Espanola. Wow. Even now, months later, I look back at Espanola as one of my favorite excursions. The albatrosses are a major draw to the islands (at least they were for me), but in addition to some great shots of albatross some of my favorite blue-footed booby and marine iguanas are from this landing. Just a fantastic morning.
As amazing as it ended up, it started off inauspiciously. We awoke at the appointed time (530 am breakfast!), and as we were eating breakfast a worried Tui looked outside, came back in and said, ”Where’s the island?” She ran up to talk to the captain, who told her that mechanical issues delayed our departure so we would arrive ~2 hours later than planned. On some islands that wouldn’t make a huge difference, but on Española that could have made us miss the highlight of the island – the albatrosses. Once it warms up, they take to the air, and our chance of interacting with them flies away. Tui was pretty pissed that the captain hadn’t told us – if for no other reason we could have slept in.
We landed and found a newborn pup with the placenta still visible. The group couldn’t help but be drawn to the baby sea lion, despite my internal voice saying, ”time’s a wastin’ – we need to see the albatrosses!!” I may have muttered it out loud, too. Eventually the group had their fill of baby sea lion pics (yawn….) – I took precisely 1, and here it is
and then we started along the path, and within minutes found a pair of beautiful albatrosses performing their sublimely ludicrous mating dance, right in the middle of the path. I had started to learn that the animals really don’t care about us, so followed Tui to set up right in front of them. Front row seats to the matinee show!
Let’s start with the video, because still images in no way capture the majesty. I won’t attempt to describe the beak play, the odd choreography, or the honking of the sublime pas de deux – just watch the video, particularly the first 90 seconds.
It was difficult to find an angle for some stills, and the background wasn’t ideal. The best angle was low to the ground with a wide-angle lens, and some close-ups. This went on for quite some time – at least 23 minutes according to my timestamps. Some of my favorites are below, although they can’t compete with the video.
Following the courtship, the pair went into the bushes to do whatever albatrosses do after dancing. We’d see another pair doing their dance, not quite as close-up, later that morning.
We wandered along the path (right side of the loop in the map) to the aptly named “albatross airport”. Albatross are big and clunky, and in order to take off they seem to need a stiff breeze combined with a high cliff to jump off of. Both were in abundant supply at the airport. I think we missed most of the takeoffs, due to the late start, but we would see a few come out from the bushes, stumble along the lava fields, get to the edge, flap their wings a couple of times, then dive head first into the ocean.
I tried so hard to get a wide angle close up of the take off, but just couldn’t quite make it over in time. I’m mostly happy with this first one, although I wish I was 2-3 feet closer, and just a bit lower.
A very cool moment was when I looked up and a hawk was floating just about 30 feet above my head. Everyone else was scattered over the rocks and I think I was the only one who caught this. Not that photography should be a competitive sport, but there were very few moments on this trip when we didn’t all get exactly the same shot. Score one for me.
We then started walking along the cliff towards the ‘blow hole’, which wasn’t that interesting from high up on the cliff. But as we turned the corner we found an amazing grouping of different birds all over the landscape.
First up was this young, handsome looking albatross. Perfectly posed, beautiful blue background. Looks like a high school portrait. Love these.
Around the same spot there was a group of marine iguanas flaunting the obvious warning signs. I particularly like the first one, the iguana just hanging out over the cliff.
The lower left of the point, just above the sea lion cove in the map, looked like this:
Honestly, 90% of Galapagos looks like this. Volcanic rocks, covered in bird poop, with some dry grass in between. Look carefully and you’ll see nesting blue footed booby scattered about, including the one in the middle that everyone is aiming their cameras at. That’s me in the blue shirt getting a close-up of a parent and baby:
Then right behind me another pair was doing their dance:
And as if that wasn’t enough, I miraculously swung my camera around in time to capture this blue-footed booby coming in for a picture-perfect 10-point “landing”,
There was another baby booby on the path, but not very photogenic. And then another tour group came by and so we had to be good Galapagos citizens and huddle together again. We walked down to the pebble beach, and I caught a couple of nice iguanas laid out on the rocks. I couldn’t quite get this photo to work, and even now, months later, I’m not sure why it doesn’t work.
Working it just now, I think the issue is how I frame the subject. The 3 photos below are the same, but with a different crop. I originally wanted the middle photo, but the crop doesn’t identify the subject – it ends up focusing your eye on the red blob of the body, which is not really the subject, and the composition gets lost – or at least undefined. The third crop I think works much better, as you notice the subjects – iguanas – and they’re hanging out on the rocks with their arms outspread. (Although my wife just told me she likes the first one, the ‘as is’ shot, since it has the tails in it. She might be right. Art is subjective).
At the same spot, up above me on a slight cliff, I spotted a booby, contrasted nicely against the (very rare) blue sky and (even more rare) green plants. I watched it hop down to an area without rocks in the background, and I briefly got excited. I waited quite a while to get this shot to work, but left disappointed. I really wanted the shot in the upper right, with just the bird and the foreground, but with the booby looking majestic. Only it was obsessed with preening itself and this is all I got. That would have been a nice shot.
As we came back around the loop to where we had started several hours earlier, the placenta from the just birthed baby sea lion was being devoured by a mockingbird, and I managed a good shot of that. The depth-of-field, with the placenta blurred, really works here.
The baby sea lion and mom were still around, which led to the familiar sea lion photographer circle.
While my competitors, er, fellow photographers, were busy with the sea lions, I wandered around the corner. This area of the island is apparently well known for being a youth sea lion play pen. It’s even in the BBC Galapagos documentary. The young pups would ride the waves as they came into the protected lagoon, and generally just frolic about. This was a tough shot, as I didn’t know where to focus, so there was a lot of guesswork and and anticipation, but I snagged one.
Finally, we boarded the panga and waved goodbye to Espanola. What a great island. A couple more of my favorites from that morning:
The snorkeling in Gardner bay was not that interesting. Very mucky, not much to see. We started in a protected cove, snorkeled around a more exposed area with a shear cliff, then swam back into a different protected cove. It was here, near the end of the snorkel, that we met a group of friendly sea turtles, including this beaut.
Our last stop of the day would be a wet landing on a secluded beach near Gardner Bay for sunset. It was quite beautiful and serene, and there wasn’t another boat or tour group within sight.
There was almost no wildlife, with the small exception of an unexpected baby sea turtle! We were walking along the beach and just happened to see it waddling across the sand to the water. We yelled as loud as we could to try and get the rest of the group – who were quite a ways away from us in both directions, and eventually they all ran over and got some pictures.
The sun was still up, at least a little, and this was not the best time for a baby sea turtle to try and make it to freedom. Our antics must have caught the attention of the frigate birds, because they started to swarm around us trying to get a tasty snack. We beat them off repeatedly, and the turtle made it into the water several times only to be thrown back to the sand. Just as he made it into the waves the final time, a frigate came down and swallowed him whole. RIP little guy.
We tried to figure out where he had come from, and found the nest with a couple of babies sticking their noses out to breath. Hopefully they were more patient than their sibling and waited until darkness to attempt the perilous trek.
A bit of a depressing end to an otherwise amazing day on the islands! Full gallery and better resolution images over at SmugMug.
