San Cristobal Island: Punta Pitt, Kicker Rock
This morning we wake up at the northern tip of San Cristobal, an island similar to Santiago. High cliffs of eroded tuff cones are looming over a cove where a small beach will be our landing site. Many among us cannot believe that the end of the week is in sight; there is so much to see, to do and to learn, that time on board the National Geographic Endeavour seems not to exist. For a visit to Galápagos with Lindblad is not only about close and unforgettable wildlife encounters, but also about making new friends, hearing curious tales from the past, gaining new skills in photography, snorkeling or kayaking, and getting in touch with a different culture, the culture of Ecuador. It is therefore that some of us are little melancholic today.
Fortunately there is way too much distraction to let these feelings get the upper hand. After breakfast we land at Punta Pitt for a walk between large tuff formations, the landscape we got to know so well this week, yet that still makes some of us gasp for its raw beauty. Again we hear the barking of sea lions, see the frigates soaring high up, and follow with our lenses the seemingly effortless flying boobies. We marvel at the resilient endemic plants and weeds which, almost without water, no soil and a blazing sun still manage to produce the smallest imaginable flowers. It reminds some of us of other habitats, like the arctic regions. We see for the first time this week red-footed boobies, lava lizards endemic to San Cristobal, mockingbirds endemic to San Cristobal and Galápagos club moss.
Pictures cannot capture the grandeur, although our photo instructor Antonio has inspired us with a fresh look at photography, teaching essential basics both in composition and techniques, and thus giving us better results than ever. Some of us have discovered a new passion thanks to him and to the patiently waiting models; the animals we got so strangely familiar with in such short time.
At last, as it should be, we have a “grand finale.” Kicker Rock is a 600-foot-high vertical wall seemingly in the middle of the ocean. With Nazca boobies and frigatebirds nesting on its top, and the deep blue water around it, the place has the quality of an Edgar Allen Poe story setting. We snorkel around it to see green sea turtles, Galápagos sharks, sea lions and, in the backdrop, a colorful wall with many different organisms.
Some of us stay on board to witness something even more special; a humpback whale feeding her newborn calf, about half a mile off the ship’s port side. A better ending is hardly possible.
