Absolutely Galápagos

by David Fletcher

  Back on the boat there was a breakfast to consume, and then, after some fairly unrewarding snorkelling, it was time for the Beluga to sail further north to a place called Tagus Cove. The trip there was uneventful other than it furnished the Nature-seekers with fine views of both Isabela and Fernandina, and it furnished a little flock of storm petrels with the opportunity to feed in the Beluga’s wake. These birds are remarkable. Although related to the great albatross, at fifteen to twenty centimetres in length, they are the smallest seabirds in the world. And easily the dantiest. You see, these are the chaps who appear to walk on water. Although, there again, they don’t so much walk on water as flutter above it, while gently pattering its surface with their feet – apparently to create tiny eddies in the water that then drag particles of food towards them.

  Brian and Sandra observed this behaviour from the back window of their cabin – a little group of petrels hovering and delicately ‘pitter-pattering’ in the disturbed water to the rear of the Beluga – and neither of them could really believe it. How, they thought, could such a diminutive bird survive at sea in the first place? And how could it possibly derive anything like enough nourishment by adopting the tactic of animated aerial paddling, especially when the aerial element of this tactic must have demanded so much energy? It was probably all done with mirrors, Brian suggested. And he also suggested that it would make his day if he could identify what sort of storm petrels were putting on the show. Were they white-vented storm petrels or band-rumped storm petrels? Or maybe even wedge-rumped (Galápagos) storm petrels? Oh well, whatever species they were, they were quite amazing – and all too literally incredible.

  By the time the Beluga had arrived at its destination of Tagus Cove, the storm petrels had disappeared. Maybe they didn’t like graffiti. Even ‘historic graffiti’. Yes, Tagus Cove is a flooded valley between two large volcanic cones and it makes for a dramatic anchorage. It also makes for a safe anchorage, as early visitors to Isabela in the shape of whalers and pirates were not slow to discover. Neither were they slow to leave their mark on this place, and the evidence of their being here is still extant in the form of some oversized graffiti: various dates and names plastered onto the rock walls of the cove and destined to stay there forever.

  Brian thought that although this stuff was now described as ‘historic’, it was still an adulteration of a naturally beautiful place, and it amounted to no more than an act of desecration. However, it must also have reminded all those who saw it of the stupidity and carelessness of mankind – and of the recklessness of some of its members. How could it not, when one considers the risks those early matelots must have taken to enable them to leave their daubs on the rocks? They must, thought Brian, have been completely without fear. Or there again, he rethought, they might simply have ingested just a little too much rum. Not enough to hamper their writing skills but quite enough to suppress their appreciation of danger.

  Anyway, despite the unwelcome decoration, after lunch Brian was quite content to spend his afternoon taking in the ambience of Tagus Cove and observing what went on here. Because quite a few things went on, not least because the cove now held no less than five boats, and one of these was that National Geographic Endeavour. That meant that the cove had soon become filled with snorkelers and kayakers, and then a little flotilla of zodiacs had appeared, full of more of the Endeavour’s patrons and heading in the direction of ‘Darwin’s Lake’. This is a flooded crater at the head of the cove, which is accessed by a steep path, which is itself accessed via a (pirate era?) scary-looking landing stage, and then only when the swell of the water allows.

  A squad of Nature-seekers had already taken on this challenge, and when they returned to the Beluga they reported that their expedition had been well worth it. However, they seemed quite unaware that by undertaking such an arduous excursion they had all missed out on the opportunity to enjoy an extremely juicy period of first-class indolence, interrupted only by the odd bit of people-watching and the odd glimpse of passing wildlife in either the water or the air. And Brian had to be honest to himself; the need for indolence could not be ignored, and neither could he break a habit of a lifetime and visit every man-made marvel or every natural wonder just because it happened to be nearby. Especially when it was excruciatingly hot and he had some preparatory thinking to do, preparatory thinking that would, in due course, be of benefit to his companions…

  His thinking concerned autocrats. More precisely, Brian had devoted some of his indolence time to a consideration of a short list of current autocrats – some of the most reviled individuals on the planet – and in what ways they could be regarded as ‘good’. When, ultimately, he had joined those of his companions who had made the mistake of sitting at his table for dinner, his plan was to enlighten them on the fruits of his thinking – and this despite Sandra trying to dissuade him from doing so. It was therefore right in the middle of the main course that the enlightenment commenced, and the first autocrat Brian had decided to deal with was Mr Zuma, the president of South Africa.

  This guy, he proposed, may have proved to be the antithesis of his predecessor, Mr Mandela, but by spending all those millions of taxpayers’ rands on his house in Kwazulu-Natal he had provided work for countless builders, countless electricians and plumbers and probably quite a few swimming-pool installers. And that was most certainly a good thing – for them. Furthermore, he had always sought to give a commendable degree of satisfaction to a whole string of female South Africans. And, maybe best of all, he had so trashed the reputation of the ANC that he will very probably have put South Africa onto a path of multi-party democracy, one that will ultimately see the current one-party dominance of the country removed for all time. And that would be a fantastic legacy of his time in power, and clearly a ‘very good thing’.

  Right. Well, Brian’s table companions now at least understood what he was attempting to do, and this was to identify what might be regarded as the redeeming features of some of the very worst people in the world. It was, however, unclear whether they were entirely happy with this endeavour, but before any sort of clarity could emerge, Brian was into autocrat number two, a gentleman by the name of Mr Maduro, who has somehow managed to become the head honcho in Venezuela. Well, as far as Brian was concerned, here was somebody who was a fantastic role model for complete incompetents. If you hadn’t managed to emerge from your schooling with any qualifications whatsoever, if you had a bit of a problem with words of more than two syllables and if subtraction was just not your thing, then never mind, because you could still become the president of an oil rich country – and make it poorer than you could possibly imagine. And if that’s not a good thing about Mr Maduro’s presidency, Brian didn’t know what was.

  Kim Jong-un of North Korea was next, and Brian’s first point was that KJ might be something of a tyrant, but for virtually the whole of the world he was simply a source of huge amusement. Furthermore, he was a source of huge consolation for all those who have ever come away from a barber with a bad haircut – and for all those who have been putting on the pounds. Yes, there was a lot that was good about young Kim Jong-un, maintained Brian, and for that reason we should all be very grateful to him and wish him a long life and rather more luck with his missile tests than he is currently enjoying.

  It was at this stage that Sandra suggested that three tyrants were quite enough for one evening, but it didn’t work. John and Thelma spoke up in Brian’s defence – for reasons unknown – and this was his licence to carry on. This he did with Mr Mugabe of Zimbabwe. This guy, Brian explained, was giving hope to a whole generation of geriatrics, people who couldn’t govern their waterworks but, because of Mr M, now believed that one day they might be able to govern a whole country. Oh, and Mr Mugabe was really good news for a host of other African leaders. Because no matter how crap they were, proposed Brian, they could all look incredibly competent and really well sorted when compared to old Uncle Bob.

  Mr Erdogan
was different. This president of Turkey might be a turkey of a president, Brian suggested, but he knew what he wanted and he knew how to get it. Furthermore, he wasn’t a fool or an incompetent or an out and out loony. However, he was one of the grumpiest-looking people in the world, so much so that Brian understood that in many households back in Britain, ‘doing an Erdogan’ was now shorthand for being crotchety and crabby. And how can this convenient shorthand not be other than a good thing? So Brian proposed a round of thanks to this autocrat as well, before moving on to Xi Jinping, the president of China.

  This guy, Brian argued, was very good news for the hair-dyeing industry (he apparently keeps an entire black hair-dye factory going – somewhere to the north of Shenzhen) and he has also been instrumental for a number of years in dispelling the fear of rigor mortis. So two plainly good things about this leader of the most populous country on the planet, and the third good thing about Xi, suggested Brian, was his impeccably accurate reflection of what it means to be Chinese – as in being inscrutable, contemptuous of foreigners, humourless, arrogant and more than a little lacking in individuality.

  At this point, Brian wondered whether he should draw his encomium concerning tyrants to an end. He had begun to sense some restlessness in his audience. But then he decided to do one further chap. And how could he not? How could he not praise the many good points of Mr Vladimir Putin? Because here was a leader who, by posing naked from the waist up on a horse, had made millions of gay men all around the world delighted beyond words. So, good thing number one, emphasised the preacher. After which the preacher put forward the view that in the same way that Mr Maduro was an inspiration for incompetents, so Mr Putin was the supreme inspiration for all those lacking height and even more so for all those who lacked the tiniest scintilla of charisma. Hell, he did it so well, Brian maintained. Expressionless for most of the time, and on those odd occasions when he tried to smile, it looked to all the world as though he’d just felt his colostomy bag overflowing and he wasn’t at all pleased. So, no doubt about it. Despite the odd fault now and again, there was far more ‘good’ about this poor man’s Yul Brynner than most people were prepared to concede.

  Well, Brian’s ‘entertainment’ didn’t earn a round of applause at its conclusion, but nobody actually stopped talking to him after the event, and furthermore there was soon another distraction. It was Darwin baring his (Galápagos) soul.

  For the last two weeks, Darwin had been an exemplary guide. He was extremely knowledgeable about every aspect of Galápagos wildlife, plantlife and geology, and he was always ready to share this knowledge with all his charges – whether asked to or not. He was also always concerned for their safety and he was unfailingly courteous and helpful. However, he ‘switched off’. When his guiding work was done, he tended to disappear into the bowels of the boat, only to reappear again for the evening listing sessions, at the end of which he would then brief the Nature-seekers on what they would be doing the next morning. Then he would be gone again. Socialising with the Beluga’s passengers did not appear to appeal to him, something that was rather underlined by the fact that he had never made any attempt to learn anybody’s name. So, Brian was not alone on this evening in expecting Darwin to vanish at the conclusion of his listing and briefing business as he had repeatedly done before. But he didn’t. He stayed on, and, much to the surprise of all the Nature-seekers, he addressed their assembled numbers (from behind the bar) on all that was wrong with the management of his cherished archipelago…

  It started with a reference to that National Geographic behemoth seen earlier today, and his suspicions about how it and a sister ship had been given a licence to thread their way through the delicate environment of the Galápagos when he understood that similar operating licences had been withdrawn for their previous activities in the Caribbean and off the coast of Alaska. They were both very old ships, he said, even older than the Beluga. So, it seemed to Brian that what Darwin was suggesting was that not only were these two ships too big to be let loose in the Galápagos, but also that they might represent a potential threat if they encountered a mishap. And why would the authorities possibly allow that?

  Well, maybe a clue was in Darwin’s further comments of there now being just too many boats licensed to operate in the archipelago (a total of eighty-four) and their being obliged to follow a prescribed itinerary, supposedly designed to control their activities, but one that at the same time required them to steam backwards and forwards between the islands (as the Beluga had done) and thereby use far more fuel than they would in a simple circumnavigation. Yes, there was little doubt about it: Darwin was clearly suggesting that the Galápagos Islands were being exploited to the point of over-exploitation – for the benefit of… well, persons unknown who very probably were in mainland Ecuador and in positions of power. He underlined his point by then informing the Nature-seekers that the number of visitors allowed into the archipelago (which, of course, is a controlled national park) had recently been raised from 140,000 per year to 240,000 per year, and even this bigger figure might rise if plans for a 300-room hotel on San Cristóbal are approved. This, he believed, would see not only more and more people arriving in the archipelago, but more and more who were coming here to pursue non-Galápagos-type activities. That is to say that there was a real risk that the Galápagos would be developed as just another holiday destination – where one could swim, windsurf, sunbathe, drink margaritas and happily ignore the treasures of the national park. This was already happening. And it was already fuelling the increase in settler numbers in the Galápagos, as more poor Ecuadorians arrived to service the visitors’ needs. And there was worse. There were now many fishermen, Darwin explained, who were equipping their boats with powerful outboard motors to enable them to be operated as taxis. Not taxis to necessarily take visitors to other islands, but taxis that would take visitors to out-of-bounds reefs. The natural environment of the Galápagos therefore faced the menace not only of more Homo sapiens and everything that entails in terms of more houses, more vehicles, more pollution and more filth, but also more active destruction of its natural wonders.

  Darwin was pretty incensed. He made no secret of the fact that he thought those making decisions about the Galápagos did not have its best interests at heart but only their own personal interests, in the sense of how they might best benefit themselves. If not, why were they contemplating plans that would undermine the very essence of the Galápagos archipelago as a unique (and valuable) destination and not instead looking at ways to enhance the place – starting off by making it a national park that was as expensive to visit as some of those in Africa and elsewhere? (The current charge of US$100, Darwin maintained, was just far too low.)

  Well, this was quite a sustained assault, and it clearly had an impact on all the Nature-seekers. At the end of it they were all looking either concerned or subdued. And as for Brian… well, he was feeling just a little bit distressed, and for three separate reasons. To start with, he had been really unsettled by the downbeat nature of Darwin’s harangue. Hell, didn’t Darwin know that the position of pessimist in residence on the Beluga was already taken, and Brian had no intention of giving it up? Then, of rather more import, there was the message in Darwin’s address: that the Galápagos was been exploited and thus threatened like never before. And finally there was the confirmation of something that Brian had already suspected: that he and his companions on this boat were themselves part of the problem. They might be here to have a ‘proper’ Galápagos experience, but they were still adding to the pressures on this fabulous archipelago by just being here. Like any visitors they needed food, drink, fuel for their boat and all the other things that were required to keep them comfortable and safe and that could only be provided by adding even further to the burdens already borne by these islands. In fact, all in all, it was quite enough to make even an optimist pessimistic. And if you were the pessimist in residence… well, you’d probably want to deal with it in the only
way you could: by retiring to your cabin and assaulting your wife with yet another discourse on a South American country – which, on this occasion, might also entail a reference to pants…

  Brian started as he always did: with an assumption that Sandra would be in some way interested in what he had to say. So his opening remarks were made with confidence – and without any recognition of their potential impact on his audience.

  ‘Tonight,’ he said, ‘I thought I’d say just a few words about Peru…’

  ‘Just a few would be good,’ responded his underwhelmed but resigned wife.

  It was no good. He was never going to be dissuaded by such a poor attempt as that. And so he continued.

  ‘Right. Well, Peru is famous for Machu Picchu, the consumption of guinea pigs and the origination of potatoes. However, I would like to make two points, and the first concerns potatoes…’

  ‘Brian. We’re on a boat in the Galápagos, and you want to talk to me about potatoes…?’

  ‘Yes, but only to point out that over 90% of the world’s presently cultivated potatoes are actually descended from varieties that originated in the lowlands of south-central Chile and which have almost completely displaced the formerly popular varieties from the Andes. Which means that Peru’s claim to be the birthplace of a crop which now accounts for seventy-three pounds of the annual diet of an average global citizen is just a tiny bit suspect…’