Year 3 Day 117 History Of The Galapagos, Continued
31 March 2010 | Academy Bay, Isla Santa Cruz, Galapagos
Dave Sunny and 83 degrees
I will continue with the short history of the Galapagos that I started yesterday. I had left off with Darwin's visit in 1835 on the HMS Beagle. Now, the history starts to get pretty bazaar.
From 1880 to 1904 Manual Cobbs created a sugar plantation and cattle ranch on Isla Cristobal. However, Cobbs loved to live like a king and just relied on overseers to direct his fiefdom. Cobbs was known for his extreme cruelty and, in return, was murdered by one of his workers.
In 1925, more than 2000 Norwegians arrived in the Galapagos with dreams of creating a new life in paradise. They arrived with prefabricated houses, fishing equipment, machinery for canning fish, boats, and domestic animals. Instead of paradise, what they found was a harsh environment where it rains only six months out of the year and not a lot of rain during those six months. After a few years of trying to make at go of it, they all packed up their things and returned to Norway!
One settlement that formed in the 1930's is perhaps almost as intriguing as the wildlife. A German doctor of unusual tastes, Friedrich Ritter, practiced what would today be called holistic medicine. Removing all of his teeth to avoid any dental complications and bringing Dore Strauch, his lover/patient who was suffering from multiple sclerosis, Dr. Ritter arrived at Floreana in 1929. There they set up a gardening utopia that was quite successful. Soon two more Germans, Heinz and Margaret Wittmer, joined them on Isla Cristobal. There they lived in a standoffish harmony, until the arrival of "The Baroness." An Austrian woman who called herself Baroness Eloisa von Wagner Bosquet, dressed with a whip, revolver and black boots, brought with her three apparent love-slaves/servants: two Germans and an Ecuadorian. Soon after her arrival disputes arose between the motley settlers which were usually blamed on the Baroness. Soon a series of mysteries, to this date unsolved, occurred. One day the Baroness and one of her servants told the Whitters that they were bound for South East Asia. They were never heard from again. The other German servant secured a passage on a boat headed for Guayaquil. He was found mummified on the Beach of Marchena Island with the body of the ship's captain. Furthermore, before the Baroness left, Dr. Ritter, a vegetarian, died of food poisoning from spoiled chicken. Hmmm....
With the construction of the Panama Canal, the Galapagos took on a strategic importance. As Japan's empire advanced into the Pacific, the concerned U.S. was allowed to construct an airstrip and small naval base on the island of Baltra. The island was returned to the Ecuadorian government after the war and TAME (Transporte Aereo Militar Ecuadoriano) now makes use of the airstrip to bring visitors from the continent.
1959, precisely one hundred years after the publication of Darwin's Origin of the Species, Ecuador declared the islands its first national park, preserving whatever land that was not already settled for protection. Five years later the Charles Darwin Research Station was opened outside of Puerto Ayora on Santa Cruz. Working with the Nation Park Office, the station conducts research and determines courses of action to protect the islands. The Park office then implements many of these policies, constructing and marking trails for the visitor sites as well as regulating boats and visitor limitations.
In the late 1970's the Ecuadorian government realized that, due to the variety and uniqueness of animal life in the Galapagos, the area could be a major draw for tourists and a source of revenue for the country. Tourists began to pour in to the area, and many Ecuadorians moved to the archipelago to provide services for them.
By the early 1990's it was becoming evident that the islands could not sustain an enormous population, and the government of Ecuador imposed strict regulations for immigration to the island. The population of the Galapagos now stands at around 30,000 inhabitants. The local residents and scientists are working to preserve the natural environment for generations to come.
There you have it - the history of the Galapagos in a nut shell!
Techno-Tip Of The Day: Hurricanes
Just the word hurricane strikes fear into the hearts of most sailors (well, at least into our hearts). That is why most cruisers plot their cruising destinations and timing for the non-hurricane season. Hurricanes need two primary things to form: warm water and a strong enough corillois effect (this causes the spinning of the hurricane). Thus, you will find that hurricanes only form during the warmer months and north or south of approximately 12 degrees latitude. Because the strength of the corillois effect increases the farther you are from the equator, the band from about 12 degrees N to 12 degree S is free from hurricanes.
Hurricanes form during the summer months in the Caribbean and along the eastern coast of the Atlantic. The hurricane season there starts around June and is over by November. In the South Pacific, the hurricane season starts in November is and over around April. This is why we are planning on arriving in New Zealand in early November, right before the hurricane season starts and leave for Fiji in April.
The exception to the above is the Far East. There the water is warm all year round and typhoons (another name for a hurricane) can form just about any time of the year.
The areas of the world that are most affected by hurricanes are:
The Caribbean and eastern coast of US
The western North Pacific (Japan to Guam)
The South Pacific (West of the Marquesas to the Coral Sea)
Australia's northern and northwestern coast
The Bay of Bengal
The southwest Indian Ocean