Gardner Bay and Punta Suarez
It is day two of our expedition in the Enchanted Islands, and today we were set to visit Española. Located in the southeast of the archipelago, this is one of its oldest islands. It has a high rate of endemic species, some of which we’d see throughout the day.
In the morning, the National Geographic Endeavour dropped anchor at Gardner Bay. With its white sand, turquoise waters and a large colony of Galápagos sea lions, this is one of the most beautiful beaches in the archipelago. It is the sea lion’s breeding season, so we found numerous females nursing their very young pups. The Española mockingbirds were very busy patrolling their territories and looking for food on the sand, between the resting sea lions or even unsuccessfully searching in visitor’s backpacks! It was a new experience to be able to share the beach with these creatures, swim with the sea lions or explore the underwater life by the rocky shores of the nearby islets. What a wonderful way to start the day!
The afternoon took us to a different section of the island. Punta Suarez, on the western tip of Española, is considered one of the jewels of the Galápagos Islands, due to the amount of amazing wildlife and scenery found here. And this afternoon we had no doubt about it! A rocky, long trail took us along a couple of little beaches and the tide was high so the sea lions had to climb high on them. There were so many young pups it was hard to continue without taking pictures at every step.
As we continued, we found aggregations of marine iguanas, another one of our endemic species. The iguanas have already acquired their bright-colored red and green scales, necessary during their breeding season. The endemic Espanola lava lizard was pretty common along the walk too. The edges of the cliffs are favored by a colony of Nazca boobies, and several of them were either courting or pair-forming and a few had already started to lay eggs. It is just amazing that these birds nest so close to the trail and seem oblivious to the presence of humans.
One could almost say that birds here are reluctant to fly, which may be due to the lack of land predators. The whole area is the flight zone for various birds: soaring Galápagos hawks, blue-footed and Nazca boobies, Galápagos shearwaters, red-billed tropicbirds and waved albatrosses. Espanola is the only island chosen by this majestic endemic bird as a home. From March until December, albatrosses inhabit Espanola in order to produce their offspring. It seems like it has been a successful breeding season for the albatrosses, as we found many chicks on their way to acquiring their fledging plumage. They will need to be ready by the end of December or beginning of January, when they’ll have to leave the island to fly further south, only to return when they are about five years old.
The skies cleared out as we returned to the landing beach, and sunset was an explosion of yellow and orange lighting up the landscape. This, together with all the amazing wildlife we saw today, has made this one an unforgettable afternoon.
