Tuesday 6th March:  The South Pacific Ocean 04 00.0S  95 00.0W     

Today’s Blog by David

So – the Race that is Not a Race continues.

We had a clumsy start, scrabbling around with our twin genoas over the start line but were in clear air.  We soon launched the kite/A-Sail/Frog  an pulled through and away, leading the fleet until the wind died towards dusk (when all the other buggers turned on their engines and overtook us!) The morning saw us among the usual suspects towards the front of the fleet; Wind Dancer and Sapphire out ahead (but with 14 engine hours each),  Gunvor and 12 Moons behind us with 2 hours between them. (We had 4.5 engine hours.)

We had a fabulous sail yesterday. However,  we woke this morning to find 12 Moons overhauling us; so the Frog is  now flying again and there’s another fine sail in prospect today, sailing away from the Galapagos Archipelago.

We found four small squid on our deck this morning – and had a brief encounter with a school of pilot whales, our first  whales since St Lucia.

The Galapagos Archipelago

A visit there really is a thorough lesson in natural history. If it were not so far, and so expensive to get to, every child should visit to experience the things they learn at school first hand.  

The Islands sit on the Nascar Fault, a gap in the tectonic plates though which the island form. The easternmost islands are the oldest at about 5 million years;  the westernmost only 2 million years old. They lie at the confluence of three major ocean currents; warm streams from Panama and the west (Cromwell Current) and then the cold Humboldt Current which runs up the South American coast. These mixtures of warm and cold waters provide for a rich source  of food to support the diversity sea life.  

The islands lie on the edge of the Pacific Trade wind belt and so the prevailing winds are from the south east.  Warm moist air reaches them  and then is diverted upwards by the volcanoes into the cold air where it condenses to form clouds. The water is dumped as rain before crossing the volcanos so the SE side of each island is wet and the NW side – in the rain shadow – much drier (Geography 1.01 – remember?)    So travelling South to North through any island you can see the transition in the vegetation; lush fertile almost rain forest conditions on the South eastern side of the older islands through to arid, barren lava on the north west side of the newer islands where the weather has not yet had time to break the rock down in to soil.

Charles Darwin

You cannot move on any island without tripping over references or tributes to Charles Darwin  whose conclusions  about natural selection etc. in  Origin of the Species were based upon evidence he gathered – at the age of 26 -  during a single five week visit  in 1835 on a three year attachment to the survey ship HMS Beagle.  He didn’t publish his (to many, heretical) conclusions until 20 years later but all of the evidence was gathered in that trip.   There are Charles Darwin Centres all over the place; most of which are Tortoise breeding/protections centres. Darwin Finches, Darwin Daisies and the like. Indeed in the Santa Cruz centre is Lonesome George a tortoise which is now nearly 200 years old and would thus have been alive at the time of Darwin’s visit.

(This is a picture of one of Lonesome George’s distant  relatives)

Impact of Man on the Galapagos Islands

Tourists visit these islands because they have developed largely without human interference. Well, that was true until circa 1535  since when man’s impact has been significant.  The islands have been used as a base for whaling and  for pirates; passing ships stopped for food and water. It is thought that hundreds of thousands of tortoises were taken aboard ships for food  (about 100kg of living flesh that needed only water and a few leaves to keep fresh) rendering them an endangered species – they have already become extinct on some of the islands.

Further, man brought with him horses, dogs, goats, cats and rats all of which were left behind or escaped  and have gone feral upsetting the ecological balance of the islands. For example, the Darwin Daisy (lush green bush on right of path)  is endemic to the Galapagos:

but was in danger of extinction because they were the principal food for feral goats – at least until there was a concerted effort to round up and eliminate goats from these islands. Rats eat birds eggs and, until they were controlled, they too were endangering certain species (including albatross).

Should you visit the islands?

The economy – such as it is – relies on tourists (and foreign aid!!)  for its principal source of foreign currency.  They have an express preference for high net worth individuals who can spend lots of money but bemoan the fact that much of the price of a holiday (airfares etc.) does not benefit the local economy.  There is no evident poverty here – but living is basic save for some individuals who have been successful in developing tourist related businesses who are clearly quite wealthy.

Simone and I visited here about 15 years ago ad it has clearly changed since then.  I have no basis for this other than impressions, but I think the birdlife felt less abundant and generally the wildlife seemed more wary of humans than I remember it. That is not to say they wildlife is not tame as compared to  European wild life – simply that as time goes on it seemed to me that it had become more wary.

So the islands are changing; they are now more built up, more commercialised and impacted by mankind.  It is also a fine ecological balance which can easily be upset - there has  already been one near disaster with an oil tanker springing  a leak nearby but fortunately the weather changed and dispersed the slick. Such an ecological disaster is an accident waiting to happen. -  If you are planning to go there – do it before Exxon get there first!