Day 6: Santa Fé and South Plaza - Saturday January 27th 2018
Overnight we cruised from Santa Cruz to Santa Fé. We woke to find ourselves in a sheltered inlet at the NE corner of the island, Barrington Bay. The bay is surrounded by steep sea cliffs, a small islet (Islote Black) and has two sandy beaches allowing for a wet landing. On the beach we were met by a number of Galapagos Sea Lions, one of which ran up to me and muzzled my leg while I was changing footwear - I hadn't seen it coming so it was a bit of a surprise. Alison witnessed a similar situation with an American tourist from a different boat - he was so surprised that he fell over backwards. The sea lions here seem very playful and not at all aggressive (quite unlike the fur seals of Antarctica) - they provided us with much entertainment and pleasure throughout our trip. The Galapagos Sea Lion is considered by some authorities to be a full species and by others to be a subspecies of the California Sea Lion (Zalophus (californianus) wollebaeki).
From the beach there are two walking trails affording an opportunity to view part of the island and its wildlife inhabitants. |
According to the field guides the lava lizards that occur on Santa Fé are of the same species as occurrs on the other central and western islands - the Galapagos Lava Lizard (Microlophus albemarlensis). According to our naturalist guide, Rissel, the Santa Fé population has been split as a separate species now. From the photography perspective it's a bit academic as none of the 7 (or 8) species can be identified in the field, other than by knowing which island you are on. Females are smaller than males and are distinguished by having a red throat, which is quite variable in brightness and extent.
Santa Fé has its own species of Land Iguana (Conolophus pallidus) which grows larger (to 120cm length) than the Land Iguana (Conolophus subcristatus) found on other islands. As its specific name suggests, the Santa Fé version tends to be paler, but the crucial identification feature is that it has a more extensive row of dorsal spines
After our visit some of us (including Alison and I) had a pleasant half hour or so snorkelling. We saw thousands of fish of many varieties in the clear waters of the rockier sections of the bay.
On our way across the island we found Galapagos Land Iguana, which also occurs on Isabella, Fernandina and Santa Cruz. As mentioned above this is distinguished from the Santa Fé Land Iguana by its shorter row of dorsal spines.
Once across the island we reached the sea cliffs that are home to numerous Galapagos Shearwaters. I spent a considerable amount of time trying to photograph these and have subsequently deleted about 200 blurred images.
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We returned to the Beluga and cruised to South Plaza Island which lies off the east coast of Santa Cruz, along with its neighbour North Plaza. As became usual, we were accompanied by frigatebirds, shearwaters and storm-petrels. Approaching the islands we found Red-billed Tropicbirds and Swallow-tailed Gulls. There is a dry landing site on the north shore and walking trails which cross the island to the steep sea cliffs of the south shore.
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