In Darwin's Footsteps

June 17, 2002

Welcome to Episode 1 of The Adventures of Yumiko and Eden in Galápagos…

“Eek!”

Miko’s cry of surprise is only slightly muffled by her snorkel.

It is echoed by the other swimmers once they, too, spot the creatures that have materialized in the murky waters of Isla Isabela's Tagus Cove.

Playful sea lions cavort and frolic within touching distance. Clearly curious penguins come right up to masks.

Eden is entranced – and sorely missing her underwater camera, which flooded during the previous day’s snorkeling excursion.

Over lunch aboard the Mistral, the 74-foot motor yacht that is serving as home for the duration of the cruise, our intrepid heroines and their nine fellow travelers marvel and struggle for words to describe the experience. Amazing. Intense. Spiritual. None of them is quite adequate.

The promise of encounters of this kind, the opportunity to come face to face with species found nowhere else in the world – this is the siren song of the Enchanted Isles. It is that song that has beckoned to Eden over the years, sometimes loudly and insistently, other times quietly and gently, inexorably luring her to this volcanic archipelago off the coast of Ecuador.

But even Miko, who prefers a little more distance between her and a wild animal, cannot help but succumb to the spell cast by gular sac-inflating frigatebirds, dancing blue-footed boobies, and salt-snorting marine iguanas.

The magic does not dissipate in the searing midday heat of the Equator. The Mistral drops anchor at Elizabeth Bay and the travelers take to pangas (inflatable rafts similar to Zodiac boats) to view “tree lions,” Galápagos sea lions that climb mangrove trees and rest in their shade instead of hauling out on beaches and sunning themselves. Pacific green and hawksbill turtles, clearly visible in the shallow, clear waters of the lagoon, glide by gracefully.

Under the watchful eye of a circling Galápagos hawk, the panga makes its way out of the mangroves. The sun is low in the sky, the light golden and glorious, as the small boat passes three tiny islands in the bay where endemic penguins and sea lions pose next to giant prickly pear cacti. It is, Eden notes, a surreal juxtaposition - one that is only made possible by the odd alchemy of the Enchanted Isles. 

Be sure to tune in to Episode 2, when Yumiko and Eden go in search of that most symbolic of Galápagos fauna, the giant tortoise.

 © Eden Feuer