Playa Espumilla; where Darwin walked

A highlight of my recent life was a week in the Galápagos Archipelago; so much to say about that, but for now I'd just like to share an amazing morning's experience on Santiago Island - not that much happened, and it wasn't the most spectacular scenery or wildlife we saw, but it moved me for a very particular reason. 

The (faint!) pink arrow in the centre of the map indicates the location of
Playa Espumilla ('Foamy Beach') on Santiago.

Looking south along Playa Espumilla.

On 8 October 1835 a young Charles Darwin went ashore on this beach, accompanied by Surgeon Benjamin Bynoe and "some servants". They spent a week on the island, including a visit inland to some Spanish fish-dryers and tortoise flesh salters.

He commented that the Land Iguanas were so numerous that "we could not for some time find a spot free from their burrows on which to pitch our single tent". (These were nesting burrows.) Sadly Land Iguanas are no longer to be found on Santiago.

Land Iguana (Conolophus subcristatus), Santa Fé Island.

Darwin also commented fairly matter-of-factly that a few years previously a party of sealers had murdered their captain - "and we saw his skull lying among the bushes"! We did not see his skull, but we did see others, which were those of feral goats which had been on the point of destroying the entire island ecosystem when they were systematically eradicated from Santiago by the end of 2005. It was an astonishing feat, removing every single one of 80,000 goats from 60,000 hectares; such a scale of feral animal removal had never before been attempted and it inspired land managers elsewhere with an example of what was possible. As a result the vegetation, which had previously been eaten to the ground, has now recovered magnificently.

Mangrove-fringed lagoon, with Playa Espumilla behind.

Espumilla is also significant as a Green Turtle nesting site.

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Green Sea Turtle (Chelonia mydas) tracks, Playa Espumilla.

Green Sea Turtles mating.

Darwin - and many since him - commented too on the tameness of Galápagos wildlife; that hasn't changed.

Small Ground Finch (Geospiza fuliginosa), Espumilla Beach.
(The legs are Australian, rather than Darwinian; or perhaps both...)

Given the turn-over of beach sand, I know that my sandals probably didn't tread on a grain that Darwin's did (in fact I'm probably more likely to have in my lungs a molecule of oxygen that he breathed), but they might have... And that excites me.

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