Santiago Island
Today was totally dedicated to visiting the fourth largest of the Galápagos Islands, Santiago, also known as San Salvador or James. With its verdant highland region, hidden coves, Galápagos tortoises and sources of fresh inland water, it was a favorite site for pirates, buccaneers, fur seal hunters and whalers. Also, this dramatic island of many colors and habitats shows evidence of having had volcanic activity in her recent past, as demonstrated by the long stretches of black basalt lava cliffs along the coast of James Bay.
Our visit started before breakfast at Espumilla Beach, on the western coast of Santiago Island, with a wet landing. The landing beach is one of the archipelago’s most important marine turtle nesting areas, and today saw a few turtle tracks left after the high tide and many turtle egg shells on the sand. Just behind the button mangrove forest, we encountered a small lagoon flooded with ocean water, where some pintail ducks were feeding and swimming. A loop trail took us inland over a stony terrain into the mature palo santo forest for a nice view from the top of the trail. Santiago lava lizards, Galápagos flycatchers, mockingbirds and doves were constantly following us; while dozens of Darwin finches were singing and flying back and forth from their nesting sites. About an hour and a half later, we arrived back at the beach at the same time as the kayakers, and all of us returned to the ship for breakfast. The captain repositioned the ship to the historical and very scenic Buccaneer’s Cove.
This cove was a one-time pirate haunt as well as being the area where Charles Darwin landed for his longest stint on land in Galápagos – nine days, from the total of five weeks he spent in Galápagos. We explored this fascinating site with a Zodiac ride along the coastline, while some guests explored the underwater world with a deep-water snorkeling excursion, where conditions were perfect to spot eagle rays, white-tipped reef sharks and many species of tropical fish.
In the afternoon we repositioned the National Geographic Islander to Puerto Egas, James Bay, only a couple of miles away from Buccaneer’s Cove. Here, you can still see the remnants of human presence, as near the site there was salt mine, exploited by Ecuadorians during the early 1950s. After a wet landing on a black-sand beach, some guests took a long nature walk by the shoreline, while others enjoyed the beach and some more snorkeling.
Coastal birds, marine iguanas, sea lions and a small colony of fur seals were some of the attractions of the afternoon, but not the only ones, as we learned about the Lindblad Expeditions-National Geographic Fund created to support the conservation efforts in the islands. Through this special fund, in 1997, Lindblad Expeditions “adopted” Santiago Island and helped support one of the major eradication efforts to eliminate feral goats and pigs from the island. Today, the goats and pigs are completely gone, and this enormous success was possible thanks to the role that caring travelers can play in saving the islands for future generations.
