Cerro Dragon & Sombrero Chino
Our thoughts of the Galápagos before coming were about things like Darwin, finches, giant tortoises, warm air and warm water. We got a few things right, but we also learned about the little things that made the islands what they are today.
Today, on the island of Cerro Dragon, our great naturalists told us how the small changes in DNA and genes can make the reptiles, plants, mammals and insects adapt to fit the environment in which they are living. The key to adaptation is time. For a species to adapt to a certain environment, it happens over many generations. Take the Darwin finches for example; their ancestors on land ate seeds. When they came to the islands, they found none, or very little, seeds. Some of the finches who found they could eat other things, survived. For the others, it was game over. The survivors passed their genes on to the next generations. Their sons and daughters found they had the ability to eat non-seed meals like fruits, bugs and even blood. And that backs up the theory of natural selection and the concept of survival of the fittest. That’s what gives Galápagos its glory. It gives the feeling of going back in time, to the time pre-human, all animal.
Snorkeling in equatorial Galápagos in October is not as warm as you might expect… it is cold! This morning, we put on our two layers of wetsuits and jumped in. It was blue! We swam over to the rocks and started drifting with the current where we saw wrasses, blennies and sea stars. Swimming around the point, we found ourselves at the top of a huge wall. It went straight down to nothing! Along the edge of the island it was very colorful – oranges, purples, yellows, greens and whites. It was a great time.
In the afternoon, we got to do it all over again! But this time we were in more shallow water and it was even more exciting. Swimming along “Sombrero Chino,” we saw sea lions, penguins and even white-tipped reef sharks swimming with us! There were also hundreds of razor-fin sergeant fish, the biggest blue-chinned parrot fish we have ever seen, sergeant majors, goatfish, surgeon fish and many others. Snorkeling in the Galápagos at this time of the year might be a little cold, but it is worth it!
