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Born of Fire, the Galapagos Islands are tips of submarine volcanoes, a place where evo-lution can be observed In-Situ. Hundreds of miles from main-land Ecuador, animals and

plants set adrift have somehow found and colonised the desert islands. Floating rafts of vegetation, wind, air currents and oceanic drift all helped this colonisation. Birds lost from migratory routes landed there, and sea birds carried seeds and inver-tebrates. Animals came from North, Central and South America, and Caribbean, set adrift in the ocean currents. Californian sea lions and land birds came from North America, while pink flamingos and Darwin finches came from the Caribbean. Land iguanas, giant tortoises, pelicans, cormorants and boobies arrived from South America. Fur sea lions and penguins travelled from the Antarctic. Then there was Charles Darwin, the most famous of all visitors to the Galapagos’. He arrived aboard the HMS Beagle, on September 15, 1835. The HMS Beagle spent five weeks in the archipelago during which the 26 year old naturalist visited Chatham, Charles, Albemarle and James Islands. He spent 19 days on shore collecting and observing flora and fauna in this ‘living laboratory of evolu-tion’. In 1859, twenty five years after his voyage on the Beagle, Darwin released the first edition of his work ~ ‘The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection’ which sparked a scientific and religious revolution. Our luxury motor yacht; the ‘Letty’, lay off Fernandina Island in the Western Galapagos’, a place where the islands are bathed in the colder nutrient rich waters of the Cromwell Current. The Ship’s Captain; Wilson, took us near shore and equiped with mask and snor-kel, we slipped into the cool green waters. Marine iguanas scampered on shore and within seconds we were eyed by a huge green

turtle. This place is alive, I though, as a vast school of black-striped salema fishes buzzed past. Marine iguanas swam on the surface, trailing prehistoric tails. On the rocks there were Galapagos penguins, flightless cormo-rants and colourful Sally Lightfoot crabs. Fernandina is the youngest of the Galapagos archipelago ~ less than 700,000 years old. The hot spot theory held by geologists today says that there are stationary areas of intense heat in the earth’s mantle that cause the crust to melt and give rise to volcanoes. Now and again, there’s a build up of pressure and a vol-canic eruption, producing lava. In 1968, the caldera of Fernandina changed dramatically when it’s floor, a block, two kilo-metres round, fell by 350 metres. The caldera was clouded in choking dust and the crater lake disappeared. Some 2000 white-cheeked pintail ducks and land iguanas just disap-peared. Fernandina is still the most volcanically active island in the archipelago with a dome shaped cone rising to almost 1500 metres. It’s caldera is now 900 metres deep and 6 kilome-tres round. The Galapagos archipelago consists of 13 major islands, 6 minor islands and 49 smaller rock formations, spread over 17,000 square miles. These equatorial islands, volcanic mountains, erupted above the Pacific Ocean, 600 miles West of the Ecuador. They first broke through the sea floor, 7 - 9 million years ago, and still show volcanic activity ~ 7 volcanoes have erupted in the past 15 years. The Galapagos Islands sit on top of the Nazca Plate, close to the junction with the Cocos Ridge. The plates shift along the Galapagos Rift and the East Pacific Rise, which is making the islands to move South and Eastward at more than 7 centimetres per year. The Eastern islands are older than the Western ones. Fernandina and Isabela, are the young-est, less than 1 million years old.

The Galapagos‘Islands of Fire’

WRITTEN AND PHOTOGRAPHED

BY TONY KARACSONYI

“Another feature of these isles is their emphatic uninhabitableness. It is deemed fit for ...

the jackel itself; ... but the encantadas refuse to harbour even the outcasts of the beasts.

Man and wolf alike disown them. Little but reptile life is here found; tortoises, lizards, ... and

that strangest anomaly of outlandish nature, the iguano. No voice, no lo, no howl is heard;

the chief sound of life here is a hiss”

—Herman Melville, from las Encantadas, 1841

Isthmus of Bartolome and Pinnacle Rock are the eroded remains of tuff cones. Isla Bartolome, Galapagos Islands, Ecuador. The Galapagos Islands are a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

PHO

TO: N

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NEH

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We stepped ashore at Punta Espinosa, which means Spiny Point in Spanish. This place is sur-rounded by six volcanoes on Isabela Island which lies across the Bolivar Channel. Stepping ashore onto black lava, from our panga (the local name for a small dinghy), Sally Lightfoot crabs scuttled on the green algae. A pile of marine iguanas lay sunning themselves on the lava. As their body temperatures increased, they made their way to the ocean to feed, on algae. A whale skeleton lay on sand and an inlet had flightless cormorants. The flightless cormorants flapped their short wings. Sally Lightfoot crabs and marine iguanas lay all around. Sea lions were played in the shallows, and far views of volcanoes made for a fantastic vista. Our natural history guides; Harry Jimenez (alias Loco Harry) and Jose Luis Castillo (alias Pepe) were full of information, making the trips very enjoyable. The islands climate is greatly determined by the ocean currents. In the cooler dry season ~ July to Dec, the Humboldt Current keep the islands much cooler than you would expect. During the warmer, wet season ~ Jan to June, there’s little rain on the coasts. The colder waters of Fernandina and Isabela Island are superb for dolphin and whale watching ~ striped dolphins, common dolphins, spinner dolphins and pilot whales. No where have I had such amazing encounters with dolphins as in the Galapagos’. There must have been 70 dolphins, some which joined the bow of our boat. Jumping into the ocean, I cleared the bubbles in my mask to see dolphins all around and a 2 metre Galapagos shark. So sharks do swim with dolphins! Dolphins were zooming in to see

us, often in pairs, peeling off when 2 metres away. The sheer excitement of being in the ocean with so many dolphins, was one of life’s best experiences. With reluctance, we left the dolphins, and headed over to the island to scuba dive. We swam along an underwater cliff with an entou-rage of sea lions and hundreds of Pacific creole fish, until we reached a point where 2 currents collided. Here is saw a scalloped hammerhead shark, eagle ray, green turtle and no less than 5 white- tip reef sharks. The funniest thing was that the sea lions were playing tag with the reef sharks. The sea lions were diving down and chasing, then nipping the shark’s tail. Whenever there was a nip, the shark would flick it’s tail. The fish life in the Galapagos is fascinat-ing and many of the fish look like overgrown African cichlids (popular freshwater aquarium fishes). Remarkable fish were Pacific creole fish ~ looks like a fusilier, Mexican hogfish ~ hump- headed with long streaming fins, guinea fowl puffer ~ yellow puffer fish, and Galapagos garden eels ~ named ‘Anguila Jardin de Galapagos’ in Spanish. The marine iguanas on Espanola Island, called Christmas Iguanas, are brightly coloured with spashes of pink and green. Each island has something different to offer. At Genovesa Island we anchored in Darwin Bay, an ancient caldera. Here we climbed a bluff named the ‘tower’, to see sea birds nesting in the salt bush. There were red-footed boobies, red-billed tropic

birds, swallow tail gulls, storm petrels and magnificent frigatebirds

sporting bright red inflat-able throat pouches.

Later we cooled off with a snorkel

and went shark spotting. We’ll

Fur SealsAlong the beach we saw fur seal lions playing. This species was close to extinction not long ago.

“ The unique wildlife which has evolved on the Galapagos Islands makes it one of the globe’s truely wild places!”

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the Galapagos Shark’s spotted us and circled a metre away. While none of us was really scared?, I did hear a few nervous shrieks, and husbands were thrust in front of the placid shark by anxious wives. All good fun! There were lots of lovely fish such as giant damsel fish, razor surgeonfish, morish idol, bump-head parrotfish, Cortez rainbow wrasse, but the sharks were the absolute highlight! A beach landing at Genovesa Island delight-ed us with sea lion cubs suckling on the beach, and red-footed boobies with fluffy white chicks. At Santiago Island, we landed on a black sand beach with sea lions, great for swimming. On land, after a hike past old salt mine relics, we came across an area of grottoes i.e.deep pools with fur seal lions playing. This species was close to extinction not long ago. Along the beach, we watched marine iguanas, American oystercatchers and lava lizards. On Bartolome Island we took the sum-mit trail past splatter cones to a spectacular lookout, with views of Sullivan Bay. At Isabela’ we climbed to a crater lake, then onto a cone with superb views of lava fields. Exploring Tagus Cove by panga, we saw blue-footed boobies, sea lions, Galapagos hawk, pelicans and Galapagos penguins. Tagus Cove, adorned somewhat controversially, in graffiti, dating back to the 1800’s, abounds with marine life. At Cerro Dragon, we saw endemic land igua-nas, once part of ‘Darwin Station’s breeding pro-gram. Growing to 0.9 metres and 11 kilograms, they eat the fleshy leaves of the opuntia cactus, scraping off the sharp spines before swallowing. Wild dogs killed close to 600 land iguanas on Santa Cruz Island. With 60 iguanas left, Darwin Station and Park Service rescued the survivors and took them to the breeding station. Once the feral dogs were removed, the iguanas were returned. Caribbean flamingos can be spotted on Cerro Dragon’s salt water lagoon. Off San Cristobal Island we cruised the majes-tic Kicker Rock, named ‘Leon Dormido’ There were green turtles everywhere, sea lions lolling near shore and red-billed tropic birds in the sky. At Santa Cruz, near the bustling tourist town of Puerto Ayora, we toured the Charles Darwin Research Station and the Galapagos National

Park headquarters. Here we met ‘Lonesome George’. George was found in 1971 by wardens from the Galapagos National Park, hunting feral goats on Pinta Island. The last reported sight-ing of giant tortoises on Pinta was in 1906. Scientists took ‘Lonesome George’ to the captive breeding program at the Charles Darwin Research Station. The search for a mate began, but has’nt been found to date. George was once moved to Isabela’s Wolf Volcano, together with two females. He was in high spirits and some ‘coupling’ took place, but neither female produced young. Edward Louis, a geneticist at the Henry Doorley Zoo in Nebraska, scans and analyses tortoise DNA from all over the globe in search of a match for George. During the 1500 to 1800’s ~ sailors, seafar-ers and colonists had killed 150,000 to 200,000 giant tortoises in the Galapagos Islands. In the Santa Cruz highlands we visited large pit craters, named ‘Los Gemelos’, lava tubes, and watched giant tortoises feeding on a ranch. The giant tortoises love eating the fallen figs. This ranch is home to vermillion flycatchers, large-billed flycatchers, and Darwin finches. On Espanola Island we watched Christmas iguanas, sea lions and blue-footed boobies, liv-ing in harmony, near an active ocean blowhole. The unique wildlife which has evolved on the Galapagos Islands, together with it’s fasci-nating history, makes it one of the globe’s tru-ely wild places! It’s surely, one of life’s greatest experiences. YVC

About the Writer Tony Karacsonyi is a professional marine photog-

rapher who has been recognised globally for his

exciting images. Marine photography has taken Tony

to some of the world’s great places such as Papua

New Guinea’s: Siassi, Trobriand and D’Entrecasteaux

Islands,Tonga, Great Barrier Reef, Sabah, Ningaloo

Reefs and Australia’s Coral Sea. In 1998, he was

awarded with the prestigious Australian Geographic

“Photographer of the Year”, for photography on giant

cuttlefish and won several international awards,

including a ‘runner up’ position in the “Wildlife

Photographer of The Year” award in London, during

1996, 1997, 1998.

tony@tonykphoto.com.au

About The FleetThe Letty is one of 3 identical signature motor yachts; the M/Y Eric, Flamingo and Letty, which travel together through the Galapagos Islands. They are 83ft long by 24 ft wide, cruising at 10 knots. Double balanced keels give maximum stability and they are ecologically equipped for noise reduc-tion and fuel efficiency. They cater for 20 guests, with 10 crew including two naturalist guides. Each motor yacht car-ries highly sophisticated navigational equipment. How To Get ThereIf travelling from the USA, fly to Quito in Ecuador, then to the Galapagos Islands. TACA Airlines flies to Ecuador, via Costa Rica. Make sure to check in 3 hours early for your connecting flights to Quito. How To Book Galapagos Networkwww.ecoventura.cominfo@galapagosnetwork.com(305) 262 6264 Health & Safety;Malaria is not a problem in the Galapagos Islands, if cruising, but if you’re venturing onto the Amazon rainforest, Ecuador, take anti-malarials. While staying in Quito, always take a taxi back to your motel, at night. Currency is in US Dollars. There are excellent hotels to stay in Quito, such as the Mercure Hotel.

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To charter this trip or any yacht you see in this issue of YV&C, please contact any of the recommended charter brokers listed on page 8

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