Volume 61, Number 1 - Winter 2010

 

By T.W. Hard, MD

— Charles Darwin, The Voyage of the Beagle, 1839

It is six o’clock in the evening. A crescent moon glows above our starboard bow. To the west an island squats, its cloud-covered shoulders glinting silver in the setting sun. We are on the deck of the Mary Anne, a 216-foot barquentine schooner, gliding into the coming darkness. The smell of ocean pulses through our nostrils, as soft trades caress our skin. The temperature is deliciously warm.

This is a second trip to the Galapagos, a return to those islands cartographers once thought unanchored—lands that drifted aimlessly through the mists of the equatorial seas. The “Enchanted Islands” they were called: mysterious, magical places where giant tortoises roamed, where dragons swam in the surf, where the birds were so tame they perched in the palm of your hand. Since their discovery by Fray Tomas de Berlanga in 1535, little has changed.

This is my 17th day off these lava-encrusted shores. The first trip was one of introduction, exploration. Now I have come back to better understand what happened here. 2009 is the bicentennial of Darwin’s birth, the 150th year since he published On the Origin of Species, a landmark treatise that forever changed our view of the biological world. The seeds of Darwin’s theories germinated here. 

Why is this place so unique? Why does it have unique forms of life found nowhere else in the world? Why were the islands never inhabited before? The answers are not always easy to find. Like the igneous crust that formed these shores, the secrets lie buried in an ocean of stone. Time seems to have forgotten this land. 

Nothing could be less inviting than the first appearance. A broken field of black basaltic lava, thrown into the most rugged waves and crossed by great fissures, everywhere covered by burned brushwood which shows little signs of life.[1]

The seas are rough. Most of the traveling is done at night. I chose the Mary Anne because I wanted a sense of what it must have been like to explore these waters with compass and sail. Nonetheless, our schooner is luxurious compared to Darwin’s Beagle. We are spaciously fitted with 12 cabins, each with a private bath. At 96 feet, the Beagle was less than half our size, with 10 cannon and a crew of 70. 

My son and I are the only Americans on board. Last evening, after a full dinner and several glasses of Chilean wine, we had a spirited discussion on evolution translated into three languages (Spanish, German and French). Before retiring, I sat in the afterdeck going over camera gear. One of the guests stopped by to see what we had brought. I had little time for greetings before I bolted for the railing and chugged.

I suppose my seasickness is a christening for crossing the equator. Darwin had it worse. “One continuous puke,” he wrote as he rounded the Straits of Magellan and headed up the South American coast.

Here both in space and in time we seem to be brought somewhere near to that great fact–that mystery of mysteries–the first appearance of new beings on this earth.[1]

This morning we sail toward a beautiful, low island with a long spit of dazzling sand. From a distance, numerous boulders seem to line the beach. I assume they are rocks, but on closer approach they begin to move. Anchoring off shore, we come through the surf in a Zodiac. I set off down the beach with a camera, walking among scattered clusters of sea lions. 

Several are playing in the surf. Wading up to my knees, I take a wide-angle lens and slip into the water. Three sea lions come roaring out of the waves. Somewhere I have read about a dominant male, a “beach master,” who attacked a sailor and almost killed him. I back away with a twinge of fear, but there is no maliciousness to their approach. Brushing past, they gallop onto the sand. In a few moments they are sound asleep, their soft snores lost in the rumbling surf.

More remarkable are the mockingbirds that Darwin called “mocking-thrushes.” The island has no water, and I am told these birds quench their thirst through flowering plants. As I sit surveying the beach, a mockingbird approaches and begins to poke around my feet. Suddenly, he flies up and pecks at my water bottle. 

Pouring a bit of water into my cupped fingers, I hold out my hand to see what he will do. Incredibly, he perches on my wrist. Hopping onto my hand, he takes a long gulp of water, sipping the fluid like ambrosia. Then with a cluck he is gone.

Giving water to these birds is taboo. The Ecuadorian government has done much to preserve the islands in their original state, and feeding the animals habituates them to humans and decreases their ability to survive. Later, I apologize to our guide, yet the experience lingers in my mind. Never have I had a wild bird light on my hand. I feel like St. Francis of Assisi. Giving nourishment to this small, innocent being brings a wonderful sense of joy.

The vice governor, Mr. Lawson, has declared that the tortoises differed from different islands and that he could tell from which island one was brought.[1]

Today we have come ashore on the inhabited island of Santa Cruz to visit the Darwin Research Center. Here lives Lonesome George, the most endangered creature in the world. He is the last giant tortoise from the island of Pinta.

During the 16th century, mapmakers called the islands “Galapagos” because of the huge tortoises that inhabited the archipelago. The word comes from the early Spanish referring to their “saddle-like” shells. At one time more than 200,000 lived here, with different species found on all the major islands. When whalers arrived in the 1800s, they discovered the tortoises provided an “unending” supply of fresh meat. The fact that the tortoises could live in a ship’s hold for months without food and water sealed their fate; some vessels carried off 200 at a time. On Santa Cruz, only 3,000 remain.

In 1835 Darwin brought three young tortoises back to England. One, named Harriet, was eventually donated to the Australian National Zoo. Here she lived the rest of her natural life. When she died in 2005, she made world news as the passing of the earth’s oldest breathing creature. She had reached the ripe old age of 175! 

I was always amused when overtaking one of these great monsters as it was quietly pacing along to see how suddenly it would draw in its head and, uttering a deep hiss, fall to the ground with a heavy sound as if struck dead.[1]

We are hiking the verdant highlands of Santa Cruz. A dozen giant tortoises lumber in a large meadow. Occasionally, a bird flits from the trees and lights on a tortoise’s back or grabs a bug they have disturbed. As we move among these gentle giants, I reflect on Darwin’s remarkable insights. 

Born in 1809, Darwin came from a wealthy English family. The son of a physician, he started medical school in Edinburgh in 1825 but left after two years. He switched to a career in the clergy, yet his wanderlust and his fascination with beetles led him to apply for a position on the Beagle. Convinced this was another example of his son’s idleness, Darwin’s father refused to finance the travels. “Bring me one, just one, sane man, who thinks this voyage is worthwhile, and I will consider it,” he ordered.

After much coaxing, Darwin persuaded an uncle to speak on his behalf. Signing on as the ship’s unpaid “naturalist,” Darwin joined Captain FitzRoy in a mapping expedition of South America. He was 21 at the time. The voyage lasted five years, but Darwin was only in the Galapagos for 37 days.

Little was known about genetics or continental drift or the double helix of DNA when Darwin set sail in 1831. A perplexing riddle of the time was how frogs—who cannot live in salt water because of permeable skins—could inhabit the widely separated continents of Africa and South America.

The answer? Because God created life this way. Conventional wisdom came from the Book of Genesis. The world was created 4,000 years ago; the plants on Day Three; the fish and birds on Day Five; the animals on Day Six. To think that different species might evolve from primitive life forms was not only preposterous but heretic. To challenge the prevailing wisdom was perhaps why Darwin held back publishing his On the Origin of Species for another 20 years. “It was as if I had killed off one of my good friends,” he later reflected.

The remaining land birds form a most singular group of finches related to each other in the structure of their beaks, short tails, form of body and plumage … the most curious fact is the perfect gradation in the size of the beaks.[1]

This morning, I am strolling along a quiet path running parallel to the sea. There is dense foliage on either side, and groups of finches flutter through the trees. The males are black in color, and I have a wonderful opportunity to observe them up close.

Darwin’s descriptions of the varying beaks of finches are among his most famous. Despite the existence of 13 different species of finch from 13 different islands, there is a considerable crossing of species, and even experts have difficulty telling some of the birds apart. At the beginning Darwin merely categorized them as small “black birds.” It wasn’t until the specimens were brought back to England that ornithologist John Gould examined the birds and determined different beaks came from different islands. All of the finches are now thought to have come from a single, common ancestor.

Reviewing the facts here given, one is astonished at the amount of creative force, if such an expression may be used, displayed on these small barren islands.[1]

Today we are scheduled for a dive at Devil’s Crown, the tip of a collapsed volcano. It is one of the most famous dive spots in the Galapagos. The water is too cold to swim without a wet suit, and I have trouble separating the arms from the legs and remembering that the zipper goes in the back. With great chagrin, I am the last to pile into the Zodiac.

On the way out we spot a group of porpoises numbering in the hundreds. Our guide drops us in the ocean then charges off, hoping to herd the school back. For a time we are floating alone. The nearest land is more than a mile off. Below, the water falls away into fathomless depths. I have an uncomfortable feeling of dread: of sharks, and Jaws, and a video I have seen of a woman, leg shredded, struggling in a pool of blood.

There is security in numbers, and I understand now why fish seem so comfortable in schools. We laugh nervously among ourselves, pulling our legs upward, trying to become as inconspicuous as possible. Maybe if I maneuver into the middle of the group, I will be the last attacked.

Abruptly, the Zodiac comes speeding back. A pair of porpoises are surfing near the raft’s bow. The rest of the school is following close behind. We take a breath and submerge, staring into the abyss. Suddenly, they are everywhere: diving, leaping, sounding; bombarding our senses with an array of squeaks and squeals. As they pass, I slap the water explosively with my hand. One of the porpoises stops and comes back. For a moment we stare eye to eye. 

Is it possible? Am I sucking too little oxygen through the snorkel, my brain numbed by wisps of vapor through a straw? Did I actually see him smile? 

The day was glowing hot, and the scrambling over the rough surface and through the intricate thickets was very fatiguing, but I was well repaid by the strange Cyclopean scene.[1]

We have sailed south to Fernandina, the youngest of the Galapagos. There is evidence of fresh lava flows everywhere, and most of the land is black, igneous rock. This morning I photographed flightless cormorants, unique species found nowhere else in the world. Further along the shoreline are hundreds of marine iguanas. They lie across the path like logs. We have to step over them to proceed.

Along the beach we pass the bleached, skeletal bones of an animal over 20 feet long. There are a dozen vertebrae, some ribs, the outstretched phalanges of a hand. The guide jokingly tries to convince us these are the remnants of a giant “extinct” iguana. In truth they are whale bones. A remarkable aspect of the Galapagos is the lack of evidence of prehistoric animals. The tortoises, iguanas and cormorants are the living continuum of ancestors colonizing here.

During the afternoon we cross a lava field spreading for miles toward the base of a volcano. The heat is staggering. Here and there fragile clumps of grass cling to rock. A flock of flamingos drifts across the horizon, their pink colors in sharp contrast to the black landscape. They seem to drift out of a mirage. 

No life came to these shores easily. The first emerging volcanic islands must have been lonely, desolate, and lost. But the land benefited from two great forces: the passage of immeasurable time and the wonderful resilience of life. Perhaps a thousand years would pass before the first sea birds came. Another hundred thousand years before the grasses and plants. Then another hundred thousand years before the reptiles and land birds: the iguanas and tortoises, the finches and flamingos, ancestors swept west through violent currents of sea and storm.

There is grandeur in this view of life … from so simple a beginning endless forms most wonderful, have been, and are being evolved.[2]

It is the last night of the voyage, and we are gathered on the aft deck following dinner. Going around the table, we try to summarize the single, most significant memory of the trip. A father from England speaks of the opportunity to introduce the islands to his family. A woman from Belgium talks about the unbelievable tameness of the animals. 

For me, it is sitting on the deck one evening as the sun sank toward the horizon, casting the sea in gold. As waves rose and fell and slipped beneath like passing centuries, I could feel the ancient rhythms of this land. It is a place where Darwin described that “Wonder of Wonders,” a land where life began. It is why I have returned.

1. Darwin C, The Voyage of the Beagle (1839).
2. Darwin C, On the Origin of Species (1859).

---

Dr. Hard, who directs the emergency medicine department at Sutter Santa Rosa, has published three short stories in the Saturday Evening Post and two novels, Oasis and SUM VII. He received the Rupert Hughes Award for fiction at the Maui Writers conference of 2007.