The Galapagos Islands By Ella

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The Galapagos Islands

By Ella Stainwright

We spent a long time in the Galapagos and stayed on two amazing islands. 

Santa Cruz

I will now tell you about the time we spent on my favourite island - Santa Cruz. 

We visited other islands and beaches, snorkeled more than ever before (not that I've snorkeled much before the Galapagos anyway) and we sweated like you can't imagine.  We saw many interesting and important places over our seven days on Santa Cruz and we saw the most amazing animals.

We swam with Black and White Tipped Reef Sharks, Galapagos Sharks, Sting Rays, Spotted Eagle Rays, Golden Cownose Rays, and Damselfish - the most territorial fish you ever saw.  We swam with Seahorses and Green Sea Turtles.  We saw Penguins and Blue Footed Boobies, both beautiful birds and in Spanish, they are called "pahia bobo" which means stupid birds.  We also saw Sea Lions, Giant Tortoises, Land and Marine Iguanas and too many other animals to count.  We did things you can only dream about, saw things you haven't even heard of and learnt things that a classroom could never teach you.

The time we spent on beaches and islands was a very sandy experience.  The sand clung to us whether we were in or outside the water, but that didn’t matter because we were having such a good time.  We followed a Marine Iguana on Tortuga Bay, for as long as it stayed in the water and we lay on the sand with Iguanas while they soaked up the sun.

On another beach we went kayaking with four of us in a two person kayak and went all the way to another beach where we wrote Galapagos in the sand.  When we got back to the main beach we built sand castles and played in the water with Mummy and Daddy.  When it was time to go we got in the back of a park ranger’s truck and had a very bumpy ride back.  We also went to a rocky beach on Easter Sunday and snorkeled around to see cool rays.  We saw Spotted Eagle Rays, Sting Rays and a strange puffer fish.  The beaches were so much fun.

We didn't just go to beaches to cool off.  We also went to Los Grietas which is a tunnel of water between two cliffs.  We saw fish and rocks while snorkeling.  With the sun shining down on the rocks along with the greens and blues of the water it was all very beautiful.  The water was very cold and though it cooled me off, by the end, I was glad to sit on the warm rocks.

We also went to the Charles Darwin Centre.  Charles Darwin was an explorer who found out about evolution.  The centre taught us about birds, introduced animals, tortoises, fish, rays and plants both above and under the water. We learnt about how introduced animals are a threat to iguanas and tortoises.  We learnt about the blood sucking finch and the mealybug which is killing plants and they have sent the Australian Lady Bug to stop the mealybug.

Whilst staying on Santa Cruz we went on three tours to other islands.  Pinzon Island, Santa Fe Island and, my favourite island, South Plazas Island.   I liked South Plazas best because on Santa Fe and Pinzon we did too much snorkeling and I got cold.  On Plazas we only snorkeled once and it was warm.  We saw baby Black Tipped Reef Sharks, White Tipped Reef Sharks, Parrot Fish, Damselfish and Sting Rays.  We also went on land while on the tour to South Plazas and held dried up iguanas who had died.  I even held an iguana's skull.  On land, we also saw Nazca Boobies and adorable baby Sea Lions.  There was a furry one, only two weeks old and other older ones playing on the rocks.  The Russian men on the tour with us almost got bitten by the Daddy bull because they were being silly.

On Pinzon and Santa Fe we snorkeled three times and saw Black and White Tipped Reef Sharks, Green Sea Turtles, all different types of rays and sea lions swimming in the water.  The baby sea lions that were in the water played with us but I stayed back, away from the bull. We saw flipping manta rays in the distance trying to get the barnacles off. 

Santa Cruz was so cool like everything we have done so far.

Isabela Island

I have told you about Santa Cruz and now I will tell you about the other island we stayed on - Isabela.  Isabela was an interesting island and we visited amazing places throughout the whole island.  We met some old friends and made some new ones on the amazing tours we did.  We went to islands, beaches and historical landmarks in just four amazing days.  In fact, on the first day, we cycled for hours to go to three beautiful and interesting places.

First we visited the fantastic breeding centre where they breed tortoises which was much like the Charles Darwin Centre on Santa Cruz.  It taught us what we already knew and more and we watched the baby tortoises fighting for food and standing on top of each other.  After that we went to a pond and saw beautiful peach coloured flamingos standing in the large pond.  The last place we went to was the Wall of Tears.  This is a very good name for it, as many people perished building it.  It was built for absolutely no good reason except for punishing prisoners.

The tours we went on while we were staying on Isabela were Tintoreras, Los Tuneles and we climbed Volcan Sierra Negra.  Tintoreras means "white tip reef shark" in Spanish so as you can guess we were swimming in their territory.  We went on a walk first and saw iguana dens, pencils of a sea urchins and old, dry coral.  When we went snorkeling we saw Green Sea Turtles, sea urchins, poisonous anemones and three different types of starfish.

That was just one tour.  The next tour was Los Tuneles which are lava tunnels under the water.  We went in one which was very cool and we saw amazing animals.  We swam in White Tipped Reef Shark's caves and we saw them sleeping.  We were lucky to see a pregnant sea horse with

its tail wrapped around a mangrove root.  Los Tuneles was so awesome.

The last tour we did was climbing Volcan Sierra Negra which as you have probably guessed is a volcano.  The stones we walked on seemed to have all different colours of glitter sprinkled on them.  There were pink, blue, purple, black, silver, gold and all other colours of rock.  They were easy to break and by the time we were done with them a few were reasonably smaller.

We visited a beach with lots of beautiful sea lions sun bathing there and at about six o'clock all of them came down to the water.  One chased Kaelie and made me laugh but made her cry.

Isabela was so amazing.