Galapagas Islands - Day Seven - Santa Fe, South Plazas

Day seven of our Galapagos trip found us at Isla Santa Fe after another night crossing. By this point me and Clair were pretty immune to the motion of the ocean, although generally when the engines started at 3amish we would wake up but then nod off again fairly sharpish.

After yet another fabulous breakfast, we quickly all headed off in the dinghies for a slightly soggy landing at Bahai Barrington. Here we were greeted by a dozy colony of sealions on the beach.


As we followed Lobo up the cliff-edge trail we walked through these magnificent giant opuntia cactii, another unique species to this island.


The opuntia were genuinely massive, towering overhead with their waterlogged paddles.


Also present were the Santa Fe land iguanas. These guys were some of the biggest that we encountered.


Clair snapped this piccy of the inside of a dead cactus. You can really see how the structure allows it to hold all the water inside.


Just crashed right out, soaking up the sun.


This is a great pic showing the gnarly trunk of this huge specimen.


Tucked in the middle here is a species of Darwin finch. It was really tricky to catch them on camera as they were so spritely.


This one is a cactus finch with handsome black plumage.


The landscape was extremely dry, yet still had a lot of growth.


Another little birdy trying to avoid being photographed, this is a large billed fly catcher.


This was a pair of Galapagos mockingbirds, one of which was a juvenile, making lots of noise in this tree.


More cactus finches.


A Galapagos dove with its pretty blue eye on Clairy.


The colours of the vegetation were quite intense against the black volcanic rocks. This reminded Clairy of a Gustav Klimt painting.


It was absolutely roasting by now and we were all glad to have drenched ourselves in factor 30. The reddish trunks of these beasts can measure up to 2.5m in circumference and the crown can be up to 10m off the ground. They're important for the Sante Fe land iguanas who fiercely contest territories under trees that produce a lot of fruit. It is suspected that the cactus trees may have been forced to grow tall in order to stop the lizards eating the succulent pads.


The walk up to the lookout point on the high escarpment was very steep, and I was dripping with sweat by the time we got a break to take a piccy. The Floreana is the boat in the middle.


Looking back, the landscape looks like something from a western (by the sea).


Clair couldn't get enough of this sea purslane plants on the sharp rocks.


Once we got back ot the boat we quickly grabbed the snorkelling gear and the underwater camera and jumped back in the dinghy. The plan was to snorkel a loop all the way round the bay. Initially the water was pretty murky and we were a bit disappointed thinking this wasn't going to compare to our other fabulous experiences. We had also been warned that there had been sightings of a bull shark in recent weeks. We were advised to swim in a group and to shout out so that everyone could get out of the water if we saw one. Unfortunately none of us knew what one looked like. Oh well.


Soon enough though I realised if I swum down a bit then we could still get some pretty good pictures and footage.


I really enjoyed trying to swim right into the shoal of fish, and in some cases they didn't seem to mind, like these yellow tails.






Oh hi! Check out how strangely fluffy my hair looks in the super salty water.


A nice little patch of coral.


We think these next two are young puffer fish. They're quite odd because they completely change colour throughout the different phases of their lives.




And here's a vid I've put together of my snorkelling antics. Keep your eye out for the top quality smokescreen emitted from the parrotfish I was chasing in the last clip (I didn't mean to scare him that much!).


On returning to the boat and eating a hearty lunch we all had a couple of hours to relax while the boat motored off to our next location the island known as South Plaza. Here are Kirsty, Johann and Jessy taking a break. After this piccy was taken me and Clairy had a quick lie down on the loungers and soon enough we, and pretty much everyone else were fast asleep. It had been a seriously active week! It felt totally lush just lying on the loungers and being rocked to sleep by the boat's gentle swaying.


South Plaza was a completely different landscape to Sante Fe. Both Plazas (South and North) are uplifted slabs of the sea floor rather than volcanic islands. Both of the islands rise from sea level at the north to nearly 25m cliffs on the southern edge.

All about were these hybrid iguanas. They are a strange combination of the land and marine iguanas and are born infertile and live a much shorter life than either of their parents.


At this point, as Lobo was explaining some very droll point about the geology of the island, Clairy nudged me with an incredulous look on her face and pointed back towards our boat. I'm not sure if it has been mentioned already but on the third day of our travels, an extremely buxom Ecuadorian lady appeared on the boat, who spent a good deal of her time in just a tiny bikini draped around El Capitan (who I would say was in his early fifties, and I imagined had a dutiful wife and kids somewhere). What Clairy and Eleanore had noticed was that said lady was dancing to booming eighties tunes on the front of our boat right outside the bridge in her tiny bikini. What a lucky Captain. It was truly a sight to behold.

Trying to regain our composure we headed on between the much more wide and stocky opuntia on this island.


A land iguana guarding its territory and waiting for the cactus fruit to drop (what a hard life).


The landscape was much more windswept and as a result the vegetation was a lot flatter.


The rocks that the iguanas were relaxing on were white because of the years of bird and sealion droppings that have been polished onto the rock by the various animals moving about on them. It looked a bit like polished concrete. Clairy was well chuffed with this piccy.


Here's a short vid of one of the chunky bugger's walking around.


Sea purslane stretching off into the distance.


As we reached the other edge of the island, the beautifully rugged cliffs could be seen. As we walked off around the cliff edge Uri spotted two turtles in the waves below mating. The smaller male hanging onto the larger female on the surface of the ocean.


A dead sealion.


On this high clifftop were a colony of swallow tailed gulls. You can't quite see it here, but they have a beautiful red ring arround their eyes. This one's chick is sat on the rock to the left. Apart from a small colony in Columbia, the swallow tail gull is endemic to the Galapagos.


Lovely hues of red and green sea purslane.


And soon enough we were back on the boat for our last evening meal and chillax. Clairy took a couple of pics of our cabin. Here's me in my huge bed!


And Clairy's even smaller one up top complete with slightly leaky portholes.


And our tiny bathroom with lovely hot water. It was actually a quite nice environment to spend a week in, and we would be quite sad to leave it.