The
introductory quote on the previous page was taken from Charles Darwin's
infamous publication, THE ORIGIN OF SPECIES, and characterizes
this unique place called Galápagos. His initial visits to this strange
place were only the start of an era of scientific research on these
islands, and the ultimate conclusions of how life developed on Earth
and the process of natural selection. Each species on these islands,
plant and animal, has a unique evolutionary history behind it.
When planning
this trip, it was strange that a lot of people we told where we
were going never heard of these islands. Considering their importance
to the state of nature, oceans, and general environment today, we
can only hope that people begin to realize what a unique treasure
still exists and is worth our efforts and attention to protect it.
We are certain that different people visit these islands for different
reasons. Whether it is just a vacation spot, birding, general tourists,
diving destination, photography, or scientific research, we hope
all of them leave with a new appreciation and respect of the significance
they hold for every species on Earth.
In the following
series of web pages, we provide a report of our June 2001 trip to
the Galápagos Islands in Ecuador, South America. As there is so
much information already published regarding the flora,
fauna, geology, and natural history of these islands, we don't feel
a need to repeat much of it here. Instead, this is more of a "personal
experience" report.
Prior to our
trip, we did an exhaustive search, Internet and print publications,
learning as much as we could about the history, the wildlife, and
any photo or diving tips we could find. As you can probably tell
from our website, we are avid nature photographers. It is a long
way to go to not be prepared. Some of the most useful books and
websites are noted in our references after this article. In our
searches, we found few references for nature photographers or divers,
and we hope to be able to compliment those with our own experiences.
We
should also start off by stating this was our first time to this
area, and we are not experts. For all the information we did find
on the net, as well as personal email suggestions and forum help,
we felt we owed the net community something back. This article has
a slant towards serious photographers and divers (for obvious reasons)
interested in traveling to the Galápagos, as there may be certain
details they may want over others. So please bear with the "lingo"
if you aren't one of them, we hope everyone can pick up some useful
information.
For this trip
report, we hope to share not only some of our images from our trip,
but logistics on travel to the islands (i.e. airlines, luggage,
etc), packing gear, camera equipment we found useful, photography
and diving conditions. Remember each image is "clickable"
for more information. If you see dive flags within the text like
this, 
,
it points you to a log of our dives during this trip as a reference.
This does tend
to be the "trip of a lifetime," so it pays to research as many references
as possible and come up with a plan that is best for you. We will
comment on the pros and cons of our trip, trying to be as objective
as possible, certain conditions we had may not apply to other trips.
The photography and diving comments in this article reflect our
own preferences, and we also realize these may not be the same for
everyone. Enough with the disclaimers!
If you are
about to embark to the Galápagos islands, congratulations! You are
in for an incredible experience to one of the most unique places
on this planet. We hope sharing moments from our trip will help
get you just as excited as we were prior to leaving. So lets continue
with the trip report, we hope you enjoy it.
