Overview Review Part One

David - Blogging with no access to internet except for an hour during the trip is difficult.  It gets even worse when you try to type on a small vessel that is constantly bouncing so I decided to just try to give a summery of the trip.  We visited many islands, some twice, but, of those, the locations did not look the same.  We saw more Marine Iguanas than I could count, lots of Lava Lizards, and many Boobies.  We saw Red Footed Boobies, Nasca Boobies, and Blue Footed Boobies (Birds).  We saw Great and Magnificent Frigate Birds and the Galapagos Penguins.  A few Finches and Wrens, Storm Petrels, Galapagos Owl, and the Galapagos Hawk.  Interesting note about the penguin; we saw them on two islands they are rarely seen on.  We also met two species of herons.  We were constantly visited by Galapagos Sea Lions and Fur Seals while visiting islands and snorkeling.  We met Giant Tortoises on three islands and visited the Tortoise Breeding Center on Isabella Island.  While snorkeling and wading and swimming we shared the water with white tip sharks, green sea turtles, sea lions, penguins, and lots of fish to include puffer, parrot, and a whole lot more.  Sea urchins, barnacles, sea stars, and sea slugs also abound.

We visited volcanic beaches that ranged in color from black to gold to red.  The islands varies in shape and composition.  Some where shield type while others are stratovolcanos and cinder cone.  Many islands still show evidence of lava flow and some islands are actually a combination of many islands that were joined when lava from one eruption surrounded existing volcanic islands.  When we walked over lava flows we observer how quickly or slowly the lava cooled.  We also could determine how viscus the lava was and the amount of gases present in the flow.

Vegetation is interesting on the islands.  Our guide, Galapagos National Park certified, Fabian Sanchez (the BEST guide I have ever met) told us that 80% of the vegetation in the Galapagos is DRY Tropical Forest.  this explained why most of the vegetation we saw looked more grey than green.  This doesn't mean there wasn't any green vegetation; just that there wasn't a lot.  Vegetation on each island adopted to the animals that live there or the animals that don't.  Example cactus.  Islands without land iguanas have cactus with longer, softer thorns.  Islands with land iguanas have cactus with shorter, harder thorns.  Also the availability of moisture and even soil determine what plants are present.  Many plants are flowering and pollination can be self, wind blown or insect driven.