Galapagos Journal - Santa Cruz Island, Puerto Ayora

There are about 30,000 people who live on the Galapagos Islands. Most of those live on Santa Cruz and the majority of those residents live in Puerto Ayora. This island had been colonized before 1959 when the Ecuadorian government declared all the islands a national park. That same year, the Charles Darwin Foundation was founded to promote scientific research and ensure the conservation of the Galapagos. In 1992, the waters surrounding the Galapagos were made a marine reserve.

The problem with people living on any of the islands is that they make gardens, plant flowers and trees and bushes not native to the area, and eat things that may have seeds that would be discarded and picked up by birds, washed away in the rain, or otherwise transported to the other islands that the park tries to keep pristine and true to its natural habitat. The only way they can combat the intrusion of foreign plants is to pull them out by hand when they are discovered growing in the park.

Just on the outskirts of Puerto Ayora is the Charles Darwin Station for Giant Tortoise Breeding. The zodiacs deposited us on a pier in town and buses took us to the Station about a five minute ride away. Jorge led us through the Station pointing out the various stages of growth of the most recently hatched tortoises.

The Charles Darwin Station was established in 1964 and is a part of the Charles Darwin Foundation which was set up in 1959 to help conserve the ecosystem and natural wonders of the Galapagos Islands. It began its tortoise program in 1965, just a year before the government of Ecuador declared the area a national park.

In the 1960s, the tortoise population of Espanola Island came so close to extinction that all the remaining tortoises-12 females and 2 males- were brought to the park and station headquarters for protection and breeding. The adult tortoises breed, nest and are cared for in captivity. The first successful hatching occurred in 1970-71. As with the other races (they breed several different kinds of tortoise), the young are reared to three to five years of age and then repatriated.

Unfortunately the Floreana subspecies is extinct and now with the passing of Lonesome George, the last remaining Pinta Island tortoise, his subspecies has also disappeared. In 1977, the return of Diego, an Espanola tortoise from the San Diego Zoo, helped to repopulate the Espanola subspecies. Originally there were 13 Espanola tortoises taken back in the 1930s for the zoo and Diego was the last one left of that group.

Diego is not the top guy at the station at what they estimate to be 130 years of age and is still dedicated to the survival of his species. He wasn't out and about yet when we arrived. Probably sleeping in. We could see what Jorge said was his shell way back under the trees but it was impossible to get a picture.

Espanola tortoises -1 male with 5 females and 2 males with 7 females- are permanently housed in two corrals, each with several nesting areas. The tortoises breed before and during the nesting season from June to December. During the nesting season, the corrals are checked daily for nesting activity. A female tortoise builds her nest with her hind legs, forming a hole about 35-40 cm deep and 10-15 cm wide, slighter wider at the bottom. The eggs are lowered on strings of thick mucus, which provide a soft landing. The mother buries the eggs and delicately pats down the soil with the underside of her shell and her feet. The morning after the eggs are laid, one of the park wardens will carefully remove them and transfer them to the incubator.

When we had been through all the displays including some that feature iguanas, we opted to walk back through town to the pier. It was still early in the morning for the town folks but some were out waiting for the tide to come in and release their boats from the muck. One family looked like they wanted to get an earlier start and were trying to dislodge their skiff from the mud it was stuck in. The kids were having a great time of it.

We sat for a time near the fishing pier and watched a pelican try to down his over sized breakfast. Under one of the boats that was stuck in the mud of the low tide, a marine iguana munched on the algae that hung from the bottom.

A cool breeze from the sea refreshed us after a very warm walk through the Station and the town. Slowly storefronts began to raise their metal doors and merchants swept their steps and sidewalks as they prepared for another day of business. The time on the islands was an hour behind the time in Quito and the ship. Our cruise director, Bitinia, had told us on our first day that the ship would stay with Quito time to allow us a little extra daylight for exploring.

We weren’t interested in shopping so we meandered on down to the pier to catch the first of the zodiacs back to the ship. It was entertaining to watch the interaction or even the non-action of the sea lions and the people coming and going from the main pier. There were quite a few water taxis in the bay and they were picking up and dropping off. As people walked up the gangways or landing areas, they had to step around or in some cases, over sea lions.

One sea lion, not unlike a dog who is disturbed, threatened to nip one fellow’s leg as he stepped too closely between one sea lion and another. Earlier in the week, one of our fellow passengers had been nipped in the leg while snorkeling. Apparently the sea lion felt threatened as the snorkeler tried to get closer for a better picture. No real damage done though. It was more of a warning.

For some reason there were large swells all day long in the Puerto Ayora bay where our ship was anchored. It rolled back and forth testing the worthiness of our sea legs. While I was a bit worn out from the heat, I knew I didn’t want to spend the afternoon on the rolling ship either. I had to decide what to do about the afternoon excursion to the area where there were tortoises out roaming over some farmland. It would turn out to





be an easy decision.

Through My Lens - Santa Cruz Island

Galapagos Journal - Santa Cruz Island, Dragon Hill

The Xpedition sailed to the north side of Santa Cruz Island in the afternoon of day five of our cruise. Our excursion would take us to explore Cerro Dragon or “Dragon Hill” which gets its name from the population of land iguanas in the area which came dangerously close to extinction.

In 1977 over half of the surviving iguanas from Cerro Dragon were moved to a natural environment on Venecia. Though protected, the 38 adults could not reproduce successfully as the island lacked nesting soil. In 1978, park and station staff and local residents hauled over 300 tons of soil to Venecia and the Iguanas quickly began reproducing. Later, large juveniles were moved to Cerro Dragon. Annual monitoring trips show a growing population. In 1994, the park opened Cerro Dragon as a visitor site for viewing land iguanas in the wild. The tourist trail is the trail built and used to carry nesting soil to Venecia in 1978.

It was a hot afternoon. Too bad our snorkel gear had to be returned the day before. A dip in the cool waters would have been welcomed. We almost did get a dip however when we reached the landing spot and conditions were such that the naturalist and zodiac driver decided that a wet landing would be safer. Many had planned for a dry landing and had sneakers and socks on which they had to remove and then put back on once on shore. Hard to get rid of the sand between your toes at that point though. I was glad to have worn my Teva sandals. They were great for walking and didn’t mind getting wet either.

Fatima led us back by a lagoon that had two flamingos in it. We could get a lot closer to these two than we did at the other flamingo opportunity. She told us that this was a place where the flamingoes came to eat but not to nest. We watched and snapped photos as the two birds kept their heads down to their work. They must have been getting some crabs from the mud as you could see through the water to the bottom where they were making a grid in the sediment.

Several other birds were there as well. Black Necked Stilts and a Wimbrel which resembles a heron only with a curved bill. 

We walked along the shore for a short time to another lagoon for a peek at some more birds and a couple of iguana. The sun was extremely hot this afternoon and we all agreed that we’d had enough. I was thankful looking back on our week that we had had nice weather. The only rain was a bit as we started off on Sunday afternoon and most of the days had come with a nice breeze and/or a “friendly” cloud to shade us a bit from the heat of the sun. It was all more than we’d hoped for.

But wait! Where were the iguanas the island was famous for? We'd only seen one and that was a marine iguana. Maybe we should have taken the long walk but then I'm not so sure we could have survived the heat on that one.

Galapagos Island - Santa Cruz, South Plaza

Friday morning of our week long cruise through the Galapagos Islands on the Celebrity Xpedition found us at South Plaza, a small uplifted island just off the northeast corner of Santa Cruz. The landscape was lush in comparison to some of the places we visited. A carpet of portulaca covered much of the rocky area away from the beach. The plant had cycled past its bloom time although as Monica told us, the iguana tend to eat the blooms as fast as they appear. The reddish colored stems that prevailed as the leaves faded made me think of the beautiful colors of the Alaskan tundra in the fall.

At our landing point, we noticed several Swallow Tailed Gulls that were nesting. Like the penguins of Antarctica, they made their nests with pebbles. Once again we were amazed that they were not flustered by our presence. As we wondered if there were any eggs in the nest, one female shifted slightly as if to answer our question and someone spotted an egg beneath her.

The Swallow Tailed Gull in addition to being a handsome bird with a bright red rimmed eye, is unusual in that it feeds at night. It is the only nocturnal gull in the world and feeds off of fish and squid near the surface of the water. 

Standing tall as if in an orchard were prickly pear cactus. Not too far from where we landed we stopped for a time to watch an iguana who had managed to claim one of the pears from a nearby cactus and was rolling it around to knock off the spines. Eventually she was able to get it into her mouth and just in time as another iguana discovered her and her prize and began to chase her. She managed to keep the pear and eventually the other retreated. We went on and left her to her breakfast treat.

The land iguana we found here were slightly different from those on the other islands. They were shedding their skins. Unlike a snake, the iguana shed in bits and pieces so a few of them looked a bit ragged. Monica mentioned an interesting phenomena that the naturalists and biologists have discovered. Some of the marine iguanas have mated on occasion (raped as Monica put it) with the land iguanas producing a type of hybrid. The hybrid never lives longer than four or five years so there are few to see.

As usual, we met up with several sea lions along the way We stopped to watch as one little guy came up from the water calling for his mother. He was hungry and wanted to nurse. Mom lifted her head a couple of times and uttered a sound. When the little one found her, she smelled him all over before she rolled to her side to let him nurse. No way was she going to do it for one who was not her own.




In the cliffs on one side of the island, we found a bachelor colony. We were all amazed that these creatures were able to climb up so high. There was a bit of a path but it was still quite steep and definitely slippery with the waves washing on shore.

On one of the rocks, the exoskeleton of a Sally Light Foot crab was left for us to examine. As the crabs grow, they need to shed their covering. They completely back out of the shell leaving it intact and moving on for a few days, vulnerable because the new shell is soft.

In the clefts of the high cliffs to the south side of the island we found scores of gulls and other sea birds. It was mesmerizing to see them in a flock skimming the ocean surface and rising up into the sky and back down again.

More of the Swallow Tail Gulls were nesting here and one had a young chick. The gulls only lay one egg when they mate. The young one we saw had a beautiful pattern of black and white feathers. It appeared that the mother might be showing it how to fly. She would spread her wings and then the little one would do the same. I don’t think he was quite big enough yet to go out on his own in the currents of wind that whipped up the cliff side.

Monica also pointed out to us a plant that had a wicked seed pod on it. The pod had several thorns growing out of it that she said could puncture a bicycle tire. One of the types of finches on the island though had a beak strong enough to break open the pod and retrieve the seed inside to eat.

Little land lizards scurried across the trail in front of us like little hyperactive puppy dogs. They would bounce up on a rock, look us over and then cross back to the other side and disappear. I guess this was a big day for them. The tourists were here! It only happens every couple of weeks or so. The government regulates visitors to the Galapagos park area so that no island is overrun with too many visitors and has time to recuperate between the visits of the small groups that are allowed the privilege to see this wonderful natural area.