Galapagos Islands : In the footsteps of David Attenborough… kind of…
I am not one to watch nature documentaries, to be honest. I absolutely love all types of animals and birds, but I really do not much enjoy watching them on tv – I like them to be in front of me so I can see them directly, feel the movement of the air that they are disturbing, smell the whiff of them after they have left. I am lucky enough to have travelled a lot - I have been to East Africa and seen four of the Big Five, I have seen bears and moose in Canada, I have been diving and seen whales, dolphins, seals and countless kinds of fish. But none of this prepared me even slightly for what I saw in the Galapagos Islands!
I sailed on Yacht La Pinta on their 4 night Eastern Galapagos cruise which takes in South Plaza, Santa Fe, San Cristobal, Espanola and Santa Cruz Islands. The yacht takes 48 passengers, but we sailed out with a few cabins empty… Cabins were comfy and well appointed, food was good, staff were very friendly and helpful. Over lunch on the first day, there was a little discussion around the cosy restaurant about what we should expect from the trip, but nobody had much idea…
We arrived at South Plaza around 2.30pm and the onboard naturalist guides divided us up into 2 groups, got us all kitted up in lifejackets, made sure we all had hats, sunscreen, water bottles, cameras etc and helped us onto the zodiacs … and off we went to the island. Arrival involved getting us and all our stuff off the zodiac, onto the slippery rocks where we landed, ditching the lifejackets, and trying to maintain balance and work out what was going on.
I walked about 20 metres up the stone pier, still trying to sort out the optimum way of carrying all the stuff that was supposedly necessary, and all of a sudden, it was as if I had entered another world – I was surrounded by wildlife and they were not even slightly bothered by me being there. They did not even move to let me walk or stagger past but expected me to dodge and avoid them!
I literally could not believe what I was seeing, and once we started to move slowly across the rocky terrain of the island, this feeling of entering a National Geographic video only increased.
When I stood still, I could see birds everywhere – hawks circling lazily over the rocks, various kinds of gulls nesting in the low undergrowth, blue-footed booby birds sitting on rocks on the steep cliffs, red-footed booby birds hiding in the scraggly treetops, Nazca booby birds with their huge 2 metre wingspans diving into the water to catch fish, frigate birds with their distinctive silhouettes against the beautiful blue sky…
Looking down was no less extraordinary - iguanas of different colours and sizes were lounging across the rocks, not doing much but all looking at me with faint smiles on their faces. Sea lions cavorted in the shallows and cuddled up in groups on the sandy beaches, looking for all the world like a bunch of sleek puppies.
And this is what the Galapagos Islands are like… nature at its absolute finest and you are just an onlooker and observer.
