Musings

Pre-dawn. The colors are ripening.

Left for a wee panga tour of Caleta Tortuga Negra, called Black Turtle Cove in our literature, on the north side of Santa Crúz island. We left at 6am, or dawn. First up: cattle egrets, still in overnight positions at 6:07am.

Less than thirty seconds later: the exodus begins. They fly way inland to feed all day.

About two minutes later; heading deeper in the cove. Sky color still eye-catching.

I could see the napping shark here with my eyes, but my otherwise talented camera could not. This cove is a shark nursery. We saw several young reef sharks and more adults in this cove.

Ducking to get deeper in the cove.

Sea turtle? Can’t remember.

We returned to the larger, outer cove in time to see a feeding frenzy. What you can’t see is that a shark (or perhaps two) came at a school of larger fish, which turned tail and scooted the only safe direction: up. And the birds could see this happening, and hunted the school from above. Carnivores.

Great egrets. Sleeping in compared to the cattle egrets. This was twenty-seven minutes after the cattle egret shots.

Heron, pretty sure, but don’t remember which one.

Rounding the Grace’s stern just before 7am, ending our last wildlife adventure.

We breakfasted while the captain moved Grace into position for us to disembark for the last time. Our breakfast assortment included tamale with a fat sliver of yummy cheese. The maize flour has far more flavor than boring MaSeCa.

The dock we’re headed to is behind that fancy sailing ship.

It’s our final panga ride, of course wearing our life-jackets, with one of these dangling on either side. Despite temptation, I never pulled one. 😎

Waiting for our plane to arrive; it was a little late. We left through Gate 3. While waiting a pair of finches were flying hither and yon beneath this high ceiling and far below that giant fan. One briefly landed on my hat as I sat quietly pondering our terrific trip. Of all things.

Our final steps on Galápagos were on Baltra Island, headed for our ride. Seats 5A and 5B.

Our bland, large, corporate hotel room near the Quito airport NNE of Quito in the next valley. We are clearly no longer on the Grace.

Posted at 10:22 PM | Comments Off on Flights

Another glorious sunrise.

Clockwise: husband coffee, wife coffee, husband batman oreos. Actual breakfast followed.

Commonly described as resembling a “Chinese coolie” hat, feast your eyes on Sombrero Chino, the destination of our immediately-after-breakfast walk. [When will this island be renamed for PC reasons?]

It began with a panga tour along a section of the lava-liscious coast, searching for wildlife.

Aha! Close view of a Galápagos hawk. Truly special to see it like this.

Wet landing, then part of the walk was on coral bits. This is the first time we’ve seen concentrations of coral like this.

Lava flow, cooled in place on its gravity-fed descent.

Water meets lava.

We spent some time watching the land iguanas emerging from this space between rocks where they had huddled together for warmth through the night (it was still early). They would stop almost immediately, perhaps doing internal iguana-yawns. Here are two adults and two young.

Back aboard we had lunch followed by our check-out briefing. Sad to contemplate the end of our fabulous excursion in the eastern Galápagos, the part with the older islands—older geologically, so more soil development in general, enabling more diverse plant life.

Afternoon dry landing on Cerro Dragón. This beach had teeny shells and sea urchin spines. Those are the fat tubes in Gustavo-the-Guide’s hand. He said his father and his contemporaries used those spine chunks on slate in school, and thus the common name is pencil sea urchin.

The tide was out a bit, exposing a sandy area with many hermit crabs, mostly not seen. They did leave evidence, not only their burrows, but also these sand balls. They take in the sand, filter all the organic matter that’s in it, then spit out the sand in these little balls.

Sleeping/resting dragon.

Brackish pond.

Stilt? Already forgot.

It took Gustavo’s sharp and well-trained eyes to spot this katydid, right by the trail.

Mature male land iguana. “Doing what they do best,” as Gustavo said.

Mature male iguana in “our” trail. Burrow nearby. Linear patterns in the sand are tail drag marks.

Finch.

View to sea.

Bartender Javier’s preparations are underway for the goodbye meet-up and toasts with the crew. Scarlett the Cruise Director once again went along the crew line-up, detailing their responsibilities and names. [This also helped us with tipping before we disembarked.] Several of us short-timers made a little speech of thanks. I did one in Spanish on behalf of all of us; my Spanish, although still stilted, has come back relatively rapidly after, what?, perhaps twenty-five years of disuse. Good for my brain.

Best tomato soup I’ve ever had. I am not a Campbell’s fan. This has no cream, and includes potatoes. The crew kindly used Google translate to make and print a recipe for several interested guests. The first ingredient was a certain amount of “dad.” Someone among us was clever enough to realize this was a translation of “papa.” While, of course, not an incorrect translation, it was the wrong one here. Papa means papa/dad, the Pope (as in Father), as well as potatoes.

Posted at 10:22 PM | Comments Off on Renaming ahead?

We traveled overnight, and boarded pangas starting at 6am to walk on North Seymour Island. The park regulations say that no one can be on land between 8pm and 8am. They require overnight ship passengers are only on land until 10am and after 3pm. The day-trippers get the hot, bright hours in between when many of the animals are far less active. I checked and this photo was at 6:07am, just after we started walking. Pretty sure these are frigate birds.

Sofia is discussing rat problems. The trap has low-level sulfur in it, enough to kill the rat after a time, and not enough that a hawk will sicken from eating it. Rats are of course introduced, and a problem along with goats, dogs, cats, and at least one insect, all causing significant problems.

Call this a frigate bird condo. Frigate birds don’t need much personal space, as you can tell, so the gents try to build their nests in the best trees, to catch a lady frigate bird. The red sacs take perhaps twenty minutes to inflate or deflate. They attract lady frigates to check out nest quality. If the latter meets spec, they will stay and mate.

Frigates pairing up.

Beautiful morning rainbow omen.

If I have it right, the Galápagos islands were stripped of this lichen at one time, to sell for making a purple dye. Lichens are of course slow-growing, so it has taken many decades for them to return.

Land iguana.

Posing bird. I’m anthropomorphizing.

See the two islands? Those are the Daphnes, with Daphne Major to the left, and Daphne Minor to the right. The famous forty-year study of finches by the Grants was on Daphne Major. Others have continued studies. Check out “The Beak of the Finch: A Story of Evolution in Our Time” by Jonathan Weiner if you’re interested.

On land you can see pairs of white stakes. We only walk between them.

When the booby parent comes back from fishing, the booby baby (technical naturalist term), bangs beaks with the parent. This eventually stimulates the parental bird to regurgitate. The chick sticks its head down the parental throat to get the food.

Aren’t you glad this isn’t the human style.

Back aboard, the Grace got underway and we had breakfast, then most of us watched two very well-made videos, one on Darwin and Wallace, and one on von Humboldt. The latter was a contemporary of Thomas Jefferson, and probably the first person you could consider a modern naturalist, at least in the Western world. I’m going to hunt up a copy of Wulf’s “The Invention of Nature: Alexander von Humboldt’s New World” to read up on this fascinating man and how he laid the groundwork for his successors.

Next, we had a lovely snorkel followed by a late lunch, if I have it right. Or perhaps the snorkel was after lunch? I forgot to record some details.

Our late-day panga trip located, tada!, penguins. The only tropical penguins. Soooo wonderful.

This is a dry landing on Bartolomé. Many other ships in this area.

Bartolomé has a boardwalk, only it’s mostly steps. It goes to the top. We made many photos in the late-day sun.

Note the many cinder cones. Sooooo different from every other island we’ve visited.

When we return after our afternoon excursions, we are greeted by a critter. I think this is a towel owl, a short-eared owl, yet, oddly wearing (my) spectacles. Teehee. John says its a baby Yoda.

Posted at 10:22 PM | Comments Off on North and west

There’s no such thing as too many beautiful sunrises.

Juice every morning, and every morning a different fruit. This may be what everyone called tree tomato. I just checked the internet, and in New Zealand it’s called tamarillo. It’s in the Solanaceae family, and is Solanum betaceum. Now I know.

Right after breakfast, we had a wet landing on Santa Fe Island. The sea lions were just becoming active.

This was a short walk to see these giant-size opuntias. The pads are not tasty to humans, but are the favorite of land iguanas.

Right on schedule, here’s a large male land iguana.

And another.

Back on the Grace, the crew lowered kayaks and the pangas took us to a good kayaking spot.

After that, we changed into wet suits for a snorkeling expedition. Again, no photos of these two activities. Salt water, you know.

After lunch, I spotted this hitchhiker. Another came and ousted it.

Dry landing on South Plaza island, and a slow 90-minute loop. Nocturnal gull.

Marine iguana. Note longer narrow tail, used as a paddle in the water. Also, the land iguana’s tails are more rounded on the bottom, a good tip if you find their tracks.

A finch busy looking for…seeds, I think.

Little lava lizard…little compared to the iguanas. On the “trunk” of one of the tall opuntias.

Land iguana profile. Those neck spikes draw my eye every time.

The iguanas have so aggressively dined on the opuntias on the west end of South Plaza that the park folk have planted new ones, with these protective cages. Still, they have had to replant and replant, as the small opuntias are easier for the iguanas to climb and access the pads, as you might guess. Even with the protective cages.

Sun is cruising down, although it’s still an hour and a half to sunset.

Sous Chef Washington’s tiramisu was a resounding success. Several of us thought it the best we’d ever had.

Did you catch that we did a walk, a kayak ride, and a snorkeling expedition all before lunch? I have never changed my clothing so many times day after day in my life.

Posted at 10:22 PM | Comments Off on Enough iguanas?

Too overcast for a dawn photo, so here’s the coffee, tea, and water station. That’s an urn of fine organic Ecuadoran coffee on the right, with a Euro coffee machine that makes latte machiatos, cappuccinos, and the like. Cold and hot water to the far right.

First off-ship activity: land on that beach to the left, walk into the interior, turn to the left and walk to cliffs on the other side, return.

This is the rock on the “right” end of the beach. Looks like funky sandstone, right? It’s compressed volcanic ash deposits from many different eruptions, if I have it right.

Red-footed booby condo. At least five families/nests here. Males build a nest then advertize it to the lady-birds. Location and nest quality are everything to the ladies, in that order. This is a safe tree in an excellent location.

Very red, those feet. Beak is a light blue.

Endemic locust.

Eastern-most point on Galápagos archipelago: Punta Pitt.

Blooming succulent, possibly common carpet weed.

Fighting male lava lizards. This is not territorial, it’s just to fight. They run in a circle, then use their tails to thwack the other guy. The male on the left has an advantage in this, as he has all his tail, and the opponent has a shortened tail.

This is Kicker Rock. It’s darned famous. Our captain circled it. Since it was mid-afternoon there were only a few birds, but several hours later, many would return from fishing expeditions, we were told.

Kicker Rock is actually two rocks. Those slabs of white on the sides: guano. Not mineralization or geologic formation. Next, we did a snorkeling expedition from the pangas. Lots of fish species and many sea lions. Very large sea urchin sand dollars. Fabulous snorkeling.

Pelican. Isla Lobos.

Candelabra cactus, with ever-present guano-ed rocks.

San Cristóbal vegetation.

Our cabin door and two windows, view toward stern.

Almost sunset. Remember this is the equator. Year-round, sunrise and sunset are at 6 am and 6 pm, or pretty darned close. No change. And the light changes fast.

Posted at 10:22 PM | 1 Comment »

We began our days adventures on and around Española by landing on a small cement jetty and walking past dozens of marine iguanas just waking up…

…as well as these bright sally lightfoot crabs who were already very active.

Our first obstacle was a crowd of marine iguanas and a mother sea lion and her wee pup (black triangle behind mom). The iguanas weren’t warm yet, and so still congregated as they had been through the night to share warmth. In truth, they are not social creatures.

Our walk took us to a cliff-side overlook with wheeling birds of several species, and crashing waves.

Blue-footed boobies on the ground and a tropicbird showing off its long tail in the air.

Our guide, Sofia, stopped us frequently to point out something or to discuss evolution, vegetation, geology, inter-island variation, and the like.

I particularly enjoyed the plumes of water of the breaking waves.

Blue-footed booby parent with two chicks.

Here, a pair of Galapagos albatrosses (Phoebastria irrorata) are desultorily attempting courting. They split up soon after.

Some places the vegetation was very dense. This is not dead, merely leafless in the dry season.

The marine iguanas festooned the rocks and sand above the water line…only a few were warm enough to be down in the water or by it feeding. The red patches remain on the females, but are fading as the mating season has ended.

Returning to the jetty, we watched this sea lion mom, the one we saw by the path earlier, moving the pup up from the water line, as the tide was coming in. It was squeaking some from being grabbed and dropped, although the mom was careful enough.

For lunch we were honored to have ceviche of pez brujo, or scorpionfish. It was the appetizer of an Ecuadorian meal that was spectacularly yummy. We had timbalitos for breakfast, a sweetened maize dough wrapped in banana leaves and steamed as you would tamales. The main protein dish was a choice of a roasted pork or a cazuela (bowl) of mixed seafood in a mashed green plantain soup to make a stew.

Here’s the ceviche. Phenomenal depth of flavor in the broth. Oh, and dessert was a scoop of blackberry ice cream, and a scoop of subtle mint ice cream, with a little hard sweet biscuit. Yummy, that Ecuadoran food!

After lunch, we had a bit of unstructured time, then met at three ready to load the pangas for another snorkeling expedition along a rocky cliff, so we could look down and at the wall, or cliff face below water. I saw many kinds of fish, one turtle on the bottom, and several sea lions came and played with us and around us: incredible. No photos. The we rebounded and changed into dry clothing to stroll this beach on our own. It’s supposed to be one of the most beautiful in the Galápagos. It certainly was beautiful.

That’s the Grace offshore. This sea lion was playing in the water when we spotted it, then we followed it as it carefully moved along the beach, on and on until I lost sight of it. I think it had been sleeping and its group had moved on, leaving him/her alone. It stayed among the breaking waves, scooting along in the surf over the sand and sometimes going far enough out to swim a short distance, then returning to the surf-breaking area. My theory is that out farther was too dangerous, a lone sea lion would be quite the mean for a roaming shark. I silently wished her/him luck in finding safety.

One more food shot. The extremely talented chef, Alejandro, and I have had several chats about my low-glycemic index diet, and he has been kind enough to make small alterations in the servings/dishes for me. He’s a young guy and oh so creative. This is a salmon taco appetizer, which he put on a lettuce leaf for me, rather than a traditional tortilla. He also put the red bean paste on the side as an option. It had the creamiest guacamole I’ve ever had.

Posted at 10:22 PM | Comments Off on Española

Good omen. Also shading into fog to the left….

Bicolor beauties.

DYSWIS: do you see what I see

Posted at 8:58 PM | Comments Off on DYSWIS?

Today was laundry day, only one load, a medium sized machine in the establishment we visited. Of course, the “regular” machines hold about half what my home washer holds, so I’d call them minis, while the washer we used holds more than our home machine. Happily, we had sunshine the rest of the day to dry our dungarees and tees. So: yay.

Then, in the late-day sun, when I was out dumping compost after dinner/supper, I spotted this trio, part of a larger group we’ve been seeing that numbers in the range of a dozen. Our tick-bearing, four-footed friends.

Posted at 7:12 PM | Comments Off on Tres venados

Today was a lot of removing and moving. Removing sprouting weeds, with weeds meaning The Botanist’s definition: a plant growing where you don’t want it to be, and moving pruned branches to the (potential) burn pile over by Our Field. Otherwise the pruned branches are In The Way, and that cannot be tolerated. 😎

Late in the afternoon when I was winding down with chores, I went across the street to visit with Lady Wonderful Neighbor, and we were chatting, and she gently leaned over and picked a strolling tick Off My Cheek. Yikes. Only good thing about that was it was still strolling. So, subsequently: major, serious tick-checking primate behavior. The count remains at one.

So the first paragraph story relates to the second in that some of the removing and moving involved getting into The Long Grass, which is not yet actually long because the spring is not advanced, yet: deer roam here; there may be mice/chipmunks, and thus a tick-supporting ecosystem. You get the picture.

Posted at 9:25 PM | Comments Off on So far

I meant to write about this yesterday…I happened be on the same street as an AmazonPrime delivery truck. I counted nine deliveries over perhaps a third of a mile, most of that with houses on only one side. And, is it no surprise that Amazon’s upping their annual fee?

Posted at 9:18 PM | Comments Off on Business density