Isabela & Fernandina Island
We pulled the anchor up right after dinner the previous evening to begin our navigation, because we had to sail on one of the longest navigations of the week. We came all the way from the central part of the archipelago toward the westernmost part of this isolated group of islands.
This time of the year this area is bathed by the Cromwell Current, which brings to the surface a lot of nutrients forming the base of the food chain. As the sun was rising we were preparing for our second Equatorial crossing, but we were interrupted by two Cuvier beaked whales. These two marine mammals stayed with us for about 15 minutes before they dove and disappearing from the surface. There was a lot of moisture in the air, this condition happens only when cold water is present in Galápagos; in a few weeks time the weather condition is going to change and Galápagos animals are going to behave differently to take advantage of the new conditions.
In the morning we had a very intense program at Punta Vicente Roca with Zodiac rides and deep water snorkeling along the cliffs of Ecuador Volcano. This part of the archipelago is the best place to see the two species of endemic flightless seabirds and the two species of Galápagos sea lions.
The Galápagos penguin and Galápagos fur sea lions came from very cold places to this archipelago, both of them had to adapt to new conditions in a very different environment. This adaptation was to reduce their body size to deal with warm water during part of the year. Galápagos flightless cormorants lost their wings due to the lack of natural predators and the abundance of food sources; meanwhile the Galápagos sea lions finding this paradise became endemic due to isolation over a long period of time.
