Our last full day on our expedition in the Galapagos we are visiting one of the oldest islands in the archipelago, San Cristobal, located at the eastern most point.
In the morning we visited Punta Pitt and from here to the east we could reach main land Ecuador in about 1000 kilometers or 600 nautical miles. Punta Pitt is the home of red footed boobies. Our census revealed the numbers are far more than we could see because they forage far from our visitor sites in the open ocean, unlike the blue footed and Nazca boobies. Today we were close to their nesting site and we were rewarded with the display of many social behaviors. A parent was feeding a recently born chick and we could see how careful it was while regurgitating small pieces of digested fish for the newborn.
We were pleased to see the island’s geological features which has been eroded for about 4, maybe 5 million years and we could now find traces of small pieces of broken lava weathered by time. This week we have travelled back through time from the youngest island, Fernandina, to one of the oldest and it shows.
After we left our green olivine beach we repositioned the ship to our next destination, headed to Cerro Brujo. Over a mile long of sandy beach with turquoise waters and with our ever-present friends the sea lions. There were also birds of different kinds, like the American Oyster catcher and their two little chicks. We walked along and enjoyed the sunset while we contemplated our adventures in the Galapagos. This week has been phenomenal hard to describe.
We shared this journey surrounded by fearless wildlife with a feeling of coexistence and respect for one another, isolated in a world that can never be explained with words or pictures. We are very fortunate to be here now. Tomorrow we are going back to our separate realities, but we will always remember how special our time was whenever we hear the word Galapagos.
