Notes from the Field

Fish markets in the States are generally judged by their degree of sterility, cleanliness and lack of, well, fishiness. In Galapagos, as in many countries around the world, there is a much closer connection between the fish, the fisherman and the fish market. Each morning on my way to the Symposium and each evening on my way home, I pass by a little covered area along the shore of Pelican Bay that is the site of an open air fish market and which is also the site to some of the most amazing wildlife battles that I have seen. Throughout the day, local fishermen tie up their little blue boats along the dock and bring ashore all sorts of fish to sell.

After nearly two days and twenty hours of death by powerpoint, the opportunity finally arose where I was going to be able to walk perhaps as close as I was going to come in the footsteps of Darwin. While Darwin never set foot on Santa Cruz Island, a trip was organized for a group of […]

My journey to Galapagos began with a letter of invitation that I received from the Charles Darwin Foundation which included the following statement: “Recognizing the great contribution of your research and of NASA developments in remote ocean sensing across the dynamic Galapagos region we invite you to deliver a lecture as part of the Galapagos […]

I would be less than honest if I said that my first impressions of the Galapagos were everything that I’d hoped for and that I’d felt transported back to the world that I had read so much about in Darwin’s and FitzRoy’s journals. Try as I might, I think I only managed to spot a […]

“These islands at a distance have a sloping uniform outline, excepting where broken by sundry paps & hillocks. — The whole is black Lava, completely covered by small leafless brushwood & low trees. — The fragments of Lava where most porous are reddish & like cinders; the stunted trees show little signs of life. — […]

A few red leather bound notebooks, some loose sheets of fine paper, a quill pen and an inkwell were all that Darwin required to keep his family, friends and colleagues informed as to the people, places and things that he was encountering during the five years that he was on the Beagle.  However, although Darwin […]

In 1831, a young twenty-something man without any clear direction in what he wanted to do with his life, although his father was urging him to go into the clergy, was invited to join on what was first advertised as a two year voyage of discovery to chart the southeast coast of South America and […]

“We shall not cease from exploration. And the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time.”  — T.S. Eliot It has been 200 years since the birth of Charles Darwin, and 150 since the publication of his world-changing work, On the Origin of […]

NASA oceanographer Dr. Gene Carl Feldman is no stranger to the Galapagos Islands, although he has never been there. He has studied these “Enchanted Isles” from the vantage point of space for the last 25 years, but in July 2009 he will set foot on the islands for the first time. 2009 marks the 200th […]