Santa Cruz Island

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Solitario George

One of the stranger sights in the Isla Santa Cruz town of Puerto Ayora is at the Charles Darwin Research Station. It is not one of the many living tortoises living there but a nonliving piece of taxidermy.

There is one tortoise that was a world wide celebrity, his passing was covered around the world. He is an endling, the very last of his subspecies, Chelonoidis nigra abingdonii. His name is Solitario George (Lonesome George).

George was found in 1971 on the small island of Isla Pinta (23 square miles). The island’s vegetation had been decimated by introduced feral goats. He was the last of his subspecies ever found and moved to the Charles Darwin Research Station on Santa Cruz.

The research station preserves and breeds giants tortoises and works on conservation to protect their habitats around the Galapagos.

A young tortoise breed at the center will one day be released to its home island.

George lived at the center for 40 years, being cared for by Fausto Llerena. Being the last of his kind, he was a popular attraction at the center.

After George was found dead, he was sent to New York to be preserved by the Museum of Natural History.

He was then sent back to Ecuador where there was a fight as to where he would be displayed: Quito or the Galápagos. In the end, the Galápagos won and George is now on Isla Santa Cruz.

George in taxidermy.

Giant Tortoise Sketching

The giant tortoises of Santa Cruz Island, Galápagos, proved to be great subjects to sketch. They are slow moving, ponderous, and often pause for long periods to contemplate the Universe.

These tortoises are also an iconic animal of the Galápagos. A symbol of the Enchanted Isles uniqueness as well as its fragility.

Sometimes coming upon a tortoise and seeing no motion one is inclined to think it is a very lifelike statue, a perfect sketching subject.

This is no statue but a live and wild giant tortoise contemplating the universe!

Our group visited Rancho Primicias, a ranch that is also a giant tortoise reserve.

Giant tortoises spend much time in pools, cooling off and drowning ticks.

While we walked through the ranch on its muddy trails (boots included), I added giant tortoises to my small panoramic sketchbook. Some were wallowing in ponds, contemplating the universe and cooling off.

Giant tortoise sketches.
This is one of my favorite portraits of a tortoise at Rancho Primicias.
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The Conception

On Monday of the Labor Day Weekend, 2019, word was out about a boating accident near California’s Channel Islands. When “Santa Cruz Island” and “scuba boat” were mentioned on the radio newscast, I was all ears.

The reason for my instant attention was that I had been to Santa Cruz Island twice. More recently on a camping trip to the Scorpion Bay Anchorage and then in April 2006, a scuba diving trip on a live aboard diving boat out of Santa Barbara.

When more news came out it became clear that a diving boat had caught fire in the early morning hours of September 2 with passengers asleep below deck. The fire quickly engulfed the vessel and the boat sank. At the time of this blog’s writing, it was believed that all the passengers, 34 divers, had perished while five crew members had escaped.

The name of the dive boat was “Conception”.

I headed home after work on Tuesday and rummaged through a storage box that contained my 9 by 12 Canson all media journals. I was looking for the journal that contained sketches from my 2006 dive trip. In the fifth journal I checked, I flipped through the pages to find the dockside sketch of the live aboard dive boat the night before we headed out to Santa Cruz Island. Below the sketch I noted the ships specs: Built: 1981, Length: 79’, Beam 25’, Cruising speed: 12 knots. Above the drawing was neatly stenciled letters in all caps. It was the boat’s name.

Her name was Conception.

This discovery sent chills through my body and a wave of empathy and horror for those who had perished.

Quail Rock

I turned the page to find a near monotoned sketch, dated 4/29/06, of a rock called “Quail Rock”, a sketch I remember doing on the deck of the Conception between dives. I had a quote from my dive buddy written in the bottom left corner: It’s like the difference between driving & walking. ~Sam on the difference between sketching and photography.

The last of the three sketches I did on this trip was the most chilling. It is dated  4/30/06. It is a comic of myself, squeezing into the tight berth below decks in the Conception. It shows me with my arm braced inches above my head, my teeth clenched in frustration as the sound of the boat’s engine drones on.  The title is, “Lower Bunk 10D of the CONCEPTION”. And here is the really chilling aspect of this illustration: it looks like I’m trapped alive in a coffin, like something out of a Poe short story. This was an illusion to show how cramped and uncomfortable my bunk was.

Bunk