Baltra and Daphne Island

Sunday, February 3, 2019

After breakfast, Celebrity took us to the Quito airport. There are 3 airlines that fly to the Galapagos. To get to the Galapagos, the flight begins in Quito and stops in Guayaquil to pick up more passengers (30 minutes for the flight and 30 minutes for the stopover). Then the flight from Guayaquil to the Galapagos Islands is 1.5 hours.

imagecredit:https://www.galapagosislands.com/travel/transportation/flights.html

However, we did not take one of these flights.  Celebrity charters their own plane, so everyone on the plane was on the cruise with us. Our flight did not stop in Guayaquil.

We were assigned seats in row 22 at the back of the plane, and our friends John and Laurie were assigned seats in row 7.  In the morning, we had helped them with a few things, so we kept teasing them that it would cost them their seats.  When we got to the airport, we found out that our friends had been upgraded to business class, so we actually DID end up taking their seats ha ha.  We ended up sitting next to Lynn, who Frankie had connected with online on Cruise Critic but hadn't met yet.

Before you can get off the plane in Galapagos, the flight attendants walk up and down the aisles and spray insecticide in the carry-on bins. Blech. That's when you desperately try to hide under your pillow and not breathe. Lynn, who was sitting on the aisle, got quite cozy with Anton while she tried to avoid the insecticide.  Apparently this spraying is required of every plane entering the Galapagos.

This was our first view of the islands from the plane:

We landed in Baltra, one of the islands. It is only 21 sq km. 

imagecredit:https://www.vacationstogo.com/cruise_port/Baltra__Galapagos_Islands__Ecuador.cfm

Baltra's airport was constructed by the United States, who built a military base here to protect the Panama Canal from enemy attack during World War II. The base included over 200 buildings. The soldiers called Baltra “The Rock”.

imagecredit:https://www.galapagosislands.com/blog/galapagos-islands-during-second-world-war/

After the war, the base was turned over to the Ecuadorian government. They offered one building to each head of household in Galapagos. Most of them carefully took their building apart piece by piece to rebuild it on their own home island of Santa Cruz or San Cristóbal.

imagecredit:https://www.gettyimages.ca/detail/news-photo/ruins-of-a-former-us-military-base-in-the-island-of-baltra-news-photo/480833838

The Ecuadorian government built their own airstrip on Baltra, and commercial flights started in 1963. Today, over 2000 flights a year arrive in the Galapagos.

Baltra is not part of the national park, so people do live on this island. But we could not for the life of us find out the human population of Baltra, although in 1997 they had 97 iguanas. This is significant knowledge, since a side effect of the US occupation was the local extinction of the iguanas. There is now a healthy population of iguanas.

The landscape here is arid, so lots of cactus. There are no visitor sites on Baltra.

After immigration, we were met by more Celebrity people and taken by bus to the pier for our zodiac ride to the ship. We chose Celebrity because it was the largest ship available at 100 passengers and the least likely to cause us seasickness (crossing our fingers and toes!). 

imagecredit:https://www.forbes.com/sites/katiechang/2017/12/28/celebrity-xpedition-the-most-luxurious-way-to-explore-the-galapagos-islands/#21dbf9c5effe

This is the route around the islands that our ship will follow, starting at the red dot.  It is called The Outer Loop:



Our cabin is across the hall from the sisters, Pat and Ginny.  We were calling Ginny "Tequila Girl" until we finally asked her name.  She is a very lively 75 year old.

We had to have several introductory briefings, educating us about the ship and the islands and the rules and of course the lifeboat drill.  We got fitted for snorkeling equipment and wetsuits.  We both put the wetsuits on backwards, oops.

We unpacked (yeah!) for half an hour, then discovered we had "misplaced" our camera.  We turned the cabin inside out and didn't find it.  Anton checked the ship's lost and found, and it had been turned in.  Phew!

This afternoon our ship traveled around Daphne Island for an hour. Entrance to this island is very restricted and only accessible with a special permit. Thus the boat ride around it.

Daphne Island is actually a volcanic cone, and the crater floor is an important breeding site for blue-footed boobies. The cliff shore is home to sea lions, pelicans, etc. The island is famous for its Darwin's finches.

There is also a new species of finch here called the Daphne Major Finch. Thirty years ago, a ground finch got lost and ended up on this island. It mated with an Española Cactus Finch, and a new species was born that only exists on this island.

imagecredit:https://www.princeton.edu/news/2017/11/27/study-darwins-finches-reveals-new-species-can-develop-little-two-generations

Frankie is already good friends with Juan, the maitre'd who will take care of all her food issues.