Dan Suzio Photography: Galápagos Diary, Day 10

Day 10, April 21: I need a break!

The nonstop pace of this trip is starting to catch up with me. A morning hike on San Cristóbal Island would have been our only chance to see all three species of boobies in one place, but unfortunately I hadn’t slept much the night before and was feeling pretty awful. I shot a few photos of Frigatebirds in the sunrise and went back to bed.

Juvenile Great Frigatebird

After a long nap and a good lunch I was feeling refreshed and ready to get back to work, with a wet landing at Cerro Brujo on San Cristóbal Island.

A narrow path through the rocks

The beach at Cerro Brujo

A Blue-footed Booby keeps an eye on the visitors

Brown Pelican

Galápagos Green Turtle, refracted by ripples in the water

The day ended with a sunset cruise around Kicker Rock, an eroded tuff cone that rises about 500 feet above the ocean, photographing the constantly changing light on the cliff faces.

Kicker Rock

Is it “the Galápagos”? Or just “Galápagos”? And what’s it mean, anyway?

Galápago is an old Spanish word that can mean turtle or saddle. What’s the connection? Some species of tortoise have shells that are sort of saddle-shaped. Which meaning came first isn’t clear to me because, as usual, different sources say different things. Whatever the etymology, it’s agreed that the islands were named for their tortoises, which were an important food source for early explorers of the eastern Pacific Ocean. Tortoises could live for months in a ship's hold, without food or water, giving the crew a reliable supply of fresh meat. They were reportedly delicious, too.

The Galápagos Islands are a volcanic archipelago about 600 miles west of Ecuador, made up of 13 larger islands, six minor islands, and a couple hundred rocks and islets. Those numbers vary in different reference books, depending on where the author draws the lines between an island, an islet, and a rock.

Galápagos is a province of Ecuador that includes all of the islands and the surrounding ocean.

Galápagos National Park covers about 97% of the land area in Galápagos.

Most Americans say “the Galápagos,” and that’s what I’ve called the islands for most of my life. But after a few days here I noticed that Ecuadoreans just use “Galápagos” for all three entities (sometimes referring to Galápagos National Park as “the park”), and I quickly adapted my own language.

Just to add to the confusion, most of the larger islands have at least two names - one that was given by early English explorers and a Spanish name used by Ecuadoreans. (There are no indigenous names because there have apparently never been any indigenous Galápagans.) Most maps and other references will show both names.