Shooting nature and wildlife - with cameras, not guns - has long been my passion. So setting off for a trip to the Galapagos, an archipelago of volcanic islands 1,400-odd kilometres off the Equadorian coast scattered around the Equator, my husband and I hoped we'd found the ultimate photographic nature experience.
It was after visiting here in 1835 that young Charles Darwin first formulated On the Origin of Species. However, a journey that took Darwin almost five years on the Beagle, took us a mere seven days aboard the luxurious Celebrity passenger cruise ship Xpedition.
We flew Iberia on a Celebrity package deal that included three nights at the 5-star Marriot Hotel, two on the way out, one on the way back, in Quito at the foot of the Andes and it included a day-long sight-seeing tour of the Old City, including lunch at the Opera house. Time to recover from jet-lag, acclimatise to life 2,700 metres above sea level and ensure no time was wasted once the adventure began.
After a two-and-a-half hour flight in a chartered plane from Quito to Baltra, and a bumpy bus ride, we donned life-jackets and boarded a Zodiac for the first time. These tough rubber-sided rafts carry 20 at most, and are the only means of boarding or leaving Xpedition. Other rafts like ours serve all other small tourist ships anchored in the area. Everyone and everything from food to fuel, luggage for passengers and the 64 staff, is transported this way. Visitor numbers are strictly regulated by the Regional Government. You are advised to travel light and no-one dresses for dinner.
We were to visit eight of these magical islands in our seven days, led by one of our six resident naturalist guides and their team leader, our Cruise Director. All the guides must be Galapogeans by law. Within hours of boarding Xpedition and after a quick lunch we were off on the rafts for our first look at nature as nature intended, around the uninhabited island of North Seymour.
The start of a week to remember
Words can't describe the thrill of spotting blue Boobies with huge blue - what else? - webbed feet and distinctive blue beaks for the first time. As we drifted beside the cliff, Red-footed Boobies, Masked Boobies and little Galapagos penguins watched us from their rocks. Enormous black male frigate birds with long forked tails soared overhead, obligingly puffing their red ‘balloon' chins out to attract mates. It felt like watching a David Attenborough film in 3D in an Imax cinema. But for the wind in our hair, the sun hot on our backs and the sight and sound of noisy pelicans flapping by, we wouldn't have believed we'd arrived.
Back on board, with the early evening sun setting, we sipped cool drinks, and listened to Captain Fausto Pacheco's introductory speech. "This is the beginning of one unforgettable week in your life. We hope it will fulfil all your expectations," he said.
With the exception of day one, the pattern of the days is the same. Early breakfast, first tours leave at 8am, back for snacks at 11.30am, lunch at midday, first afternoon tour starts at 3pm. Back on board by 6pm, time for a quick shower, then a lecture on the following day's events by our Cruise Director or one of the six resident naturalists. Sign up for your next tour, dinner at 8pm and it's early to bed. This is not a lazy vacation.
What a way to begin the day
Day one was the exception to the usual timetable. We were aboard the Zodiac before 7am, the sea and sky a dim grey. Kicker Rock, the remains of a satellite volcanic cone off the north-west shore of San Cristobal island, emerged from the water like a black spectre. Within minutes, the sun rose from the colourless horizon, sprinkling deep golden ‘sun-dust' over the wavelets before transforming the Rock itself into a glowing pink monument.
A lava-flow of molten light poured towards us, and as we rounded the corner, we spotted a small raft - the collective name for a group - of sea lions floating peacefully on their backs, their flippers folded neatly ‘in prayer' across their chests as they dozed in the shadow of a ‘rock-bridge.' It was the dawn of a lifetime.
We were always offered the option of ‘hard' or ‘easy' treks, the difference usually the length of walk and difficulty of the terrain. We'd been advised to bring footwear that would stay in place on ‘wet landings', but with soles sturdy enough to cope with hard surfaces underfoot and on our first ‘wet landing' we learned the value of the walking sticks we'd been offered on board. They proved essential for everyone, from nine to 90.
Getting ‘up close up and personal' with a blue-footed Boobie at Puerto Baquerizo on San Cristobal day one was unforgettable. The hen, having fallen for her partner's famous soft blue shuffle courting dance, now sat proudly displaying a pair of perfect, blue-tinted eggs with not a wing-flap of fear as ten nosey humans passed her. A pair of her Boobie friends looked on enviously.
We soon discovered every white sandy beach was a sea-lion nursery, where hundreds of mother sea-lions lay feeding pups. Espanola, lush and green in contrast to others, ‘the jewel in the crown' as Darwin described it, is uninhabited, but it's home to seals and sea-lions, the world's only black and red iguanas, Boobies and Mockingbirds. Annoyingly I managed to miss spotting the Albatross!
One afternoon after a particularly hard wet-landing, we scaled huge black boulders to visit an exquisite white beach on Floreana. We had to tread carefully, avoiding hollows where green turtles may have deposited eggs. Only trails of baby turtles' tiny footprints evidence their emergence from their warm sand-wombs for the trek to the sea.
Thousands of black iguanas laze in the sun almost invisible against the black volcanic rocks everywhere, while tiny red crabs break the tedium like daubs of bright paint, claws clinging fast to defy the power of enormous cappuccino foam tipped breakers that roll and tumble into a perfect turquoise sea.
We snorkelled from beaches (using gear supplied aboard - diving gear also available), utterly safe despite strong tides under the vigilant eyes of the nature lovers on the beach and the hovering Zodiac drivers. I swam alongside fully grown green turtles, while multi-coloured tropical fish darted round me, going about their fishy business. Several Galapagos penguins displayed their white dicky fronts from nearby rocks - the only penguins outside the Southern hemisphere, we were told.
Once, a curious and rather large male sea-lion decided to nuzzle my husband's trouser legs. He was happy to let him, but I'd witnessed the power of two of these massive creatures fighting for supremacy a day before - an awesome sight - certainly not creatures to trifle with.
Observed but undisturbed
On San Salvador, an exquisite yellow warbler sat on a branch, tweeting me, eyeball to eyeball. Wherever we went clouds of Darwin's finches flew overhead, or adorned branches undismayed by our presence.
Land geckos by the million sun-bathed. Lizards slithered by. Enormous iguanas, chased across our path like small dinosaurs and at Cormorant Point on Floreana, flightless brown cormorants sat in a miserable line, flapping useless wings, screaming with frustration. Flamingoes fished for prawns in natural fresh water pools.
On Isabela, we learned the vast mounds moving in a field beyond us were giant tortoises grazing. Of course, we paid court to ‘Lonesome George' the world's oldest tortoise and the last of his species, now cared for in a pen at the tortoise farm at Puerto Ayora on Santa Cruz. He's refused all attempts to mate him with ‘Georgina' the lady who has shared his enclosure for the past 50 years and even IVF has failed.
It's impossible to define a high point of such a trip, but there's one I won't forget. Each morning the fishermen on Santa Cruz bring their catch to the dock where customers, having selected the fish of their choice, take it to the fishmonger on the promenade for gutting. As he works, pelicans form a greedy line looking for tit-bits.
When a baby seal joined them, poking his small head over the counter, I had to have a picture, oblivious of the Pelican beside me. As he opened his wings for take-off, he walloped me across the face. My husband stood laughing, but to misquote our Captain, it's a slap in the face I'll certainly remember, for the rest of my life.