When we visited Santa Cruz we looked into taking some tours to surrounding islands.  A few inquiries there and we decided they were just too expensive for what we’d be getting and we’d save our tour dollars for Isabela.  It was a good call.

The Tunnels Tour

Back on Santa Cruz we visited a large lava tube and it was a stunning and impressive underground walk.  The Lava Tunnels tour on Isabela was quite a bit different.

First, this tour is on a boat and involves snorkeling.  Early in the morning we the tour boat picked up at Evenstar – though not nearly as early as the hotel folks had to be ready since we got a pickup on our front step!  We were headed to “the tunnels” with a swing by Union Rock (or “Roca Union”) to see some Nazca Boobies and maybe, if we were lucky have a closeup look at some giant Manta Rays.

Union Rock and Mantas

Roca Union – I am NOT taking Evenstar near this thing.

Quite literally until the writing of this blog entry I was confused by Nazca boobies.  The trouble is that the Nazca Booby (Sula granti) was thought for years to be a subspecies of the Masked Booby (Sula dactylatra).  To someone with a bit of hearing loss and moisture baked hearing aids like me “Masked Booby” and “Nazca Booby” sound pretty similar, and the guide explained that “the name was changed” from Masked to Nazca.  The way the change was described made it sound like there was a local change to the Common Name being changed, sort of like how the French pass laws to try and get people to say “Pomme Frites” instead of “French Fries”.  It was not clear to me ( with a degree in biology) that there was an actual species reclassification – this I would have gotten immediately!  Now I am clear n the right way to refer to these birds.

Nazca Boobies. Not Masked Boobies. With the ubiquitous seal lion.

Neither the Nazca boobies nor the Manta Rays disappointed.  The small rocky island is covered with Nazca Boobies, preening, sitting, and flying around.  Nearby the island Manta Rays were spotted in the water.

These things are huge.  Wingtip to wingtip they looked to be fifteen feet across, perhaps more.  The kids were lucky enough to see some jumping off in the distance.

If there was anything at all in the water to provide a sense of scale you could see how huge this Manta was.

When the mantas were spotted the guide asked us “who wants to dive with them” which translated to “scramble for your gear and get in the water if you want a look!”  A few of us quickly grabbed our snorkel gear and hit the water.  In truth the view from the boat was better.  The Mantas are kind of shy and for some reason do not relish rubber-clad human beings cannon-balling on their heads.  Once the Mantas figure out the people are there they go deep.  I did get a good glance at one of them before it sounded but was looking the wrong way and wasn’t quick enough to get a picture.

Entering the Tunnels

Unlike the lava tubes we visited on Santa Cruz the lava tubes and tunnels we visited on the South coast of Isabela are mostly collapsed.  This lead to broad coastal area full of narrow channels, stone bridges, rocky out crops, canals and barrow channels.  The captain…picked his way through this in our roughly 26 foot cruise boat with incredible skill.

The water in the tunnels is very clear and sea turtles, brightly colored fish, and other sea life is readily visible.  Danielle even spotted an octopus from the surface.  With the tight quarters in the tunnels the boat came quite close to the rocks.  And the birds on them simply seemed not to care, I could have reached out and poked a blue footed booby in the tummy if I was so inclined.

Hey look at that – our feet really ARE blue!

The captain and crew secured the boat among the rocks and we took a stroll around.  It is a stunning and fascinating area, a mix of scrub growth and cacti growing on top of rocks in a maze of saltwater passages, growing on solid land and bridges of rock alike.  Visitors can step around the maze like wreckage of the lava tunnels among the birds, lizards and crabs.

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We could have spent a lot more time among the rocks and tunnels, but some snorkeling beckoned!

Snorkeling in the Tunnels

The snorkeling in the tunnels was really the focus of this trip.  The rest was really the appetizer, but before we even got to the snorkeling areas we were pretty wowed by what we’d scene.

Two separate spots were planned for the snorkeling.  The first spot was loaded with sea turtles, the second featured some caves in where White Tipped Reef Sharks (Triaenodon obesus) could be seen.

Even without turtles and sharks the tunnels were a fascinating place to snorkel.  The land bridges in evidence in the boat tour also extended under water.  Fascinating underwater shapes to swim around and under abound, while watching the colorful fish and looking out for turtles and other sea life.  The arches and bridges provide their own challenges to swim under or around.  To reach one of the shark viewing angles required going under an arch – or way around it.  This was followed by a swim/wriggle across a shallow top of some structure that left you knowing what it felt like to be the fish flopping on a dock.

Those turtles in Finding Nemo? Like…totally uptight.

As we found on the other Galápagos islands the sea turtles there are really, really laid back.  They really do not seem to care one bit if there are people around ooohing and ahhing (or maybe it’s gurgling and choking in snorkel gear) as they just sort of do their thing.  In fact they are so unconcerned they are quite likely to bump into you or clip you with a flipper on the way by as they go about their business.

The shark cave was in a slightly different are than the turtle hangout.  Unfortunately, well the sharks were in a cave and there was a group of snorkelers milling around.  The result is of course a picture quality that would make any cryptozooligist blush since there have been way better bigfoot shots than I managed of these perfectly normal Whitetip sharks.

This is actually the best one, since it looks shark like and only slightly out of focus.

Here’s another crappy, out of focus murky picture of the sharks. You can see the white-tipped tails, though the mermaid documentation will never pass muster.

Seeing the sharks was pretty easy – this was no “Cave Dive” that PADI wants you to take a course for.  The sharks were in an area under a hollow tube where some holes had collapsed in the end.  You swim up to the edge, where you can see nothing, and grab the rocks over your head and shove your head into the dark cave.  Like magic the sharks appear out of the gloom in the back lighting from the other cave entrances.  Some are resting on the bottom and some swim through the cave.  Like almost all of the creatures around this part of the world they seem to just ignore the people in the water.

The “Tunnels Tour” is regarded by many as one of the best tours in the Galápagos.  This is understandable – it was a phenomenal day.

There are more installments coming from Isabela – visiting the second largest volcano crater in the world, seeing wild tortoises and more…