We are delighted to share this blog, written for us by recent guest of ours Mike Sauder. Mike, a professional photographer, took some incredible photos of his Galapagos adventure which you can see here and below. Mike was on a 15 day cruise on board Integrity, one of our favourite yachts. We love reading accounts of guests’ travels and the impact it had on them. Enjoy!
Photography by SauderArts, ©J Michael Sauder
My Photography Dream Expedition to the Galápagos
by J. Michael Sauder
“It was my lifelong dream to visit the Galápagos islands. As a child, I loved nature documentaries and was inspired by the fearlessness of the animals and the raw geology of the islands. As an adult, I unconsciously put the Galápagos islands on a tier above any other travel, intimidated by the logistics and cost. After listening to Drew Binsky’s audiobook “Just Go” about his extensive globe-trotting and travel advice, I immediately decided there was no reason to delay since this was the one place I had wanted to visit more than any other. I’m so happy I found Think Galapagos and the expertise of Rachel Dex to create my perfect Galápagos experience!
Exploring both Eastern and Western Islands
As both a scientist and an avid photographer, a standard one-week cruise presented an agonizing compromise. Most cruise itineraries force you to choose between the Eastern or Western islands. I concluded that I needed two back-to-back weeks to see it all. Week one included Santa Cruz, Floreana, Isabela, Fernandina, Santiago, North Seymour, and back to Santa Cruz. The second week we headed to Española, then San Cristóbal, Santa Fe, South Plaza, Genovesa, Santiago, Bartolomé, Rábida, and Sombrero Chino. Our National Park guides were like walking encyclopedias who could speak at length on any topic related to the flora, fauna, and geology of the islands.
An unexpected highlight of the trip was the snorkeling, which opened a window to the spectacular marine ecosystem. We swam through schools of colorful tropical fish, alongside green sea turtles, reef sharks, and playful sea lions.
The incredible Marine Iguana
Nowhere else on the planet can you swim with ocean-going lizards. Watching marine iguanas glide past using their long tails is mesmerizing. They swim down to submerged rocks, grasp them with their formidable claws, and graze on carpets of marine algae.
DNA evidence indicates that they diverged from land iguanas over 4 million years ago when ancestral South American land iguanas found themselves on rafts of vegetation in the Humboldt Current and made landfall on the older Eastern islands (before Isabela or Fernandina islands existed).
Given the meager food options on a volcanic island, they adapted to life in the intertidal zone and spread to each new island as the ocean currents allowed. Given the distances between islands, they further diverged into about 10 distinct subspecies; we saw obvious differences in size and coloring as we traveled from island to island. A map of their distribution is shown, adapted from Varela-Jaramillo et al, Frontiers in Zoology (2023) 20:4.
Given the immense distance from the South American coast to the Galápagos islands, few mammals survived the journey before the arrival of sailing ships. Rice rats and bats are the only mammals endemic to the islands. However, many birds use the islands as a convenient place to breed or refuel during their migrations, and some have made the islands their permanent home given the relatively stable climate near the equator.
Frigatebirds in Galapagos
One of the most familiar sights associated with the Galápagos is the red, inflated gular sac of male frigatebirds. There are two species of frigatebirds on the islands, the Great and the Magnificent, and they each make distinctive sounds when trying to persuade a passing female that their nest is best. (Great frigatebird males sound like a turkey gobbling, while Magnificents make a drumming/rattling sound.) It requires about 20 minutes to inflate the sac, and about the same amount of time to deflate, but it can take weeks before it is fully absorbed back into the throat. Sometimes the males can be seen flying with an inflated sac, which makes one wonder about the effect on its aerodynamics.
Frigate birds have a wing-surface-to-body-weight ratio higher than any other bird, allowing them to effortlessly soar for weeks or months with their 2 meter wingspan. However, on their long journeys for food, scooping fish from the ocean, they must be careful not to land in the water. Their feathers lack waterproofing, so they could drown. We often saw them following our boat, but the best places to see nesting colonies up close was on Genovesa and North Seymour islands.
Blue Footed Boobies
Another fascinating bird were the blue-footed boobies, which are seen all throughout the archipelago, often plunge-diving for fish near the shore. They can be seen from beaches and cliffs, flying back-and-forth until they see a school of fish; then they fold their wings and dive, slicing into the water like a arrow. They can also skim right above the surface of the water, dip under in a shallow dive, then pop back out and keep flying.
Unlike the red-footed boobies, whose feet are red due to the carotenoids in their diet of fish and squid, the blue feet of blue-footed boobies are only partially related to their diet. Beneath the skin of their feet, they have arrays of collagen fibers that scatter and reflect shorter (bluish) wavelengths of light. (Structural coloration is also responsible for the amazing displays on butterfly wings, where the chitinous scales on their wings bend, scatter, and filter light.)
An unhealthy, poorly-fed booby might have a dull, purplish-blue base hue, while a well-fed bird has additional yellow coloring due to the carotenoids from sardines and anchovies, giving them healthy turquoise or aquamarine feet. Females monitor their mate’s foot color as a metric of overall health and alter their egg-laying behavior to maximize the likelihood of at least one chick surviving. Once we had to step around a booby who had decided to nest right on the trail (blue-footed and Nazca boobies nest directly on the ground, whereas red-footed boobies nest in the branches of trees or shrubs).
Galápagos penguins
Galápagos penguins are the second smallest and only equatorial penguin species. They are classified as endangered and are some of the rarest birds in the world, since there are probably fewer than 2000 individuals. We were lucky to see them on multiple islands, and even spotted them swimming by while snorkeling. They mate for life and typically only raise one chick at a time. Climate change is a significant threat due to their dietary reliance on cold, nutrient-rich currents; warming from extreme El Niño events can cause over 50% declines in population size, and 2026 warming could cause a devastating drop in their numbers.
Flightless Cormorant
Another bird that has forsaken flight is the flightless cormorant, endemic to the Galápagos. Of 40 cormorant species worldwide, these are the largest and the only one that cannot fly. Genome sequencing data revealed that about 2 million years changes in genes related to cilia and bone growth caused their wings to became so stunted that they lost the ability to fly. Since there wasn’t a need for flight to migrate or escape predators, the changes may have better adapted them to hunt underwater.
Giant Tortoises
Last, but not least: Giant Tortoises. These amazing creatures are responsible for the name of the archipelago, since an old Spanish word for tortoise is galápago. In the 18th and 19th centuries, hundreds of thousands were hunted to extinction, used as convenient food sources by sailors, since they could survive on board for up to a year without food or water.
They did go extinct on several islands; the tortoise “Lonesome George” was perhaps the most famous since he was the last living individual from Pinta island. The island’s vegetation had been devastated due to introduced feral goats, so he was cared for at the Charles Darwin Research Station on Santa Cruz. Breeding attempts to, at the very least, create a hybrid of his subspecies failed, and in 2012 he died. He was frozen and shipped to the American Museum of Natural History where great care was taken to preserve him by taxidermists, and he is now on display in a special climate controlled room at the Research Station.
Evidence of violent geologic processes were visible everywhere, especially the younger islands. It was amazing to see how life gains a foothold in the hard volcanic rock, and eventually led to the islands’ unique biodiversity dominated by reptiles and birds.
Life thrives despite the many challenges to survival. Thanks to The Ecuadorian government’s decision to protect this archipelago in 1959, the formation of the Marine Resources Reserve in 1986, and the efforts of the Galápagos Conservancy to rehabilitate species impacted by the intrusion of humans and invasive animals, the Galápagos islands remain one of the most spectacular ecosystems on the planet.
What’s in my photography bag?
Many visitors to the Galápagos come armed only with their cell phone camera. For those who want extra reach beyond that of their phone, I recommend a superzoom camera that goes from wide angle (~24mm) to telephoto (at least 200mm or better yet 600mm), such as the brand new Sony RX10v.
For serious photographers wondering how much gear to carry to the Galápagos, I suggest that the best glass you own is probably best. I originally planned to use my Sony a1ii with 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6 lens for its flexibility and nice range of focal lengths, but when I purchased Sony’s 300mm f/2.8 lens, the sharpness and wide aperture made me fall in love with it.
Most of the time I used my 300mm lens, either alone or with a 1.4x teleconverter (60% of my photos). When I used my 100-400mm lens on cloudy days, I was dissatisfied with the results compared to the 300mm. I used a 20-70mm lens for landscape shots (which made up less than 20% of my photos).
For underwater photography, I don’t recommend a regular GoPro unless you plan to only shoot video. I was disappointed in nearly all of my ~5000 GoPro photos, especially since nothing was even remotely sharp unless the subject was over 2 meters away. I recommend the OM System TG-7 (or the older Olympus TG models), which was used by one of our guides for underwater photography.”
Mike Sauder is a wildlife and landscape photographer based in San Diego, California. You can see more of his photos at mikesauder.com/Galapagos, where he will be adding to his island-based galleries throughout 2026.
