serve us a meal and we did finally make it to DFW.  That was only after doing loops in east Texas and Oklahoma waiting for DFW's ground stop due to weather to be lifted.

We collected our things, found the car, and made the short trip home before night fall.  Wow, what a wonderful trip it had been.  I will wrap everything up in one more blog post to follow.

Galapagos Trip 2023 -- Day 6 -- Floreana Island, Part 3 -- Champion Islet

Our trip through the Galapagos on the La Pinta was rapidly coming to a close, but we had one more afternoon of adventures.

While we were having lunch, the crew moved the ship from Post Office Bay, the location of the morning's activities, to Champion Islet, the location of our next activity.

Northern coast of Floreana Island with our gps trrack for Day 6.

Champion Islet is a very small island off the northern coast of Floreana Island.  It is known for being one of the most beautiful places in Galapagos to snorkel.  That would be the main activity for the afternoon.  Most people went snorkeling and we took the glass bottom boat.  

We started at the southwest corner of the island and worked northward along the western coast,

Topo map of Champion Islet with gps track

 We almost immediately encountered two sea lions having some kind of disagreement.

 

 

 

Birds.  We also began to see some new for us birds.  Champion Islet is known for its interesting birds, and we spotted several.

Swallow-tailed gull

 

Juvenile swallow-tailed gull

We saw several swallow-tailed gulls.  They have enormous eyes. apparently because they are nocturnal.  In fact, they are the only gull in the world that is nocturnal.  They feed far out at sea using their large eyes to spot squid and fish rising to the surface in the dark.

Another new bird was a Red-billed Tropicbird, although it was sitting back in the rocks so we couldn't get a good look at it.

Red-billed Tropicbird

Blue-footed Booby on the rocks

Home of the last surviving Floreana Mockingbirds.  The one bird we did not see was a mockingbird.  Champion Islet and nearby Gardner Islet are home to the last remaining Floreana Mockingbirds. This species of mockingbird has been extinct for decades on Floreana Island, victims of introduced species.  Apparently some of the birds were able to make it to these nearby islands where there are no introduced species and thus they have survived   Unfortunately there are reportedly only 20-40 Floreana Mockingbirds on Champion and 50-70 on Gardner.  To protect the birds, visitors are not allowed on the island. 

Since we were in the glass bottom boat we kept watching for fish or other things under the water.   I think from the yellow tail, the fish below is a Razor Surgeonfish, but I am not sure.  We saw very little  else. 

Razor Surgeonfish

Once we turned around and started to head south, we did see lots of snorkelers.

Snorkelers along the northwest corner of Champion Islet with La Pinta in the background and Floreana Island in the distance

At that point we headed back to the ship and the snorkelers were not too far behind.  Once everyone was on board the ship moved again for one more adventure, a hike at Cormorant Point.

Cormorant Point.  Cormorant Point is a volcanic cinder cone connected to Floreana Island by a narrow isthmus.  Below is a topo map showing the trail that crosses the isthmus. 

Trail at Cormorant Point with elevation changes (out and back) shown in red below

Based on the guides' comments ahead of time, we decided not to go on this hike.  However I did want to include a couple of things here anyway.

A Trail of Two Beaches.   The trail connects two beaches and goes along the side of a lagoon.  Both beaches can be seen in the aerial photo below. 

Aerial photo of trail across isthmus at Cormorant Point.  Green beach is on the west side.  The white "Flour Beach" is on the east side.

The beach on the west side, the location of a wet landing, is the green olivine beach that I had seen mentioned numerous times prior to our trip when researching the earthcache at Post Office Bay.  As mentioned in the previous post, olivine weathers rapidly and hence loses its color.  Since the beach here at Cormorant Point is so much closer to a volcanic cone, the source of more olivine for the beach, I wondered if it was a darker green that the beach at Post Office Bay.  Anyone that went on the hike wish to comment?

The beach on the east side is totally different.  This beach consists of very fine white sand formed by the erosion of coral skeletons. The sand is so soft the beach is known as Flour Beach.  

Flour Beach is one of the primary nesting locations in the Galapagos for Galapagos Green Sea Turtles.  Baby sea turtles emerging from the nest to make their run to the sea normally do so at night to avoid predators.  However while the group was there, one of the tiny little creatures made his run for the water. 

Baby Green Sea Turtle photo from Wikipedia, but I suspect the one on Flour Beach looked similar (By Manuel Heinrich Emha - Own work, CC BY-SA 2.5, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=940831)

As told to us at dinner later that night, everyone obeyed the national park rule of staying six feet away, but they created a phalanx of protectors to ward off any would be predators.  A cheer went up when the little guy finally made it to the water.  That is the first, and perhaps one of the biggest, hurdles he faces in his fight to make it to adulthood.  If this little one survives he will reach maturity at 25+ years and then hopefully be back here some day.  Sea turtles migrate over vast distances but return to their birth beach to lay eggs, if female, or look for a mate, if male.  Rather than think about the high mortality rate of green sea turtles in a negative way I liked this quote:

Picture baby hatchlings running down the sand to the ocean in their first breaths of freedom. This is nature in its purest form, the fight for survival. The reward for the lucky few is an 80 happy turtle year lifetime in the rich Galapagos waters, and the occasional encounter with visiting humans.

An unexpected shark encounter. We were relaxing on the back deck before going inside for the final presentation from the guides and then dinner.  It must have been no later than about 6 pm, although already very dark, when several people started shouting about sightings off the back of the ship.  We got up to look and couldn't believe our eyes.  There were sharks everywhere.  The ship has some lights at the waterline which seem to attract fish.  The fish in turn attract the sharks.

Although we never got pictures, we had seen a hammerhead shark on one of the panga rides and had also seen a whitetip reef shark swim under us on one of the glass bottom boat trips.  However this was totally different.  We easily counted 25 sharks on one corner of the stern and another 25 off the other corner.  Assuming they were along the bow as well (we were at anchor and not moving) that meant at least 100 sharks and probably more.  They were just quietly swimming around, no thrashing about that I saw.  It was very dark and probably no picture would have been possible, but in retrospect I wish I would have at least tried because the sight was amazing.

That was quite the ending to the day.  We then went to see the slide show of pictures that the guides had taken during the week and to enjoy our last dinner aboard.  Before going to bed we took care of all the last minute packing details because tomorrow we would be disembarking directly from breakfast without even being able to go back to our cabin.

The final towel art courtesy of our wonderful cabin steward