Isabela, the largest island in the Galápagos group, makes up half of the total surface area of the archipelago. The island was created by the fusion of six enormous shield volcanoes. One of them, the highest volcano, Wolf (1707 mts), was eruptioning just few weeks ago.
Today we explored two different sites in Isabela: Urbina Bay in the morning and Tagus Cove in the afternoon. Our first landing early in the morning was at Urbina Bay, located at the foothills of Alcedo Volcano. In 1954, 1.5 square kilometers of the marine reef off the coast of Urbina was uplifted almost instantaneously, by as much as 15 feet (four meters)! During the uplift, the marine creatures of the area were left high and dry, and some evidence of this occurrence can still be found: barnacles, sea worms and shells are still attached to rocks more than half of a mile away from the shore, a huge coral head stands in the middle of the trail and the old beach can still be seen, now surrounded by land where there was once sea.
During our hike along the shoreline and inland, we saw evidence of this uplifting as well as many creatures that make this site very special: colorful land iguanas and a smaller variety of giant tortoise, as well as many Darwin finches, the Galapagos mockingbirds, Galapagos doves and colorful vegetation.
Once we have finished the hikes, everyone, especially our younger explorers, enjoyed a refreshing swim from the beach, where penguins and pelicans were seen fishing! It was hard for us to tell everybody that it was time to go back onboard, but it was easy to convince our younger explorers, as they were going to learn how to drive our Zodiacs!
After an incredible mixture of flavors during our traditional Ecuadorian lunch, we dropped anchor in Tagus Cove, at the base of Darwin Volcano, where we spent the afternoon exploring the site with two rounds of kayaking, a deep water snorkeling outing, a hike to the rim of a small crater with fantastic views of the northern volcanoes of Isabela, and Zodiac rides along the beautiful shorelines of Isabela.
In the evening, we had our traditional recaps and a presentation about tomorrow’s activities, and then it was time for dinner and for a pizza movie night for our younger explorers. It was a very busy day with plenty of activities all day long, but everybody had a fantastic time.
