Galapagos Goodbye

With less than a month to go, and funds running low, our thoughts keep turning to home, London, friends and family, and all those things we left behind in search of action, adventure and cultures so different to our own.

Psychologically, we're almost home already, as we surf the net for job information and think about wedding plans. Cutting our trip short by two weeks, we have changed our itinerary to include a place which, at the outset, was No.1 on the list of 23 places we wanted to see before we die.

Unfortunately it was also the first to be crossed off the list, as we erroneously thought we needed thousands of pounds to get there. To end our year with a final flourish, in perhaps the ultimate of all eco-destinations, we are going to the place where the world´s scientific understanding of nature really all started. We are going to The Galapagos Islands.

Darwin´s famous "Enchanted Isles", 600 miles off the coast of Ecuador, are also known as the "Islas del Fuego" (Fire Islands) due to their volcanic nature, and are a sublime evolutionary wonder. Formed by underwater eruptions, the older islands have gradually moved south eastwards to make way for new ones when the time comes for the cones to blow. Onto these barren deserts of lava rock, fragile eco-systems developed over time, giving each island its own unique flora and fauna as - incredibly, given the islands´ isolation - certain species arrived from the mainland and/or other islands in the chain.

When Darwin arrived on Isla Isabella in 1835, he wasn´t the first human visitor and he wouldn´t be the last. The islands were soon to be ravaged by the combined efforts of pirates and whaling crews who used the Galapagos as a useful base for the once fertile (now all but destroyed) Sperm Whale breeding grounds.


Amongst the damage done by those early intruders was the decimation of the Giant Tortoise population; once sailors realized they could store live tortoises upside down in the ships holds, without water, for up to a year, they became an important source of fresh meat and thus an essential victual for any ship passing through. The creatures populations were soon dramatically reduced. Other disasters included forest fires and the introduction of pigs, goats, rats and other invasive species.



The Galapagos islands is seen as a barometer for environmental changes in the wider world, and it is apt that our trip will end here. Throughout our travels, nothing has struck me more than the wonders of nature and how fast they are disappearing. From the flooding of Tiger Leaping Gorge in China to the melting snows of the Himalayas, the sights we have been lucky enough to see with our own eyes may well not be here by the time any future offspring are old enough to travel here themselves. Despite the incredible year we´ve had, there is something deeply depressing about scooting round the Earth´s natural wonders before it´s too late.


For me, nowhere are these rapid changes more devastating that under the waves. Out of sight, out of mind, the marine life and coral gardens we have witnessed this year are quite literally being driven to extinction before our very eyes. In Asia, reefs are bombed with dynamite and polluted with cyanide to provide the Far East with billions of sushi dinners. On one pristine coral reef in Borneo, there was no virtually no marine life; at Jakarta airport, we saw a shop full of shark fins of all shapes and sizes for shark fin soup.




Here in the Galapagos Islands those very sharks may well have been illegally fished from UNESCO protected waters. Like all the marine parks we´ve dived this year, the ocean here is victim to poaching on a grand scale. Abundant schools of Hammerhead sharks, for which the Galapagos are famous, are becoming less and less common - almost completely due to illegal shark finning. This has a knock on effect on the whole eco-system: without larger predatory fish to drive the smaller ones to the surface, the famous sea birds such as the Blue Footed Booby, Galapagos Penguins and red chested Frigate Birds are unable to fish for food. Land and sea are in perfect harmony.

Before coming here, I felt quite guilty for being a tourist - just another one of the many pressures on this natural environment. However, I soon realized that controlled, responsible eco-tourism is perhaps the only way these islands will generate enough money to protect themselves from serious commercial exploitation. That´s not to say that tourism is good for the Galapagos: guides are mandatory on some islands, shoes are checked for foreign soil being passed between the islands and bags are searched for fruit and seeds of invasive species. But controlled tourism certainly does less damage than illegal fishermen camping unchecked on a beach.

The Charles Darwin Research Institute tries to stem the tide by removing parasitic plants, goats, dogs and other foreign species which are already here, and to breed and reintroduce some of the ones which have almost been lost. Sadly, Lonesome George, the last of Pinza Island´s Giant Tortoises, steadfastly refuses to mate with genetically similar females; meanwhile the goats stand on the backs of his cousins to eat the last of their natural habitat.

But amongst all the doom and gloom, the Galapagos islands remains enchanted and enchanting, and are one of the most magical destinations of our year away. When Darwin´s finches come right up to you and start pecking your toes with their over-sized beaks, you realise how the greatest naturalist of all time was able to study these creatures so closely and notice their evolutionary differences during his surprisingly short stay of four weeks. Of all our activities here - from bike riding to horse riding to volcano climbing - it was, of course, the scuba diving which provided the really magic moments.

Through currents so strong they can rip your mask from your face, occasional bad visibility and mammoth Pacific surge, came big schools of White Tip Reef Sharks; Galapagos Sharks looking pretty damn tough; Green Turtles pootling about with their bulky frames; huge Eagle and Manta Rays and a spectacular school of of Mobula Rays, 40 odd strong, flying through the sea like something out of star wars. Hanging to a bare rock at 20m below, looking above at a wriggling Hammerhead Shark making its way against the tide, fills me with a huge sense of privilege that we´ve seen so many incredible things.

But I also love London. The itchy feet have been well and truly scratched, and it's time to return home. Thanks Planet Earth. You were great.