Gobbled up

As was aforementioned, we had to go to the island of Santa Cruz for the final week of our penultimate class, Marine Conservation. Lucho (remember him?) well it was to be a week still full of his goofy self. Santa Cruz is almost smack dab in the middle of the archipelago and has the largest human population out of all the islands, mostly all packed in Puerto Ayora. Per usual USFQ hooked us up with a pretty sweetbutt hotel, Lobo del Mar complete with hot showers and an occasional sulfur smell wafting from the next door mangrove. We were still technically in class, but still managed to have a lot of fun. We took Monday night to relax after our earlier final and 2 hour boat ride. We drank some cervezas overlooking the star-painted waters of Academy Bay. The night evolved or devolved into a boy’s night as we continued with our Cuban friends that joined us and started swapping jokes. Las chicas eventually left and finished the night off with some testosterone-filled drinks such as strawberry daiquiris, bloody Mary, pisco sour, and Gin y tonico. A good start to the week I’d say

Lonesome George

.

                Tuesday was met with a trip to the Charles Darwin Research Foundation, the hub of most research and conservation on the islands. We listened to some Chucky D. rep’s give some talks about the biology and fisheries in the archipelago-blah blah blah 3 major currents, 3 zones, El Niño, blah blah blah. Anywho after “class” we got to see the man himself (by that I mean giant tortoise), Lonesome George! His ancient self had a pretty sweet set up. He gets to sit in his own personal pool all day getting nom-noms and potential mates brought to him all day. It’s tough being the last of your kind, I guess.

                What would you do with a free afternoon, well we fill ours with a great mix of LLapengacho lunch (a tradicional Ecua dish considting of salad, mashed potato cake in a peanut sauce, “sausages”, and a fried egg-the best part), a nap, and then another 60 foot plunge into some water. It’s a recipe I wish I could take back to the States with me. Las Grietas was as fun as the first time and a lot less crowded. Yeh, sure David almost died because apparently in synchronized cliff jumps people from the West Coast go on the “three!” instead of the “GO!” when counting to three while Scott (a Carolina man through and through) correctly waited for the “GO!”. Haha Classic. No worries though he just stumbled on the edge for a while trying to avoid death. We laughed it off with some witty jokes and learned a lot more about how diverse our country really is. After a few plunges we hopped in for a little snorkel. There’s not too much besides bravo clinids and a school of Mullets (including the one that now adorns David’s head), but it was great to swim through some tunnels and try our luck at touching the bottom. We wrapped up the night with a talk with Volker, the head of the Marine Lab at the Charles Darwin Research Center, and Marc, an expert on invasive species. It was great to hear the opinions of experts who were super aware with all that is going on in the Galapagos both bad and good.

Our fine flippered friends. "Did you know
they have names?"

Floreana

                Wednesday brought us to the island of Floreana (that makes 5 islands in total). We were welcomed there by a pod of dolphins that swam with our lancha into port.  As the longest inhabited island, Floreana has a lot of history and we learned about it as we took a tour of the highlands. We learned about love, murder, and mystery of the “first” inhabitants and saw a stone carved into a head from the original habitats, or just perhaps a bored Larry. In addition to that I myself learned all about the plant life from my very knowledgeable and wonderful friend, Kim, who named muchas plantas as we passed and I pestered her for their names. Some Darwin’s Cotton and Scalesia later we went to a nearby beach covered with black sand which curiously resembled Nescafe (Probs the reason it tastes so bad). It was a cold snorkel but it was pretty cool looking down and seeing waves of black sand on the sea floor. The remaining time on the island was spent relaxing on the heat-absorptive playa, eating tamarind from a nearby tree (tastes mike sour candy) and being surprised when two pinguinos popped up right in front of us just to say, “Hola!”

Sonrianse y Saludense

My friend, Kim,
the plant expert

Larry got bored?

Thanksgiving!

                So it wasn’t your normal fried turkey and football (Americano) turkey day but I think we made do alright. As a football substitute we went buceando at Rocas Gordon, which was recommended as one of the best dive spots that he’s ever been to by Lucho (he has over 600). It was a pretty calm normal dive full with king angelfish, some triggerfish, and my dive buddy, Dave here, but I dunno if my lateral line was extra sensitive that day or it was just my spidey senses tingling, but I felt a disturbance behind me and looked only to see a Scott Hammer half convulsing half doing the signal for hammerheads, and then I saw them a group of 15 or so longer than 2 meter martillos. They circled as we all either screamed, convulsed, or just floated dumbfounded as Scott’s namesake circled us. That was such an amazing feeling watching this huge pack of powerful creatures slowly cruise as the blood pounding in my ears played a low brass packed symphony.  I think I can deal with missing some Turkey day football. I guess the several schools of sharks took my breath away a little too much because I realized I was low on air and signaled the leader my situation but she said it was all cool and we continued. No worries as we all know there is always a little air left in the tank once it hits zero so I just found my wonderful friend, Gail, and she graciously shared some air. THANKS GAIL! The second dive was just as super with more MARTILLOS, and some eagle/manta rays are that might have been the first dive, but there was also a lobo that followed us around, playing with us and then giving us a, “hey, watch this look” as he bit the tail of a hammerhead twice his size, scaring it away. Awesome. After that adventure we had to have a Thanksgiving dinner. We found an Ecua grill and had some grilled meat and baked potatoes (close enough right?) Even though I missed some of Nina’s pumpkin pie a whole bunch that space was filled by the wonderful people around the table as we joined hands and mentioned what we were thankful for (the Norwegian even joined in). All their love and kindness left no space empty and it left me all warm a fuzzy inside; such a lovely group of people. Don’t forget the beer though! The most crucial part of Thanksgiving was filled in with some Cuba Libres and bastante tequila shots. ‘Twas a Thanksgiving not soon to be forgot.

Hammerheads

David

              

  Friday, instead of leftovers and lying around we went to Tortuga Bay before our imminent departure. It is a long stretch of beautiful sandy beaches a marine iguanas dotting the coastline. The marine class soundly defeated our rivals and then Kim, Gail, Scott, David, and I finished off the morning with some rumble-tumble wrestling in the very blue water. Still a little bit sore. Absolutely lovely.

 

photo-bombing lobo

Tortuga Bay

                We’re back in San Cristobal now, and it’s the beginning of our final class. I do miss home and everyone there, but I still want these last three weeks to pass as slowly as possible.