Galapagos Cruise on the Angelito

Flying out of Quito, Ecuador, is exciting. The city sits in a bowl high in the Andes, surrounded by mountain peaks, with the airport nestled right next to downtown, so we fairly leapt out of the city, up and over the mountains. We made a short stop in Guayaquil, near the coast, and then on to Baltra, our first island in the Galapagos. As we landed, Baltra seemed to have little to offer beyond a flat landscape and scruffy bushes. The airport’s only building, which consisted of a metal roof with open sides, was jam-packed with tourists: evidently Sunday is the turn-over day for all the cruise ships, large and small. Fifteen of us were gathered up by a slim, organized, fiftyish fellow who introduced himself as “Diego—like San Diego” and hustled us to a bus. Five minutes later we were being loaded into two pangas, which are flat, open dinghies shaped more like sandals, and then we were on the dear little Angelito, congratulating ourselves on not being headed for one of the behemoths anchored nearby and taking closer to a hundred passengers. Diego gave us an introductory speech, with suggestions such as: if your spouse falls overboard, don’t jump in after, go get help—otherwise how will we know you’re gone? A Galapagos native, Diego spoke English in a clear and deliberate manner, delivering information in a specific number of bytes per sentence so that we could all assimilate every scrap. It turned out that the majority of our fellow passengers were German speakers, and we soon found out that Diego could name every bird, animal, and plant on the islands in German as well. My husband, Skipp, and I were the only Americans. At 60, we were also the oldest people on board; our number included three teen-agers and a 22-year-old aspiring nature photographer. After a pleasant lunch, with Luis bringing us platters of meat, vegetables, and fruit to pass around a long table, we were underway to Las Bachas, where we landed on the beach by scrambling out of the pangas into the surf (a so-called “wet landing”). The beach was amazingly pristine, considering the traffic it must get, so close to Baltra. We were there to admire the tracks left by sea turtles leveraging themselves laboriously up the beach to lay eggs. I have to say, the tracks looked very much like a Jeep trail. After our walk, we had a swim. The most adamant snorkelers among us went fish-viewing, although the water was too churned up by a pleasant surf to let us see much. Back to the boat for supper, and anchoring overnight. Our cabin was small, of course, and unfortunately right next to the engine, which ran even when we were anchored so as to provide power. But we had air conditioning, comfortable bunks, a nice little bathroom, and plenty of storage, so who needs floor space? After awhile, we grew used to the engine and got some sleep.

We woke up for a beautiful magenta sunrise, and watched a small shark fin cutting the water next to the boat. After breakfast, the boat anchored off Isla Mosquera (Fly Island), along with four or five other cruise ships. The pangas took us in through the surf to another gorgeous beach, this one a long spit of sand edged with jet-black lava. Here we saw sea lions. They looked like great languid furry sacks as they kept themselves busy sunning, playing in the surf, hanging out, or sunning some more. We’d been told that by the regulations of the Galapagos National Park, we were not to go closer than six feet to the animals. The animals were not under similar restrictions, it seemed. If we stopped at the appropriate distance to look at them, or take photos, they galumphed over to have a closer peek at us. And I’ll never forget the sound of a baby sea lion nursing on a very relaxed mama. The black lava at the edges of the beach were covered with Sally Lightfoot crabs, each one a work of art in an oriental shade of red with blue underpinnings. Heaps of black marine iguanas casually lay on top of one another while they enjoyed the sun. A gray lava gull stood by. It’s a real treat to see one, according to Diego, as there are only 400 pairs in the world, all in the Galapagos, of course. Also the eponymous flies, although luckily they were interested only in the sea lions, not us. The pangas then took us to the Canal Norte on Seymour Island, where we had our first proper bout of snorkeling. I gave up attempting to count different species of fish we saw—at least 40—every one as bright and beautiful as I could have wished. Sea lions came over to investigate, sloshing in and out among the rocks along with the surf and the snorkelers. They are curious, playful, and incredibly fast, agile swimmers. After lunch, the Angelito motored on to Cerro Dragon, while we passengers lounged comfortably and watched the world go by and chatted. (By the end of the week, all the German-speakers had regained their actually very good English; I gave up trying my schoolgirl German.) The pangas took us in for a “dry landing”. This meant that we could step from the panga directly onto the rocky shore, with Juan or Fernando or another sturdy crew member taking each one by the wrist to ensure that we couldn’t fall. We hiked through an overgrown pasture that was in the process of returning to its natural state, after the eradication six years ago of all the feral goats on the island. We saw huge orange land iguanas, as big around as your arm. They ignored us completely, but never lost their marvelous scaly smiles. The thin little trees were a-twitter with Darwin finches and mockingbirds, a wonderful sound to someone who had come from a long New England winter. It was hot on Cerro Dragon, which is what you get during the rainy season when the skies are clear. So when we got back to the Angelito, the crew made time for us to have a swim off the platform at the stern . Then we motored to Rabida Island for the sunset, our nightly briefing with Diego, and supper. Then off to bed. We were rocked gently in our bunks while through the night we traveled halfway around Isabella, which is by far the largest island in the Galapagos. While we slept, we cruised northwards across the equator, around the northern end of Isabella, then southwards across the equator again and down along the island’s western side—a good night’s work!

We woke up to watch the crew setting the anchor off Playa Tortua Negro beneath another lovely sunrise. (The day length, with sunrise and sunset promptly at six, was much the same as at home in Maine during the spring equinox, but with no twilight.) First order of business after breakfast was a panga ride—a “no landing” trip alongside sheer cliffs. We toured around Tagus Cove to see flightless cormorants, blue-footed boobies galore, lots of Sally Lightfoot crabs, and penguins, cute little fellows who looked like bathtub toys. Then we undertook a dry landing to walk around Lake Darwin, a brackish lagoon in the shelter of a cinder cone. We climbed the neighboring cone for views of the Wolf Volcano and our little boat. We were serenaded by finches and mockingbirds, and my husband spotted a Galapagos dove. Then snorkeling in Tagus Cove, sharing the waters with sea lions and sea turtles, and schools of tiny, silvery fish. The sea turtles looked so relaxed, hanging there in the water like huge serving platters, or moving with an occasional flip of a flipper. They looked very much like the surfer-dudes floating in the Australian current in Finding Nemo. Evidently these fellows take the current to Costa Rica in the summer, and come back in the fall when the current reverses. I’m very glad we were there when they were. Max, from Stuttgart, saw a shy little reef shark, and Paige, from Vancouver, managed to catch sight of a penguin flashing by underwater. After lunch the boat motored to Fernandina Island, where we panaga-ed to Punta Espinosa. There we surveyed the two types of lava—pahoehoe (ropy) and aa (needle-sharp clinkers)—both jet-black. Fernandina sports an even bigger species of land iguanas, four feet long at least. Along the shore we found stacks of marine iguanas, sea lions playing in the surf, and, of course, Sally Lightfoot crabs, which were as decorative as ever. We had landed at 2:00 in the afternoon, in the heat of the day—it was hot—so as to avoid sharing the path and the beach. At 4:00, panga after panga brought in 90 passengers from a Lindblad Explorer ship. Now we appreciated why Diego often spent hours on his cell phone while we were underway, negotiating with other ships for landing times so that we could have a private viewing of a site. We bobbed at anchor overnight.

The boat traveled to Bay Urbina, where we hiked into the lowlands of Fernandina. We saw land iguanas digging nests (slowly), and we were very lucky to see two tortoises which had traveled down from the highlands, where they usually stay, because the islands were unusually green this year due to a good rainy season. These tortoises, knee-high, moved surprisingly quickly on their elephant-like feet, and grunted at us. At the shore, we saw more sea iguanas, and went snorkeling off the beach. Lots of fish. Lots of fish. And sea turtles. An especially large one, well over three feet across, rose up under me and bumped me with its shell. Honest, Diego, it was the turtle that closed the distance. After lunch, the Angelito moved on to Isla Mariela in Elizabeth Bay, where we took a panga ride around the islets to bounce along next to hordes of blue-footed boobies, penguins, sea lions, and marine iguanas. An odd place, the Galapagos: where else can you take a photo of a penguin sitting under a cactus? Out in the bay, we saw five devil rays working as a team to herd fish. They would spread out, then move in to the center, driving the fish ahead of them, and then there’d be a feeding frenzy, with a great flapping of white wingtips and jumping of fish. Then they’d back off, then move again into the center, and we’d see their snouts as they gorged again. Then back off, and move in again. Diego said he’d read about it, but never seen it. He began to call us his lucky group. Then into a mangrove swamp, where sea lions lay basking on tree branches (an odd place, the Galapagos) and sea turtles moved languidly through the calm waters. All this day, we never saw another boat except a local fishing boat: we had the whole world to ourselves. We anchored for the night at Punta Moreno.

In Punta Moreno, we walked on a long stretch of fissured pahoehoe lava to see a troupe of flamingoes trolling in a brackish pond. They were such clowns that you could imagine them in a Disney film, with their leader coaching them in a chorus line: “All together now, stretch necks, bob heads, wuk-wuk-wuk-wuk, flap wings, look around. Okay, all together now, stretch necks, bob heads…” This island provided us with all three kinds of endemic cactus: the tree-like candelabra cactus, the fuzzy low-growing lava cactus, and the opunpia, a giant prickly pear with yellow flowers. (Almost all the flowers in the Galapagos are yellow; evidently there is only one species of bee, and these bees like yellow.) There were also penguins in the water, a multitude of blue-footed boobies on the rocks, and a truly huge species of marine iguanas, almost as big as any land iguana we’d seen. Snorkeling from the pangas, we saw fish, although not as many as other places, black long-spined sea urchins, and sea turtles. At one point, I was delighting in watching the feet of a cormorant paddling along, when suddenly the bird plunged his head into the water and I was beak-to-goggles with a pair of buggy-black eyes and something very sharp indeed. Evidently I didn’t look like a fish, because he retracted the beak without pecking at me, and paddled onward. A long haul during the rest of the afternoon. I stood by the rail with Bernard and Karin from Lyss, Switzerland, and watched the waves crashing thirty and forty feet high against the black cliffs. One after another, cinder cones poked up all along the shoreline. Again, we never saw another boat except for a panga which appeared out of nowhere to deliver three fresh, fat tuna. Let’s hear it for cell phones. That evening we anchored in Puerto Villamil. The crew went ashore after supper, leaving us gazing after them from out in the harbor; but I think we had more fun, enjoying visits from sea lions and pelicans who thought our loading deck and panga looked like fine spots to hang out. We finally got to see how sea lions climb: we watched them as they flung themselves upward out of the water and got their chins or chests over the side of the panga, then sort of wriggled until their weight was more into the boat than out of it, then flipped the rest of the way in. It didn’t take more than a moment.

In the town of Puerto Villamill, we strolled along a shady nature path that was part of an outpost of the Charles Darwin Research Center, admiring the flora—real trees!—and trying not to bump the marine iguanas sunning themselves on the railings. Then into the giant tortoise breeding center, dedicated to repopulating the islands after the whalers and pirates did their best to eradicate the poor beasts. Some of the islands have lost their endemic species altogether (and then there’s Lonesome George, the very last tortoise of his kind). We were shown how the eggs (rubbery and white, and big enough to cross the palm of your hand) had to be marked and then placed for hatching in exactly the same position they’d been found in. A pen held one-year-old tortoises scooting around like animated silver dollars; another held the two- to- three-year-olds; and on up to adults, some of whom were mating—him tipped up like a flying saucer over not-particularly-interested her, with major grunting as the sound effects. We were amazed at how fast the tortoises could move. And just so you get the point, a graphic along one wall showed a tiny tortoise next to a human baby; a knee-high one next to a young man; a waist-high one next to an elderly man; a larger one yet next to a gravestone; and, 200 years out, a truly huge tortoise next to a blank space where the human was not even a memory. We loaded onto a bus for the journey partway up Sierra Negra, then slipped and slithered on foot the rest of the way up to the edge of the caldera in truly slimy mud and a downpour. Well, we knew it was the rainy season. At the top, the mist cleared nicely for us to see down into and across the caldera, six miles wide, where a few fumeroles spewed steam, and the greenery within was striped by long streaks of lava from the eruption of 2005. Back down at the beach, some of us lounged over tropical-style drinks at Coco’s Bar while others swam in clear, turquoise waves surging onto white, white sand. After supper the crew went back to town—and returned in the open panga in another downpour. We departed in the dark. I stood at the after rail with Peter from London watching fireworks explode over the town (we never learned what they were for). Sometime in the night, we anchored at Floreana Island.

We panga-ed to Floreana’s beach and followed a sandy path to see flamingoes nesting at the edge of a lagoon. Max and Sina from Stuttgart enjoyed the mud in their bare feet, but the rest of us contented ourselves with listening to the Darwin’s finches chirping in the branches of nearby cactuses. The real treat of the day was snorkeling at a circular reef called Devil’s Crown, where we saw fishfishfishfish. My favorite was the bumphead parrotfish, for his rainbow colors and the squared-off shape that gives him his marvelous name. Down among the rocks, we saw shy little reef sharks, stiff black pencil urchins, and rays. The absolute best moment of the trip for me was during that snorkeling expedition. As I swam, something came along just below me. At first it looked like a pair of brown hooks the size of your cupped hands. What on earth—or outer space—could that be? I actually wondered: A Martian? It was moving way faster than I was, and as it flashed by below me it got broader—and broader—until it was at least six feet across, then narrowed again to a long black tail. It was a huge manta ray, close enough to touch. The whole experience was over in a moment, but wow! The Angelito moved over to Post Office Bay, the traditional mail drop-off for whaling ships, now a game for cruising tourists. We panga-ed in to look in the barrel set up on the beach, which was full of postcards addressed to people all over the world. Our European fellow-passengers kept saying, ‘Oh, here’s one from America. Is Salt Lake City’—or Seattle, or Los Angeles—‘close to Maine?’ We chose a postcard to deliver to Massachusetts. After lunch, the Angelito motored to Ayora on Santa Cruz. In the harbor, we all enjoyed the sight of a Coast Guard speedboat at anchor, its deck covered in lounging sea lions. We went to town for the afternoon. After a week on the boat, it was hard to get used to the hustle and bustle of city life: why, every once in a while a car went by! When we were offered the option of going back into town after supper, no one went except the crew; we were happier on the boat. That evening, as I was standing at the after rail, something very large swam by. Since there was no one there to argue with me, I’m calling it a hammerhead shark.

At 2:00 a.m. we heard the anchor rattle up for the departure for Baltra. I got up to watch the crew maneuver expertly around the boats in the harbor. At dawn we circled Daphne Island, little more than a rocky cupcake, where a crew of scientists has been maintaining a long-term finch examination. They have actually been able to demonstrate evolution at work, with the finches’ beaks changing measurably in response to differing amounts of food available in different years, depending on the weather. At 8:00 a.m. we were shunted off the boat to the airport for an 11:40 flight back to Quito. What a hurley-burley! Take me back to the Angelito!