The night before our early flight from Quito to the Galapagos, We met Karen who was returning from the hospital visiting Ken; she said she was going to the Galapagos. We were shocked that she would consider leaving Ken in a Quito hospital by himself. We were even more shocked when we realized that she wasn’t leaving Ken at all, but that he was also joining us too. We hadn’t seen him since he entered the hospital several days before. To come out of ICU and head to the Galapagos was amazing. Both Ken and Karen are in their early 80’s and both are very determined and capable. Ken now admits that his capacity is waning.

Above is a shot from our Avianca flight leaving Quito. You can get a sense of the steepness of the terrain and you can see two snow-capped volcanoes in the distance. The Galapogos take their environmentalism seriously. As the land Darwin made famous with his book, On the Origin of the Species, they are attentive to environmental impacts such as non-native organisms. The islands are isolated; they are 600 miles off the coast of Ecuador. Like the Hawaiian Islands, many of their indigenous species originally arrived by wind or sea. From there they evolved their own ways of adapting to these lava islands. As is true of the Hawaiian Islands, more invasive species were inadvertently brought on merchant ships. Among the unwanted stowaways are rats. The islands authorities are working to eradicate or at least to stifle the rodent population.

Darwin said: “It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent that survives. It is the one that is most adaptable to change.” This is quite a different take on his theory than the typical understanding that it is the strongest and toughest who are the “fittest” to survive.

At the Seymour airport on Baltra , Galapogos, the airport staff actually pushed the disembarking ramp up against the plane. They also used human muscle to push the unloaded baggage to the terminal.

We travel by Pongo to and from the ship on our various jaunts. I think of them as zodiacs, but they are a bit different with a disembarking point at the bow of the boat. J and Lance are sitting with Shirley and Mike. Mike is holding on to one of two railings designed to make it safer to exit and to board the boat.

On our first afternoon we traveled to see giant tortoises. They are giant. The males can weigh up to 500 pounds; the females about half that weight. I didn’t know that they like to eat grass but it is a big part of their diet.

Things are the same all over the animal kingdom, except that tortoises are slower. This behavior takes about 45 minutes.

They like to hang out in ponds to drink water and to protect themselves from insects and the sun.

Below is the Carina 2, as we came back from visiting tortoises last night. The boat is well appointed, the rooms are larger than expected, and the staff is there to take care of whatever we need. All meals will be taken on this boat during our 7 day stay. You can see the staff waiting to meet us and to assist as we disembark from the pongos.

After dinner we headed to our room. It was a long day and we were tired, especially after our early morning departure from Quito. We also lose an hour as we enter another time zone here in the islands. We are now only one hour ahead of California. At night the ship picks up speed traveling to our next destination. Last nights voyage was rough and no one slept very much. Pat and I actually thought we slept through our 6 AM departure time this morning because our clocks hadn’t reset. The WiFi only works in the meeting area/dining room where I am now. Even Apple needs WiFi to reset the time.

It was raining when we headed out in the pongos, wind and water welcoming us to the new day. This morning we saw plenty of iguanas and sea lions as we hiked along a trail through the lichen covered lava.

Check out the claws.

This guy died his head blond and is going punk.

A pongo waiting to pick us up from the shore.

We came back for breakfast and then headed out to snorkel. At 60 degrees this time of year, the water temperature encouraged wet suits. We had a wonderful time. Some of our group saw manta rays, sea lions, turtles and a shark. After peeling off our gear it was time for lunch.

Looking forward to the afternoon activists. Yes, we are busy but we always have the option to bow out.

This afternoon we went to visit a facility that seeks to enhance the tortoise population on the islands. They do this by supervising the breeding of the tortoises. They take the buried eggs and incubate them until they hatch. The tortoises only are released after they are 5 years old and big enough so they are not likely to be prey.

We also visited a brewery that makes beer and wine from local fruits including passion fruit, guava, lemon grass, coffee and other local produce. We sampled many of these and the flavors of the fruits really came through.

We have just begun another evening journey around Isabela Island. The ship is moving more dramatically. I hope to get some better sleep tonight. We shall see.