Absolutely Galápagos

by David Fletcher

  He then went on to admit that it might, indeed, be offensive to some people if the elements of their culture that were appropriated were dealt with disrespectfully or disparagingly – but that he not been able to find any real examples of such behaviour. Furthermore, all the examples he had been able to find pointed not to a genuine theft of cultural identity or to the piracy of intellectual property rights – but instead to a load of precious PC types getting their knickers in a twist. And what’s more, he suggested, wasn’t ‘cultural imposition’ a great deal worse than even the idea of cultural appropriation, when the imposition was made by one set of people on another (indigenous) set of people who wanted nothing at all to do with the culture that was being imposed?

  Having received a few tentative nods of heads from around the table, Brian then pressed on to his principal point – which was how to put a stop to all this nonsense at a stroke. And this was that he and all his countrymen (and countrywomen) should start to kick up a bloody great fuss about the cultural appropriation of their very own language. Hell, the English language is ours. And it is at the core of our identity. So how can it be right that half the world has pinched it for their own use – without even a thank you let alone any sort of royalty arrangement? Enough is enough, claimed Brian, and there should now be a team of lawyers put to work, to bring a case through the international courts requiring ‘foreigners’ either to desist from using our language without our permission – or to pay handsomely for the privilege. The result would be one of two things. Either we would become the richest country on the planet – without a great deal of effort – or, more likely, the whole concept of cultural appropriation would be revealed for what it is: another example of offence being taken against stuff that was never designed to cause offence, by people who should basically just grow up and sort themselves out – and go out and buy themselves a sombrero.

  Well, Brian’s fellow table guests weren’t nodding their heads anymore, but nobody actually challenged his proposals, and before they could Sandra interjected by observing that it was very sad that black music of the sixties and seventies in the form of soul music had degenerated into its present-day manifestation as ‘rap’, and wouldn’t it be great if, instead of all this tuneless stuff, another Marvin Gaye or another Smokey Robinson came along? Bingo! Cultural appropriation was forgotten, and the meal ended with a series of contributions from around the table concerning the merits of different soul artistes and the part some of them had played in the contributors’ ‘romantic awakenings’ nearly half a century before. Then it was time for a listing session, after which came cabin time for all – and lecture time for two. And tonight’s lecture would be on the subject of Guyana, if, that is, Sandra would allow it…

  His wife’s reluctance to be Brian’s captive audience – yet again – made itself known as soon as he announced that it was Guyana’s turn. And it made itself known in the form of the following declaration. ‘Brian,’ she said, ‘we have both been to Guyana and we both know quite a lot about it. So how can there possibly be anything else worth knowing about it that merits your taking up more of my time?’

  Brian was taken aback, but soon regrouped – behind the shelter of an affronted and slightly hurt expression.

  ‘Well,’ he replied, ‘if you think you know absolutely everything about a whole nation state just because you’ve been there…’

  ‘Oh, get on with it,’ interrupted Sandra. ‘I should have known better…’

  And he did get on with it, kicking off with a few ‘national facts’.

  ‘OK. Guyana is the only English-speaking country in South America. It has a population of just 750,000, 90% of whom live on the coast. It has one of the largest unspoilt rainforests in South America, covering more than 80% of its land area…’

  ‘… and it plays international cricket as part of the West Indies cricket team,’ finished Sandra. ‘Oh, and St George’s Anglican Cathedral in its capital, Georgetown, is one of the tallest wooden structures in the world and the second tallest wooden house of worship in the world after the Todaiji Temple in Japan.’

  ‘How do you remember that?’ squeaked Brian.

  ‘I told you. We both know more or less everything there is to know about Guyana, only my memory is better than yours when it comes to details like the name of a temple in Japan. So why, Brian, are you bothering?’

  Well, the count was coming up to nine, but Brian managed to get to his feet just in time, and countered Sandra’s powerful blows with a punch of his own.

  ‘I bet you don’t know everything about the El Dorado Rum Distillery…’

  ‘You mean that distillery we passed on the way into Georgetown?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Well, what is there to know? It distils rum. End of story.’

  ‘Ah, not quite. Because you see, it still operates… stills that were first used in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. And what’s more, it has what’s called a wooden Coffey still – named after its inventor, an Irish guy by the name of Aeneas Coffey – which is similar if not identical to the original Coffey still, and is the last fully working example of its kind in the world!’

  Sandra gave Brian one of her most withering looks, and then made the following observation. ‘Brian,’ she said, ‘you know something? I don’t really care. And I don’t even really like rum. So why did you not take heed of what I said to start with? As lovely as Guyana might be, it does have a limit to its “facts of interest” – and we both seem to have a fairly good knowledge of them all. And I mean, if you’re having to scrape the bottom of a rum barrel in an attempt to find any more, then I think that only goes to prove my point. And in conclusion, I think you should now say not another word on the subject of Guyana and give us both a literal and much needed rest. End of message.’

  Well, Brian had little choice but to accept this advice to retire, and the evening was therefore concluded forthwith. But not before Brian, who still had in mind that lecture on Chinese Hat, had the very last word.

  ‘Sandra,’ he said, ‘do you realise Guyana sort of rhymes with iguana?’

  If she did, she didn’t confirm it, and Brian wasn’t unduly surprised…

  8.

  The Earth bulges at the equator. That is to say that its diameter at this girdle around the planet is some twenty-seven miles greater than it is at the poles. Furthermore, the equator is 24,901 miles long. But despite this sizable hump and the equator’s enormous dimensions, Brian failed to notice it – completely. As José, the captain, took the Beluga north-east from Santiago to the Nature-seekers’ next destination – and across the Earth’s equator – Brian simply slept like a baby and was entirely unaware of its existence. So too, one might imagine, were all those on board other than José himself. Only he would have known it was there, and then only because he had a GPS readout to tell him. At sea, not only is there no sensation of crossing a line, but neither is there any evidence of this line – in the form of a post, say. And no, Brian’s washbasin was not emptying at the time and, even had he been there rather than asleep, there would have been no direction of swirl to observe. Furthermore, it has to be admitted that even if there had been water disappearing down the plughole, this supposed manifestation of the Coriolis effect would almost certainly have been overwhelmed by many other factors, including the obvious motion of the boat, and would have provided no real evidence of when the southern hemisphere was being abandoned in favour of the northern hemisphere. So all in all, sleeping through the equatorial transit was probably a good decision by all the Nature-seekers. And for Brian, it meant that when he woke up – to a new day and in a new location – he felt rested, unbothered by his missing the equator – and excited. In fact, very excited, because the Beluga’s new location was Genovesa!

  Genovesa is a very small island, having a surface area of just five square miles. It lies in a remote situation to the north-east of the other Galápag
os islands, and it was formed, as they all were, from volcanic activity. However, in Genovesa’s case, the volcano responsible for its formation was a ‘shield volcano’, meaning that it was built up over time to form a volcanic cone with broad gentle slopes, so that when one side of its caldera eventually collapsed, its submerged crater became an enormous enclosed bay. Indeed, this Bahia Darwin is a full 2.5 kilometres wide, and gives the island the shape of a chunky horseshoe when observed from above. When observed from the deck of the Beluga, moored in the bay, this horseshoe shape can easily be appreciated, if, that is, one is not entirely distracted by the beauty on show. It really is a superb spectacle, and Brian, for one, soon decided that José had brought them all to another even more upmarket chamber of heaven.

  Breakfast was consumed eagerly as, the previous evening, Darwin, as well as unintentionally networking with dangerous sharks, had made it clear to the Nature-seekers that Genovesa was a hotspot for birds. There were apparently lots of them around and there were some that would not have been observed at close range before. So everybody was keen to board the pangas as soon as possible and to head off to a small sandy beach at the northern, sheltered side of the bay, there to take in the promised delights.

  Well, a wet landing later and they were all there – and there were even more delights than promised.

  At the very edge of the beach were some unconcerned sea lions, and next to a large and tastefully placed rock towards the end of the beach were a couple of Galápagos fur seals. Now, to start with, the Galápagos fur seal, like the Galápagos sea lion, is confusingly not a true seal. It is technically a ‘fur sea lion’. Furthermore, although it is smaller than the Galápagos sea lion, and it has a shorter snout and larger eyes… well, from the illustrations in the books on board the Beluga, it didn’t look that different, at least as far as Brian was concerned. Accordingly, he had consigned it to the ‘don’t bother with’ category along with Darwin’s finches, and was working on the assumption that all the brown, flippered sausages he saw were sea lions, not least because, due to their habits, the fur seals are much less frequently seen by visitors – than are the sea lions.

  Nevertheless, these fur seal chaps had been pointed out by Darwin, and Brian had to admit to himself that he could see that they were different – just. But on a dark night or after a few pops… well, he wasn’t so sure. And underwater at speed… no way. Unless of course he saw them one hundred metres down, fishing for squid, which is apparently something they do that sea lions don’t. But there again, if he was one hundred metres down, he would be in no condition to observe anything, and telling apart fur seals – which aren’t really seals – from sea lions would not be at the top of his ‘to do’ list.

  Believe it or not, all these thoughts went through Brian’s head as he squinted in the direction of the Galápagos fur seals before they disappeared into the sea, which was when his attention was then caught by the first of the promised birds. These were some red-footed boobies, and they were flying close overhead. Brian already knew that they were the smallest of the three Galápagos boobies (i.e. smaller than the blue-footed and the Nazca boobies), but only now that he was on Genovesa did he realise that he would be visiting what was the largest red-footed ‘boobery’ in the world. Yes, these guys prefer the outer islands in the archipelago, close to deep oceanic water, which constitutes their preferred feeding grounds. Indeed this is why, although the most numerous of the three local boobies, they are not often seen. However, they can be seen – in great numbers – in their colonies, and their biggest colony/boobery, with up to 140,000 nesting pairs, was here on Genovesa. In fact, part of it was no more than twenty metres from where Brian was still standing – in some mangroves beyond the beach.

  He was soon closer to these mangroves, with all the other Nature-seekers, and it was Española all over again: boobies and booby chicks just feet from where one stood, and all of them quite unconcerned at the presence of a load of perspiring humans. True, these guys had prehensile (red, webbed) feet, which enabled them to grip branches and to build their nests off the ground – within the mangroves – but it was still that same display of charming innocent indifference, which had already become one of the hallmarks of the Galápagos experience. Brian was enchanted yet again and, at the same time, doubly delighted. Delighted in the first place to learn that by laying only one egg, red-footed boobies, unlike their blue-footed and Nazca counterparts, do not indulge in either facultative or obligate siblicide. And delighted in the second place that both the parents and the chicks, sitting within the vegetation, made such easy subjects for his camera. Just like the great frigatebirds did in the colony next door…

  The Nature-seeker group had now moved on no more than thirty metres, and the mangroves were no longer decorated with boobies but with what could be described as the boobies’ neighbours from hell, those huge marauding pirate birds who, given half a chance, will steal what the poor old boobies have caught from the sea – and who can never be trusted to babysit. Although, there again, these whopping great birds are rather splendid, and the males, in their impressive ‘zoot suits’, are not only splendid but simply outrageous.

  Remember, Brian had seen these birds at close quarters already – sitting on the Beluga. However those birds had been just resting. They hadn’t been trying to ‘impress the totty’, which is exactly what a dozen or so of the males were doing on Genovesa, and within only yards of where the Nature-seekers had now gathered. It was a display that none of the Nature-seekers would ever forget.

  You see, the frigatebird, as a ‘courting aid’, has an enormous posing pouch. This isn’t, of course, anything like a Homo sapiens-type posing pouch. In fact it has nothing whatsoever to do with that tacky genitals container, which is sometimes worn by males of our species in the misguided belief that it will encourage the attention of women (which it almost invariably does not). No. Instead it is a pouch below the male frigatebird’s beak, with which he poses in a quite often successful attempt to gain the attention of women – as in frigatebird females. And, when employed, it is very large and it is very red. Yes, when a male frigatebird’s fancy turns to breeding, he first chooses a suitable nesting area and then slowly, over twenty minutes, he pumps air into his startlingly red throat pouch until it looks like a scarlet, marginally over-inflated, oven-ready turkey – or maybe just like a big, scarlet, oval-shaped balloon. But whatever it looks like, if a lady frigatebird flies in, he attempts to titillate her with it while, at the same time, indulging in a bit of head-shaking and a bit of ‘shrill trilling’ (possibly not the easiest thing to do if one has a big pouch of air beneath one’s chin). Anyway, all this enthusiasm may not be unconnected with the fact that there will probably be other male birds vying for the female’s attention by posing with their own inflated pouches, and only if he manages to out-pose them will he have any chance of winning his girl. In the frigatebird world, size (of pouch) does matter – along with colour, animation, high-pitched noise – but definitely not subtlety or reticence. Oh, and sheen is important as well. Magnificent frigatebirds have black plumage with a purplish sheen; great frigatebirds have black plumage with a greenish sheen. And in this particular colony, purple would have been a turn-off – as it was a great frigatebird colony.

  It was quite a sight: a group of ardent males, all with inflated scarlet pouches, all head-shaking and trilling for all they were worth – and, in this case, for just one lady frigatebird who looked conclusively unimpressed. Indeed, it looked as though she was trying to decide whether Jilly Cooper should be best known for her writing or for that rather attractive gap in her front teeth. No way was she contemplating a bit of ‘ow’s yer father with some balloon-festooned suiter, no matter how inflated his balloon and no matter how much he shook his head or trilled his trill. And anyway, there was no privacy here. I mean, look at all those gawkers over there. Anyone would think they’d never seen a posing pouch before…

  Ah yes, Brian was now imposing his ow
n anthropomorphic thoughts on the proceedings, which must have meant that it was time to move on – after first bagging a whole load of remarkable photos of these remarkable birds. And he did move on, and in doing so he was able to study a beautiful Galápagos dove at close quarters, observe some charming little fish in a shallow lagoon, catch a glimpse of a stingray as it dashed about in another lagoon, and discover quite a few small marine iguanas, none of which had even a single evaginated hemipenis on display…

  And then it was time to reboard the pangas. The Nature-seekers had used up their allotted time, and there were now more visitors arriving from another boat (and, compared to the Nature-seekers’ own practised routine, making a complete balls-up of their wet landing). In fact, based on their dismal performance, Brian suspected that they probably wouldn’t have known what an evaginated hemipenis was even if one hit them in the face. And then he thought he should abandon all thoughts of reproductive organs for the rest of the day and instead begin to anticipate the next expedition. Because the next expedition would be undertaken with the aid of a snorkel.

  Yes, as soon as the Nature-seekers were back aboard the Beluga, eight of their number, including Brian, were back on the pangas and heading off for the mouth of the bay, where some more deep-sea snorkelling would be undertaken. This sounded like a great idea – right up until the pangas made their way to the crater wall at the western edge of that mouth and the sea became… well, rather restless. The pangas’ engines were being put to the test, and so too were the pangas’ occupants – by frequent showers of spray as the inflatables made it through the waves, and by the prospect of snorkelling in such obviously rough water.