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| craters on Bartolome Island |
The Galapagos Islands are all volcanic, some formed from the
explosions of volcanos and some uplifted as underwater volcanos filled the sea
with hot magma that built up over time into islands. Right now, the island of Isabella’s Wolf
volcano is active. But most of the
dozens of volcanos that have created these islands are quiet.
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| underwater crater on Bartolome |
Bartolome (or Bartholomew) is one of the most recently
created islands, probably less than a million years ago. It is stunning, covered with craters and
twisted rock of many colors. There isn’t
much life on the island yet because there is still very little vegetation. One of the “pioneer” plants is a low-growing
cactus that helps break up the volcanic rock over time so that seeds carried by
birds or the wind can begin to grow.
There are no iguanas yet on Bartolome. But we saw some lava lizards, one colorful
grasshopper that must have been blown ashore and one finch. Otherwise, there are a couple of plant
species that have started to grow and not much else. You can see from the craters that this
volcano blew with a lot of force, from many vents. The energy of the blasts created several
dozen craters which are still jagged, colorful rock, barely eroded at all.
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| Looking at Santiago Island from Bartolome |
Across a narrow channel is Santiago Island, also a mass of
volcanic craters. Santiago is
considerably older than Bartolome and has some areas of lush and varied
vegetation. Other areas have seen more
recent lava flows which are very obvious from the vantage point of Bartolome’s
highest peak, which we climbed (335 steps, so not so high).
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| stairway to top of Bartolome |
Santiago is recovering from attempts to colonize the
island. For decades it had wild goats,
dogs, cats and pigs that settlers left behind when they gave up their attempt
to farm on the island. The goats, pigs
and dogs are gone, cleared out by a massive effort on the part of the
government to rid the islands of invasive species. There are still rats and wild cats as well as
a bird that was brought to the island because it eats lice on the backs of
cattle. Unfortunately, the bird
preferred the lizards, finches and iguana eggs to lice, so, while the cattle
disappeared, the bird thrived by killing off many of the other animals. Today, the Park Service is trying to rid the
island of the bird and to breed finches in captivity to release when the island
is safer for them. There are only 100
native finches left today.
The Galapagos is home to thousands of sea lions but not many seals. Santiago has a fur seal population.
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| fur seal relaxing in rocks on Santiago Island |
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| Galapagos Penguins |
This day included 2 snorkeling opportunities. Both were wonderful. In the morning, snorkeling off Bartolome in
the rough volcanic rocks underwater, we saw a small ray and a huge ray as well
as 2 reef sharks, each about 6 feet long.
The sharks just wanted to hide from us under the rock shelves, but did
let us get a good look before vanishing.
The small ray tolerated us for a while, then, with a blast of sand, slid
under a big rock. The large ray swam
with us amidst the rocks giving us quite a thrill. We also found Galapagos Penguins and a small heron on the rocks off Bartolome.
Later, snorkeling off Santiago Island, we saw 3 marine
turtles feeding on the algae near the bottom of the shallow ocean floor. Since they seemed quite unconcerned about us,
we swam with them and watched them for about half an hour. The largest one was about 3 feet long and 2
feet wide—just enormous. It’s so amazing
to watch them swim gracefully through the water given their size and
weight.
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handsome Marine Iguana on Santiago
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In the evening, we were across the channel from the Wolf
volcano on Isabella (the largest island by far in the Galapagos, with 63% of
the archipelago’s land mass) and watched it flare for about an hour. We were too far away to see the lava flow,
but could see big red flares wax and wane as the volcano erupted, then went
briefly quiet before blowing again.
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| Galapagos hawk circling over Santiago |
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| Santiago's main volcano |
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yellow crowned night heron
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