Punta Vicente Roca & Punta Espinoza

Vincente Roca Point is at the north end of Isabela Island in the shadow of Ecuador Volcano. The bay is bounded by step cliffs where blue footed boobies and brown noddies were perched. The nesting area at the top of the cliff offered a perfect stage to watch (with binoculars) the mating rituals - males "dance" - a slow-motion Cossack-style and the females show acceptance with an arched back and spreading of the wings. The courtship can play out over a week or more. At the water's edge Galapagos fur seals played and flightless cormorants dried their stubby wings. 

We have never seen such an abundance of sea turtles! You'll have to take our word for it as the choppiness of the water made for poor visibility and the underwater camera just wasn't up for the task. The Galapagos green sea turtle (also called the black sea turtle) was immense. We learned that males have long tails and females shorter tails. As if tons of turtles and frolicking sea lions weren't enough, we also spotted our first Galapagos penguins. These are the only penguins found in the tropics. The adults develop a black stripe that runs from their face down the length of their body.

The afternoon saw us at Punta Espinosa on Fernandina Island. We started our visit with a snorkel starring tons of marine iguanas and green sea turtles feeding on algae. There were an abundance of really beautiful, endemic green sea urchins. A more complete list of sightings is on the first page of the slideshow.

Next we landed to explore the island on foot. This extraordinary landscape was primarily comprised of pahoehoe and aa lava interspersed with white sand. Marine iguanas basked on the rocky surfaces. There was evidence everywhere of the dramatic geologic uplift in the 1990s. The cracks in the surface created a playground for Sally Lightfoot crabs and pools for sea lions and small red sea stars. Impressive arrays of lava cactus and red and white mangroves provide for finches, mockingbirds, and the endemic western Galapagos racer.

Learning takeaways: we had been savagely pruning the pictures each evening. It has been a dreadful slog as we have a phone, an underwater camera, and a camera with a telephoto lens all in use at every site. We take approximately 600-700 pictures/videos at each location, so you can imagine what it is like trying to get it down to 25! Finally we realized that doing that was actually deleting the data the students will use for their own projects - we aren't shooting National Geographic covers, we are compiling resources for students to view, organize, and categorize for their own needs. This isn't just some elaborate justification to get out of picture deleting - we are still getting the files down under 150 images/ videos, but it did make things much easier!

The students did a great job creating the interview questions. The other people in our small group have commented on how much they are learning from them!