South Plazas Island & Santa Fé Island
South Plazas Island is a tiny, up-lifted block of basaltic lava that emerged from the ocean’s depth some few hundreds of thousands of years ago. Perhaps even a million years ago, no one knows for sure. It is one kilometer in length and 130m in width, and covers around 13 hectares total. Small. Definitely small. It lies on a slant with the northern shoreline gently touching the sea, and the southern coastline elevated to a bluff one hundred feet above the ocean surface. Facing the south, these cliffs catch the winds that blow constantly around here, and seabirds love it. Swallow-tailed gulls, blue-footed boobies, Nazca boobies, Galápagos shearwaters, red-billed tropicbirds all perch or nest against the vertical, rocky face. Magnificent frigatebirds soared the up-drafts in search of morsels.
The small island is inhabited by lava lizards, Darwin’s finches, yellow warblers, giant Opuntia “prickly-pear” cactus in flower right now…and iguanas. Both marine and land iguanas are seemingly unaffected living in close proximity to each other. As we walked the trail, it appeared that every bush or cactus tree had its own iguana-in-residence. Everyone was in the shade, because despite being mid-morning only, temperatures were rising quickly. The endemic sea purslane or Galápagos carpetweed, Sesuvium edmonstoni was in flower, though we saw only a few (land iguanas love flowers), and the same could be said about the Portulaca with its yellow flowers. Solitary black carpenter bees and Darwin’s cactus finches were flying around heavily laden with pollen – one on the legs and the other on the face.
On return to National Geographic Islander, a good number us opted for a jump into the ocean and it was oh-so-refreshing! Soon enough we were on our way south, headed for our afternoon destination, but decided to detour near a dramatic rock just offshore known as Gordon Rocks. An eroded tuff cone, it lies in three segments, all guano-covered with spots of verdant green on the flatter surfaces.
Santa Fé Island was a delight. We started by snorkeling the outer coastline and finding manta ray, eagle ray, white-tipped reef sharks, turtle, black durgeons, razor surgeonfish in hoards, Moorish idols, yellow snappers, and on…and on…. and got back to the ship in order to change into walking gear right away. We had waited until the day was starting to cool off before heading ashore; a long, rigorous hike took a group up an escarpment, past Scalesia helleri bushes and Opuntia echios var. barringtonensis until it was the view itself, and not the hike, that took your breath away. Those that chose to stay in the “lowlands” discovered one of the famous, endemic Santa Fé land iguanas not too far from the beach landing. Very pale in color, they were remarkably different from the land iguanas we had seen in the morning on South Plazas Island which are much smaller, lighter and brighter in their yellows and pale reds.
Another option during the afternoon was kayaking along the base of the outer cliffs of Santa Fé Island. A group set off when the air had started to cool down, and before returning to National Geographic Islander, had kayaked a significant distance and popped into the bay to see the sea lions and turtles for a grand finale. The sun was getting low by the time the walkers returned to the beach and said goodbye there to all the Galápagos sea lion pups who had entertained us earlier on landing. Many are of the age where they feel confident about approaching us, or passing us by within inches. Adorable, we unanimously agreed, and kept snapping more photos, although we already had dozens, probably hundreds. Green sea turtles floated serenely in the bay, and brown pelicans and blue-footed boobies flew in squadron formation overhead as we returned home.
