Off the Map

The Galapagos Islands

Island hopping home for Thanksgiving, from New Zealand to Indonesia, through Taiwan to Oahu, I promptly disembarked again for a new archipelago: the Galapagos. From Ecuador I flew to these mysterious islands lying 1,000 km off the coast, a land made famous by Charles Darwin, whose observations of the unique and otherworldly fauna in the Galapagos developed his theory of evolution. And otherworldly the Galapagos are. From the 200-year-old giant tortoises lumbering through the lush highlands to technicolor marine iguanas swimming and fishing alongside sea turtles on countless shorelines; there are species of creatures there seen nowhere else. And apart from the visually bizarre and mysterious, these animals are ridiculously tame, unafraid, if not curious, of we tourists that are but obstacles in the paths of their everyday lives. (Ninety-seven percent of the Galapagos Islands are a protected national park area, thus animals haven’t been hunted here in more than half a century.)

After an incredible four-day wildlife boat trip around several islands, I landed on Isla San Cristobal, posting up in the sleepy town of Puerto Baquerizo Moreno. Which just so happened to have a world-class right point break on one corner of the port, and on the other, yup, a funneling left. The water temp was around 75 degrees, the sea a deep azure, and what did you know, we were getting the leftovers (a week’s travel later) of the recent Eddie swell.

On my way from the hotel to the break I started to notice them. They were, well, everywhere. Sleeping on park benches, on restaurant doorsteps, waddling clumsily across the main street, bickering amongst each other in public parks, staring you down in a vaguely familiar territorial fashion. The clearly predominant, though far from human, population of the island…sea lions. I swear I saw some of them that had wandered about a mile in from shore. Pretty soon, with a little more organization, they’ll be running for office.
The Galapagos are so completely teeming with marine life that in a span of a single minute, I dodged two green sea turtles duck-diving in front of me, was snaked by a sea lion and nearly decapitated by three low-flying pelicans—all on the same wave.

And the human locals? They’re some of the coolest, most welcoming surfers I’ve ever met in my travels. The first surfer I met on the island invited me to his family’s restaurant for dinner where he showed us footage of all the spots cranking in some vintage Rip Curl videos, as well as giving me a few inside tips on some lesser-known, boat-accessible breaks. In genuine Latin American style, he saw me off as I got onto the water taxi enroute to the airport, telling me mahalo and aloha. Walking down the dock steps to get on board, of course, a sea lion was sitting there in my way, staring at me with that typical smug look on its face as if to say, “I ain’t moving….” Sorry, but I gotta go to Brazil. —Beau Flemister