Fernandina Island
Overnight the ship sailed all the way around Isabella Island (looks like a seahorse) to Fernandina Island (3a on map).
We started the day early with a dawn arrival at Fernandina Island (our visiting slot assigned by the Park). Before we arrived, we were up on the observation deck looking for whales. No joy but Marina lucked into a great picture of a manta ray (with two remoras attached) just off the side of the ship.
Sunrise was pretty nice too.
Runkeeper was started on this ship resulting in this map of our trip to shore and the subsequent hike.
The part of Fernandina Island where we landed has huge fields of black lava, and a lot of this lava is covered with Marine Iguanas.
They lie next to one another, and on top of one another, leading to the group term for this form of iguana: a “mess of iguanas.” These iguanas are generally shades of black and gray which makes for great camouflage on the black lava. They also move around, so that you need to be careful not to step on them.
Some of the iguanas were on sandy parts of the shore, digging holes in which to lay eggs.
While the marine iguanas are the star of Fernandina we saw other critters as well. There are many Sally Lightfoot crabs.
Flightless cormorants were also present. These birds have very small, stubby wings, especially compared to conventional cormorants. This adaptation is useful because there are no real predators for the birds on the Galapagos, and swimming underwater with the stubby wings is beneficial for catching fish.
We also saw a Galapagos Hawk
a sea turtle, pelicans and sea lions.
