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 As
we approached Floreana Island, 25 miles south of Santa Cruz, the
dreary, pewter skies cracked and dissolved into a rich blue mantle
above the volcanic peaks. The long, gentle slopes were dappled in
gray shadows, black tuffs, and a wash of buff-yellow landscape that
stretched to a jagged perimeter of frothy, crashing waves. We stopped
short of our dive site to have a look at a couple of waved albatrosses
that had just alighted on the water. With a wingspan in excess of
nine feet, they are endemic to the Galapagos, and they mate for
life. They took wing as we moved closer, with a walking-on-water
lift-off, like a couple of small seaplanes. The nearby white beach
was splattered with sea lions, noisily chattering in aspirating
barks, while blue-footed boobies nested above.
 Our
dive was outstanding. At 50 feet, we watched from below as hundreds
of barracudas passed in an arc, silver slivers shimmering in the
blue middle space and the dancing radiance of the surface. We inadvertently
aroused a white tip shark from its hidden grotto, and our close
proximity flushed a couple of camouflaged rays out of the sand.
Sea turtles approached until they saw us and then broke away in
the opposite direction. Back in the boat, we stopped near the shore
next to a lava wall with several boulders and tiered, fractured
structures at its base, populated with sea lions. Perched on the
rocks were several Galapagos penguins—looking very Chaplinesque
as they stood in their black and white suits and then hopped and
waddled down to the water. Not a bad day in the park viewing a rich
tableau of abundance and diversity.
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