Galapagos Day 4/Afternoon, July 9: Punta Espinoza, Fernandina & “The Tall Fall”

Day 4/Afternoon, July 9: Afternoon: Punta Espinoza, Fernandina

We sailed about two hours to Punta Suarez, Fernandina and made a dry landing in bright sun at about 2:30. Richard Owen, who traveled with loverly wife Dot from their home in the UK to join up with friends Jim and Linda White–both IPT veterans– in Chicago, is a tall Brit who claims to be only six foot six (but looked a lot taller to me). He scared the heck out of Dot and the entire group as well when he took a header face down on the lava rock and wound up with his head underwater in the Pacific Ocean. I saw the start of the fall and could only think of a giraffe going down one section at time. What I heard next–many loud thuds and crashes–was even more terrifying than what I had seen.

After it was determined that Richard would indeed survive, Juan tended expertly to the first aid. Richard’s wounds included a gashed chin, a badly scraped knee, and a scraped elbow. Gashed would be more accurate than scraped….. According to Richard the worse damage was to his Nikon D-90 and to his pride. Richard’s demeanor immediately after the fall and during the ensuing days was simply remarkable. He was as smiling and happy afterwards as he was before, never griped for a moment, and encouraged others to poke fun at him by taking the lead himself. All, including me, joined in eagerly 🙂 I came to calling him “Sir Richard” to honor his remarkable attitude but he said with a straight face that he much preferred “Big Dick.”

When I first began visiting the Galapagos six years ago Punta Espinoza was fantastic for Marine Iguanas and Flightless Cormorants with large numbers of the former and more than a handful of breeding pairs of the latter. There are still large piles of Marine Iguanas and despite the fact that Flightless Cormorants have become scarcer each year this is still an interesting and productive photographic location. The Marine Iguanas are fabulous subjects; as you see in this blog post you can make some great images of them using any lens in your bag. There are some nice stands of Lava Cactus, some Galapagos Sea Lions, Pacific Green Sea Turtles, Brown Pelicans and Blue-footed Boobies in flight, and lots of Sally Lightfoot crabs. We stayed late to take advantage of the sweet light and to try to create some iguana silhouettes.