Day 17: Fernandina (Espinosa Point) and Isabella (Punta Vicenta Roca) - Wednesday February 7th 2018
From Tagus Cove, Isabella to Punta Espinosa, Fernandina was probably the shortest distance we travelled for our 'overnight' boat movement - in fact we arrived before dinner on Day 16.
Fernandina is the third largest and, geologically, the youngest of the Galapagos Islands. It is essentially formed of a single active volcano (La Cumbre, literally "the summit"). It is uninhabited, largely unvegetated and Punta Espinosa is the only visitor landing site. Here we found a combination of pahoehoe and aa lava and a large number of Marine Iguanas. Despite its proximity to Isabella, Fernandina has its own subspecies of Marine Iguana (cristatus); they are large (and some of those we saw were really huge) and predominantly dark grey. |
Below is a gallery of scenes from the visit to Espinosa Point; click on an image to enlarge and scroll through
We returned to the Beluga for a cruise north to Punta Vicenta Roca (Isabella). I adopted my usual position for sea-watching on the comfy shaded seats in front of the bridge and was almost immediately rewarded by the sight of numerous splashes a few kilometers ahead. It soon became apparent that this was a large pod (~120) of Common Dolphins. They were leaping higher than I have ever seen dolphins leap - (at least 2-3 x their own length which would make it ~5m). Everyone was soon on deck and even the captain was out videoing them for his children. We stayed with them for about 30 minutes before resuming our course.
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We attempted snorkelling at Punta Vicenta Roca but the swell was too great and the undersea life too sparse to continue with this effort for long. We had a panga ride along the shore, exploring caves and then heading out to the more open sea in a successful search for Ocean Sunfish (sometimes known as Mola Mola) - the worlds heaviest bony fish. Usually (in those we have seen off the Isles of Scilly) all you get to see is the large dorsal fin - but here the waters were clear enough and the animal was close enough that we could see the whole thing. It wasn't quite as big as the panga we were in - but it wasn't far off.
From Punta Vicente Roca we made a brief foray into the northern hemisphere as we rounded the scenic northern shores of Isabella.
On this stretch of the cruise we saw several Galapagos Petrels, a species that seemed fairly scarce during our tour. At the point of recrossing the equator we celebrated with cocktails on the bridge Overnight we continued the long cruise to Santiago. |