Bartolomé and Sullivan Bay
Today we had a very early wake-up call. Through the windows we could see a fantastic volcanic landscape with the first light of the day. Bartolomé Island, named after Bartholomew Sullivan, 2nd lieutenant on the HMS Beagle, is a tiny volcanic island located just off the east coast of Santiago Island, the fourth largest of the Galápagos Islands. Rust-colored "spatter cones" with large pale tuff cones and sooty lava flows created a moonlike landscape, where the action of erosion over time has created graceful features in the soft volcanic ash, colonized by few plant species adapted to support the drought conditions that occur here.
A wooden boardwalk took us all the way to the summit of the island where a breathtaking view was waiting for us. After seeing this volcanic landscape, we returned to the ship to replenish our energy with a healthy breakfast, before going for the next activity, snorkeling and swimming off the golden beach of Bartolomé, near the Pinacle Rock. Colorful fish, a couple of sea lions playing around, and even a Galápagos penguin fishing between our guest’s legs made up a wonderful morning.
By noon it was time to go back to our lovely little ship where a delicious Ecuadorian buffet was ready for us. We tasted the famous Ecuadorian ceviche, the juicy suckling pig, the “llapingachos” (potatoes patties), the “encocado de pescado” (fish cooked with coconut milk) and some delicious desserts such as the “naranjilla” sorbet, the “tres leches” (a cake made with three different milks: condensed, evaporated and whole milk) and the famous “yucca” (manioc) bread.
With full stomachs and happy hearts, some guests decided to go for a nap, others to read, while others preferred to get some photo instructions from one of our naturalists.
At 2:30 pm we were ready again for the second snorkeling outing. This time we went for a deep water snorkel off the coast of Sullivan Bay, Santiago Island. The water temperature was very pleasant and visibility better than in the morning! We saw many schools of the yellow tailed surgeonfish grassing on the algae. Angel fish, sergeant majors, sea stars and three species of sea urchins were easy to spot and by end of the activity, we saw our first shark of the week, a white tipped reef shark!
Happy to see some of the underwater Galápagos world, we changed quickly into our dry clothes and good walking shoes (for some of us this meant flip-flops) to have a dry landing in one of the most fantastic recent “pahoehoe” lava flows at Sullivan Bay. For many of us this walk is the best way to show the beginning of life here, and to understand how hard it was for the species to arrive and successfully colonize such a deserted and extremely unfriendly terrain. Surviving here certainly wasn’t easy but those species that succeed created the most incredible mosaic of wildlife found nowhere else on earth.
We learned about geology, marine biology, human history, arrival and establishment and the conservation projects that are taking place here, such as the eradication of introduced rats in some of the smaller islands.
What a fantastic and full day!
