AM: Puerto Ayora
6:00 Wake up
6:30 Breakfast
7:00 Dry landing at Hotel Galapagos
To see:

• Charles Darwin Research Station
• Captive rearing center
• Giant tortoises
• Baby tortoises
• Lonesome George
• Van Straten Visitor Center

Free time in Puerto Ayora
Lunch at Hotel Galapagos
Visit to the Highlands
To see:

• Lava Tunnels
• Pit Craters
• Geological formations
• Scalesia forest
• Land birds

Dinner at Narwhal

A different kind of day today. We left immediately upon coming on boat the day before to get to Santa Cruz, the population center of the Galapagos and home to Greg and Thalia, John, and, most especially, the ship's caption, anxious to get home for some reason. The seas were rough, with the constant pitch and sway of the boat making sleep difficult.

The day started with breakfast on board, then a panga ride to shore. We had to go to a different dock and take a bus to our initial destination due to the tide. The morning's visit was to the Charles Darwin Research Station to see the giant tortoises. We were able to enter the pen of the "unclassifiables"-the tortoises that had been voluntarily returned to the station that had been in private hands (in zoos, and as "pets"), but which the Station could not identify their island of origin. In the pen, we could observe the tortoises close up-within inches-including seeing one trying to mate (an impossibility as the pen contained only males) and eating. We were able to only get a glimpse of the saddle-backed variety that was repopulating Pinzon-it had been wallowing in red mud. Then we went to see the captive breeding program including the rare privilege of entering the breeding pen. Baby tortoises were so abundant in the pen that you had to watch where you walked to be sure not to step on or kick a young tortoise (ages 3-4 years) on the grounds. In little compartments, covered by an overhead group of slats that provided both shade and sunlight as like a checkerboard without the cross slats-were the tortoises from one month to 2 years. In a small room, we were able to see a just-hatched tortoise, still with part of its shell around him as well as the first month group who still had their egg yolk (we also got to see the small land iguanas, another captive breeding program, but one having a little more trouble).

We toured the Charles Darwin Research Station this morning, seeing some of the tortoises they use for the captive breeding program, as well as some of the miscellaneous tortoises that were returned from zoos and they are not sure which island they came from (thus cannot use for breeding). We also saw poor lonesome George, the last tortoise known to exist from Pinto Island.
As Galapagos Travel helps fund a scholarship for a researcher at the station each year, we were allowed to go into the area where they are raising the baby tortoises. We got to see the eggs, a tortoise just hatching, a batch still living off their egg yolk sacs, as well as hundreds of little tortoises of all ages and types, both in small enclosures and loose in the large enclosure where we were walking. You had to be very careful not to stop on them since they looked just like rocks! They said it costs between $800-1000 per tortoise, to raise it from breeding to release in the highlands. Not cheap, but definitely a worthwhile and successful operation.

The group went to the Station library next to see a facsimile edition of Darwin's Zoology of the Beagle, including the color plate reproductions of the drawings of Gould, et al. The library was the first place since we came to the Galapagos that had true air conditioning, and the quick temperature differential almost made me ill. I don't think I've become accustomed to the heat, but the climate transition needs to be much more gradual.

Jill and I walked through town. The AC, and looking at the pictures, had given her the beginning of a migraine, the only solution for which is quick exercise. We stopped at one kiosk and bought some Nacional Parque shirts, and looked in many of the other shops, avoiding the ones selling black coral.

While looking at a reprint of the Zoology of the Beagle in the very air conditioned library, I was stricken with a migraine. Ow! Glen and I walked briskly through town until my vision cleared, bought some shirts, bought some cold Colas to drink while walking, found extra film (10 rolls were not going to be enough), and eventually ended up back at the Hotel Galapagos where we will have lunch at about 12:30 pm. Glen and Young are playing chess while we wait in a cooler (but not air conditioned!) building. It is very, very hot here, and it is nice to be indoors.

I was brave and ate the ceviche at lunch (fish cooked in cold lemon/lime juice), but skipped the raw veggies. Lunch was fish and mashed potatoes-yum. Herb cannot stand potatoes so he gave me his. Ah, I am resorting to eating other people's leftovers!

Lunch was at the Hotel Galapagos, where Greg had stayed while going through the naturalist course, and which was said to have the best bathrooms on the island including (wonder of wonders) the ability to put the toilet paper in the bowl. The soup at lunch was ceviche, which I had only previously been served to me as an appetizer, but which I thoroughly enjoyed.

We're waiting until 2:30 pm when we board a bus to the highlands. This is our usual naptime, but we're not on the boat to do so. We all wish we had brought a book.

Most of us hung out at the Hotel Galapagos after lunch (Young beat met at chess twice), until Greg returned with the news that we could visit the "King of the Galapagos," Gus Angermeyer. Gus is one of the four Angermeyer brothers who fled to the Galapagos to escape World War II. At 86, he was incredibly lively, being quite a rascal with the women of our group. We visited his "cave"-a treasure trove of bones, fossils, driftwood, debris, and various other things that Gus had collected during his 60 years on the Islands.

After leaving the Hotel Galapagos, we had a special treat that Greg was able to arrange-visiting Gus Angermeyer at his home, the Cave. Gus is one of the original settlers on Santa Cruz, arriving in the 1930s with his brothers, sent by his parents out of Germany. Four of the brothers stayed, becoming well known on the islands. Karl Angermeyer had a colony of marine iguanas, living on and in his house. Gus' house is a museum of bones and beach flotsam, enclosed in a lava store house. He has entire whale and dolphin skeletons hanging from his ceiling, huge whale vertebrae as stools, sea lion skulls, tortoise skulls and carapaces, driftwood, fishing net glass ball flotation devices, art, pieces of wood with quotations on them, and just about anything else. He was quite a character, telling us about everything, cracking jokes, leering at the women, very active and lucid at 87. It has been very neat and special to meet these original settlers we'd read about.
We then boarded a bus to the highlands. First stop was a lava tube, a tubelike cave of lava about 40-50 feet in diameter formed during lava flows. Greg knew a barn owl slept there during the day and we were able to find him. He was much darker than the barn owls I've seen in the US, and it is an endemic subspecies. Greg has been wonderful in helping me find and count birds-he is really making the trip worthwhile.

We then rode the bus to some pit craters, another volcanic formation that were in a huge Scalesia forest. Scalesia are in the daisy family, but these were about 20-30 feet tall trees. Goats have destroyed these forests on other islands. We saw some wonderful land birds here, including one which none of us could identify for sure-even Thalia and Greg. It had the coloring of a woodpecker finch, but the beak and song of the large tree finch. We all took pictures and plan to send them to Thalia, who will show them to her father and see what he says.

The afternoon's trip was out to the pit craters in the highlands. Before we got there, we stopped to see a lava tunnel, and the barn owl that Greg had previously spotted there. At the pit craters, we saw another couple of vermillion flycatchers, and the warbler finch. A sighting was also made of what some in the group wanted to identify as the woodpecker finch, but no one could verify for sure. This had the birders arguing for 10 minutes.

Birds Seen Today:

• Cattle egret (with herds introduced cattle in highlands)
• Barn owl (in lava tube, sleeping)
• Common cactus finch
• Warbler finch
• Vermillion flycatcher
• Unknown finch-woodpecker or large tree finch?

Dinner was at a hotel in the highlands which was OK. I look forward to being able to order off a menu and get some spicy food! The passion fruit cream pie was excellent!

Dinner was at the Narwhal in the islands. Mark, Young, Kathy, Jill, and I sat together and discussed religion, discrimination, libertarianism, and the safety of food in foreign countries. No lecture, although we did watch the "New Explorers" video entitled, "What Darwin Never Saw," on the Grant's revolutionary Finch study. The video, basically a simplified rehash of Weiner's Beak of the Finch, was interesting, but only in an ancillary way, as in seeing what the Grants looked like and observing how they went about observing, catching, banding, measuring, weighing, and photographing the small birds. An interesting point: no writer was given credit, not unsurprising given some of its purple nature and exaggeration.

We're watching a video on Peter and Rosemary Grant (Thalia's parents) who have studied finches on Daphne Major for over 20 years. This follows the book, The Beak of the Finch, pretty closely, so I am only half paying attention.

Heidi just came by with bad news--tonight will be rougher than last night! The boat rolled so much last night, we had to shut our portholes to keep the water out and many of us had a little trouble sleeping. We have a 7 hour cruise, so we'll be getting to our next stop just about the wake-up call time. Such fun!

Did I mention the star watching has been beautiful? We saw the Hale-Bopp comet (low and fuzzy, but there) a couple of nights ago, and should be able to see it tomorrow night. We have also seen the Southern Cross and the Milky Way quite well.

We're underway now and it is already getting rough. I better copy tomorrow's itinerary down and get to bed. We have to be up in 7 hours!