A Tortoise Breeding Facility on San Cristobal Island and Last Day Aboard

 April 7: Day 15. We are up early and back where we started the cruise, San Cristobal Island.

Another giant

This morning we are visiting the San Cristobal Tortoise Breeding Center where an initiative is being conducted to restore tortoise populations to their historical distribution and numbers across the Galapagos, including on islands were tortoises went extinct. We have a quick breakfast and dinghy to the island where we board a bus for a 45-minute ride to the center. The center is located in the highlands of San Cristobal and we enjoy viewing the lush fauna as we ascend to 2400 feet.

Baby giants

The center, aptly named La Galapaguera meaning tortoise hatchery, is a 15-acre tortoise reserve and breeding center. As we hike up a rather long hill to the breeding center, we encounter giant tortoises everywhere and have opportunities for some really great close-up photos. At the breeding center, our guide tells of some very interesting facts about tortoise breeding. We learn that after the tortoise eggs are laid by the female, they are collected and brought to the center for incubation. But most interestingly, we learn that the sex of the baby turtles is primarily determined by the incubation temperature.

At the feeding station

If the eggs are incubated at temperatures around 78°F, mostly males will be produced, while temperatures around 85°F produces mostly females, and the center aims to breed more females to rapidly increase the population of tortoises for wild release. After they hatch, the young tortoises are kept in covered enclosures for the first couple years of their life until their shells harden and they are less susceptible to being prey for large birds such as frigates. About one third of the Galapagos tortoises living today owe their existence to this captive rearing operation.

With the breeding center tour over, we boarded our bus for the ride back to Puerto Baquerizo Moreno for some free time to explore the shops in town and visit the sea lion colony that settled on the waterfront.

Linda and friends

We have about one hour to do our shopping and there was no way that Jane was going to make it through the shops in that amount of time. Fortunately, after the third shop we realized that they were all offering the same items at the same prices. So that made it easy. We went back to the shop closest to the waterfront and Jane bought a turtle knickknack and an “I Like Boobies” T-shirt for Capt. Larry. After a quick viewing of the sea lion colony, we went to board a zodiac to take us back to the ship and came across two police officers with hand puppets that they use in their child learning programs. Linda and Jane posed with the officers just before we rode back to the ship.

Back on board for lunch we had a farewell ceviche.

Last dinner aboard

The afternoon’s activity was another “Leisure Time at the Beach” experience on the beach of Cerro Brujo. Since this would be our last day aboard, we decided to skip the beach and spend the afternoon doing some packing for our disembarkation. Happy hour included a Galapagos trivia competition put on by the Expedition Team. The captain’s farewell toast followed with a highlight film of our voyage by the Expedition Filmmaker. We had a really nice last dinner aboard with David and Linda, and then turned in for tomorrow’s disembarkation and flight back to Guayaquil.