Galapagos Diary: Day Three - Isabella

Isabella, the largest of the islands with five active volcanoes, was not a disembarking point for us. Rather, we viewed the western side of the island from our pangas. This side of the island was marked by steep cliffs and large volcanic boulders.

One of my companions in my panga, at left.

I was fascinated by their strata and veins, and by a strange formation.

At right below, we get our first glimpse of Galapagos penguins. At left a brown noddy perches on an outcropping.

The only time we interacted with animals was when our panga made a group of Audoban Shearwaters take to the skies. We were forbidden to touch the animals, to feed them (a difficult proposition since we were also forbidden to take food to the islands), or to scared them or make them react in any way.

Below right, the panga ahead of us enters a shallow cave (every trip, it seems, has its Disneyland moment). View from inside the cave below left.

After our return to the ship we relaxed with drinks on the sun deck (it being too late and cool for the jaccuzi) and swung past a shattered caldera, the remains of the volcano Ecuador.

After which, I'm afraid, the conversation "degenerated" into singing and dancing. ;-) (At right below, our captain sings for us. We actually had two captains, one for the first half of the week, and one who commanded the rest of our voyage, and at whose table I sat.)

Galapagos Diary: Day Three - Fernandina

On Sunday morning, Mother's Day, we visited Fernandina, one of the youngest of the islands. We walked on the smooth and roping Pahoehoe lava, which emerges from the volcano as a liquid or close to it, en route inland to see the sharper A'a lava, which emerges less liquidy and therefore hardens into shards that are very difficult on which to walk.

Fabian, our guide, pointed out the many marine iguanas that lounged on the Pahoehoe, as well as a Blue Heron and Flightless Cormorants.

As we watched, one emerged from the sea with seaweed in her beak to lay it onto a nest right in the path and settle down; then the male emerged from the other end of the small peninsula on which we stood, carrying seaweed in his beak as well. She, sitting on the nest, squawked at him, and he, with his beak full, squawked right back as he waddled to the nest. He did his own nest building, and then they both settled down for a good joint squawking.

The lagoon looked fresh and inviting, but it was just a tunnel letting in salt water from the ocean. It was a hot, hot day, and soon I was exhausted from walking in the sun on that dark, heat-sucking Pahoehoe. When we finally reached the A'a lava I saw how it can play tricks on the eyes, and seem to hold animal shapes within it.

The skeleton (obviously neatly rearranged) of an unidentified whale are below left; the GPS marker for the Nazca Plate, on which most of the island ride, is below, and some intact sea urchin shells that we found and photographed (since beachcombing is forbidden) are below right.

More photos of the lava below.

Galapagos Diary: Neo-Darwinism Lecture, Part 1

Richard gave his first of two lectures on Neo-Darwinism after our visit to the young island of Fernandina (account of this coming up) on Sunday (Mother's Day). This is where he first introduces the neutral theory (at 41:11) , and I ask a question about that (at 53:50) during the Q&A.

Here are some of my notes on the lecture, which also includes a brief history, that I will not reproduce here, of the evolution (sorry) of Darwin’s ideas through Mendel’s observations, the Neo-Darwinian Synthesis, and Punctuated Equilibrium, up to the present day:

The title of Darwin’s sixth edition of On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection should have included and All Sorts of Other Things. The first edition is closer than the sixth and last edition to our modern view of Darwinism. Darwin was pressured into adding the words “breathed by the Creator into,” but the first edition the phrase was just “breathed into.”

Darwin explained both diversity and adaptation. Natural selection is the only theory that can, in principle, explain adaptation. The only “rivals” are design and Lamarckanism.

The neutral theory doesn’t explain adaptation. The premise is that many mutations are neutral – not useless, but equivalent to the original codon. Any amino acid can be coded for by more than one codon, resulting in synonymous mutation.

Synonymous mutation equals zero mutation.

The majority of evolution is neutral. However, phenotypic change is not neutral to a field naturalist (ethologist).

The coding of an amino acid effects a phenotypic change only insomuch as it affects the shape of the protein, which has an enzymatic effect.

Richard Dawkins: "Responses to Criticisms of The God Delusion"

Richard's website has just posted the video of the first lecture that he gave on our Galapagos trip.

Responses to Criticisms of The God Delusion (preface to new paperback edition).

Question and Answer Session afterward.

(Comment moderation is off again. However, if you are John A. Davison or VMartin, you are still banned. Don't comment here. Bye, now.)

UPDATED: Pharyngula has a take on the "atheists are just as fundamentalist as Christian fanatics" hogwash. How many library programs have atheists shut down?

Galapagos Diary: End of Day Two - Star-Gazing and Stumbling

That evening after dinner we were all invited up to the sun deck to view the stars with the naturalists.

There was no moon, so the stars stood out brilliantly, more luminous than I had ever seen them before, even at Upper Pine Lake in northern Minnesota, even at our villa in Jamaica. The first night, a pelican had swum next to the ship off the port side, keeping up with it; tonight, a sea lion was doing the same in the very place where the pelican had swum. Someone told me that two frigate birds had been sitting on the back of the ship that morning, riding along with us.

At the equator, when the sun sets, it seems to drop to the horizon like a bowling ball. The sky was pitch black apart from the stars. It took me some time to recognize the constellations, for I'm not as familiar with the Southern Cross or the constellations of the zodiac. The Big Dipper was upside-down at this hour and Polaris was nowhere to be seen, of course. I could not locate Cassiopeia or many of my favorites, but the Milky Way was spectacular, truly a sight to behold.

However, I do not have my sea legs at this point. (In fact, I never quite gained them.) Being that we are on an open deck in the dark on a swaying ship I felt quite uncertain of myself, and many spots along the railing were taken. To cover my fear and clumsiness I made jokes with Sue and Erik about needing to hang on to someone, and suddenly Richard, who is sitting in a lounge chair, grasps me by my backpack and asks if I'm all right.

Me: "Oh yes, I'm fine. Thank you."

Internal me, unspoken: "Of course I'm not all right! OMG, the ship is swaying like an incense censer! What the hell? I'm going to fall and humiliate myself in front of everyone like the miserable landlubber I am (scared of water and all that), and maybe break my leg, that is if I don't tumble right off this deck and into the water where I'll drown. It's dark. Oh crap, why are the stars spinning? [The ship was turning in a circle at this point to give everyone all views of the sky.] You know, I think that if I were a captain and I tried to use an astrolabe right now, I'd put out my eye! No wonder pirates wore patches!" Holy Toledo. I've tripped on sidewalks while walking with my face craned to the stars before, but this is ridiculous. Get a hold of yourself.

Sue: "Here Kristine, some of the railing has been freed up."
Me: "Oh! Great. Thanks, Sue." Fighting down my embarrassment, I grab on and point to a star. "Is that Antares?"
Marcela: "No, that's Alpha Centauri."
Me: "No, wait." [Ship sways back to previous position while I hold my arm out straight.] "Okay, that star."
Marcela: "Yes, Antares, very good!"
Me: "Alpha Centauri is the closest star to ours, right?"
Richard: "Yes."
Me: "Bootes is upside-down."
Diego: "You know your stars."
Hey-hey! I'm back on solid (well, not really) ground, sounding intelligent, and not making a landlubber never-before-snorkeled fool of myself. Yet.

[Edit: Robert has correctly informed me that Proxima Centauri is the closest star to us. However, it's within the Alpha Centauri group, and I think I may have said "one of the closest stars" or something like that. Anyway, good catch, Robert.]

Later, I manage to gingerly make it across the deck and back several times without clinging to anyone or anything. In Crux, we see the Coal Sack nebula. It looks much darker than the sky around it where there are no stars, and Richard asks why this is. Diego and Marcela, two of our naturalists, don't have an answer. I speculate that the places in the sky where we don't see stars actually do have some imperceptible to the naked eye, and so must contain some risidual light from the stars that are nevertheless there, and that is why the nebula appears darker (although you'll see from the link that you can see stars through the nebula. Well, we couldn't. If anyone has an answer to this, feel free to give it).

I see three falling stars. Veronica, another of the naturalists, tells me to make a wish. The first wish that I make is to see a supernova - our galaxy is due for one - in the sky during our trip. I save the other two wishes for later.

After we leave the sun deck, I settle in the salon with my glass of wine and my book on the Galapagos, and a few people ask me about my first experience snorkeling. Some people have already turned in, but my jaccuzi partners start a game of Scrabble, while a few others join Richard in the ship's library, where he is tap-tapping on his Mac, and glance at the books or check their e-mail on those interminably slow satellite connections. The group in the salon and in the library dwindles finally, and soon I look up from the diagram of the tectonic plates in the Pacific in which I was absorbed. It has been a perfect day and evening, but now the salon is almost deserted.

I drain my glass of wine and carry it up to the bar. It's only a few steps, but just then the ship sways again - one of those long, slow motions that feels like we're all sliding downhill - and I pause, having placed my glass safely onto the wood of the bar, and brace myself for the arrest of the movement and the pendulum swing back. The bartender, Luis, leans forward with a smile as I struggle not to stumble. "Another glass of wine, Miss?"

"Heh. No, I'm good. Thank you very much."

Galapagos Diary: Day Two - Floreana

Before lunch that same day we enjoyed a lecture by Richard Dawkins, "Responses to The God Delusion," then one after lunch by Eddie Tabash, "The Present Threat of the Religious Right to Our Modern Freedoms." (I will summarize these in another post.) Then we landed at Punta Cormorant on the island of Floreana.

I remember that the island had three large volcanoes that reminded me of the pyramids of Gizeh. We were promised dozens of pink flamingoes on the nature hike, but I skipped the walk to snorkel for my very first time. My partners were my roommate, Jo Ann (below in the white hat) and Sue (in the green).

Did I mention that I've been afraid of water since I managed to barely pass Advanced Beginners swim class when I was ten years old or so?

Well. I'd never stayed more than a few hours on a boat before. So far so good - no seasickness - and to my surprise, I took to breathing through my mouth underwater pretty quickly. Immediately, in fact.

Almost as if I really wasn't afraid of water anymore - or in fact had not been for quite some time.

And I realized that I didn't need the floatation device at all - because I'm a pretty good swimmer. Hello, Kristine! Been hanging onto a useless fear long enough?

Among many kinds of fish, as well as sea urchins, I saw the beautiful King Angelfish. Following others' advice, I took out my contacts and didn't wear my glasses, and frankly, the water magnifies everything, anyway. What you cannot see you swim close enough until you can see it. The fish did not mind.

Snorkeling is fun! I'll have to do this again. (Note to self: Bikini bottom can hold half a pound of sand. Next time, head right upstairs to the shower next to the jacuzzi on the sun deck.)

Yes! The jacuzzi on the sun deck! So conveniently close to the bar!

Galapagos Diary, Day Two: Morning on Española

The next morning we were up at 6 a.m. to see Española (Hood) Island at Punta Suarez. The guide for our group was Grace.

Animals spotted: Sea lions, blue-footed boobies, red-headed (lava) lizards, mockingbirds, pink iguanas, Sally Lightfoot crabs, albatrosses, gulls, Nazca boobies, heron, Galápagos doves in the rocks on the path, and finches – cactus, warbler, and small ground finches.

Española is one of the oldest of the islands at 3.5 million years old. [Thanks to Scott Hatfied for the correction.] A baby sea lion was asleep right next to the path onto which we disembarked. A booby sat on the park sign. A mockingbird landing in the sand near me and squawked repeatedly. On the beach, a sea lion came out of the water and launched itself at our group while barking aggressively, and Grace made us back off. (She really didn't have to instruct us in this!) It sniffed the sand where our footprints were, then plopped down right there and went to sleep, while the mockingbird circled on its thin legs and squawked the whole time.

The path was difficult to negotiate, all large, dark volcanic rocks. Even I had trouble.

On the path, while Grace spoke, a blue-footed booby (right, and below left) sat down next to her and stared at her, then watched each of us in turn as we passed. The finches, according to Grace, attack the abandoned Albatross eggs, rolling them against the pointed rocks until they crack.

At the cliffs, a mockingbird ate from an opened albatross egg while we watched, and then a lava lizard charged the bird and scared it off, though it did not go far, and ate of the egg, too. Grace said that she had never seen before, so she took photos.

I took this photograph (below, left) of a juvenile Nazca booby that is standing on a rock just feet from me.

On the panga back to the ship we see three sea lions playing with an obviously dead iguana. Later we learn that this is a routine hazard for marine iguanas - the sea lions don't mean anything by it.

Galapagos Diary: An *Hic* Aside...

I'm skipping ahead a little in my account because this is a funny story.

After our travels in the Galapagos, we disembarked from the ship and flew from the island of Baltra to Guayaqil in Ecuador. I was depressed because we were beginning the trip back home and didn't feel like touring the city with a guide.

So Jo Ann and I took showers, fixed ourselves up and went to the bar. She ordered scotch on the rocks with a twist, and I ordered kahlua on the rocks.

A what seemed a long time, the waiter came back with only one glass, which he set in front of Jo Ann. We both stared at it quizzically. It looked rather like Kahlua, but more watery and it had a, well, twist. And indeed it did! Jo Ann asked the waiter, "What is this?" and he replied, "That's your scotch and kahlua on the rocks with a twist."

BLEAH! Scotch and kahlua? Okay, I was a cocktail waitress - and I've never heard of that one!

Yuck! Jo Ann corrected the waiter, who looked sheepish. Finally, we received our drinks and toasted our trip.

That hotel in Guayaquil was a strange place.

Galapagos Diary, Day One: Las Bachas, Santa Cruz

That afternoon, we landed at Las Bachas on the island of Santa Cruz. To the left are turtle nests. Below is an interesting intersection of tracks (iguana and I don't know what), and to the left, Josh Timonen films Richard, with Diego, one of the naturalists, in the foreground.

Here is a close-up of a portion of the organic beach, not yet pounded down into sand. Below we see the remains of the barges ("bachas") that give this harbor its name.

Basalt lava with seaweed.

Note: Many of my photos are now available at Flickr.