A Good Place With Many Things To Offer

Lava Fields of San Cristobal Island

Today was the first field trip with our Marine Biology class. Our professor organized a day trip where we would travel by boat to a series of places along San Cristobal, which were being considered for eco-tourism development. During this trip several national park officials and scientists accompanied us. This project was developed by the people of San Cristobal as a means to distribute visitors throughout the island opposed to confining them to only a few spots. This increase in visitor sites is also appetizing to the locals a way to boost the local economy which is completely based upon tourism and fishing. San Cristobal is the oldest island in the whole archipelago and is one of the least developed. Since being here there has been construction on the main boardwalk of the town to make it prettier to attract more tourist. The most developed island, Santa Cruz, is one of the central islands and the first one to get an airport. With these attributes and many natural attractions, Santa Cruz is one of the more favored of the tourist islands, I think because it attempts to give a more home like feel for the tourists. On the other hand people visit San Cristobal and gain a small town feel and always prefer it as one of their favorite for that reason. So my stance on this whole San Cristobal development is that they shouldn’t work to replicate the feel of Santa Cruz but they should try and preserve the small Ecuadorian town sense, this way they can diversify the Galapagos experience and attract a wider variety of visitors. Well now that I’ve written this little blurb I might as well use it in my report for class.

Our field trip started out with a visit to a nice little site where there were extensive tide pools. These tide pools could possible be used as a basic hands on intertidal marine biology class (for tourists). We walked around the beach for a bit and found that the beach was host to a sea turtle nesting area, which would need to be set as a restricted area for tourists. As a class we went for a snorkeling and identified fish for a class assignment then moved on to the next site. The second area was a coastal mangrove area, which also involved a walk on a volcanic lava field, which was about 200 years old. It was amazing to walk on the lava flows and see the wrinkles in the stone. There were also a few colonizing cactus on the lava flow which were fun to photograph. The mangrove area was interesting and was used as a supplement to our lecture on coastal ecosystems. We wrapped the day up with some more snorkeling in the area then a long sleepy boat ride back to town. I will be posting new pictures to Flickr tonight. Enjoy life.

La Luna

The full moon is up and the tides are at their extremes. This is the second lunar cycle that I have experienced here on the islands and its quite beautiful. I'm hoping to get a few people out tonight for a walk in the moon light and maybe a swim, depending on the tide. It can sometimes be frustrating when trying to stir motivation in people who would rather be video chatting all day. I have come to the realization that they are losing sight of what we have under our toes. Enjoy the moon and enjoy the changing seasons for me.

Que Bueno

Northern Coast of San Cristobal, Punta Pitt

Hola amigos,

The past few weeks have been awful busy for me here on the islands. Consisting mostly of school work and classes. I finished my Introduced and Invasive Plant class about two weeks ago and am already finished with the lecture portion of my Evolution class. Within that two-week time frame we tried celebrating Carnaval, went on a snorkeling trip, and tried my skills at surfing.

So after our plant class we were told that we would be having a four-day break, which included the weekend and Carnaval, which was Monday and Tuesday. Come Friday night everyone in the Evolution class received an email from our professor, which told us that we would be starting classes on Monday and that our classes would be for two hours twice daily. Double session classes for Carnaval….party! Regardless we had a great weekend; we went to a beautiful new beach with lots of marine iguanas to hang out with. Carnaval days were not fun, nor were the following class days. The best part of our Evolution class was the fact that our professor was one of the co-founders of the GAIAS program and so he was very knowledgeable. He was also able to organize an amazing Saturday field trip for the whole program.

Our field trip started out with a boat ride to Kicker Rock, one of the best diving spots in the world, known for the schools of hammerhead sharks. At this spot we were able to go snorkeling to look for some amazing water life. The sad part was that the visibility was terrible and we saw hardly anything. As soon as I had jumped into the water looked down and saw a 4 ft Galapagos shark about 1.5 meters below me, after that I saw algae and plankton. After kicker rock the boat took us to Punta Pitt, which is known for the presence of all three Boobie Species (Blue-footed, Nazca, and Red-footed). The coolest part was that Punta Pitt at the time was actually closed to the public but our professor was able to pull some educational strings to get us access. We preformed a wet landing and then went for a short hike around the area after the hike we went snorkeling at a nearby island called Isla Pitt. The visibility at this location was tenfold better and we were able to see plenty of fish and sea lions. From this location we proceeded to isla lobos where we were able to swim with lots of sea lions.

This past Saturday we went back to Puerto Chino beach and borrowed a surfboard from a friend. The waves we pretty small and we weren’t able to stand up on the board but it was fun to cruise around. We spent the whole day on the beach which involve the setting up of my hammock and a long siesta. After our mid day nap we tried some more surfing the played some Frisbee. 5:30 was the time we told the taxi to come and pick us up at so we went back to the road and waited an additional 45 minutes for our taxi to arrive. We wanted to pay him a little less (10 from 15) but he complained, saying his truck broke down and that he didn’t need to come back and fetch us. We paid him full, not because we believed him but because it is such a small town and we would probably be seeing him again.

I have one week to write an research article on storm petrels of the Galapagos islands and then I will be finished with my evolution class. Until then I suppose I should be quite busy. Love you all.