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GalapagosQuest is an interactive expedition developed by Classroom Connect that will take a team of scientists and explorers on a journey of discovery through the extraordinary Galapagos Islands of Ecuador. Follow along here for daily reports on their quest.
GalapagosQuest: Water Scarcity in the Galapagos
March 9, 1999 By John Fox (Classroom Connect) -- I'm not the first crazy Irishman to visit the Galapagos. The first one was Patrick Watkins, who arrived on an English ship in 1800. He built a ramshackle hut in the highlands of Santa María, ran around naked and grew vegetables, some of which he traded for rum with passing whalers. Watkins and I came to the Santa María highlands for the same simple reason: water. The story of water on this island brings geology and history together. Add plundering pirates, a murder mystery, and a wee drop of rum and you've got a good old-fashioned Irish stew. First the geology ... Water is a scarce and valuable resource in the Galapagos and always has been. Only a few of the islands have regular springs where people can find water. The presence of water depends mostly on rainfall, which happens only between January and June, the wet season. The amount of rainfall is different from year to year and from island to island. But the greatest variation is a result of altitude. The highlands receive a lot more rain than the coastal areas and are a better place for most plants, animals, and people to live. Most of the underground pools and springs are found only on the older islands, like San Cristobal, Santa Cruz, and Santa María. Here, thousands of years of erosion created pockets and caverns deep underground where rain water and dew could pool and be collected. Patrick Watkins figured this out pretty quickly and managed to survive here for years. Others weren't so smart, or so lucky.
A Norwegian community settled in Post Office Bay in the 1920s, hoping to start a new life and a fish canning company. Unfortunately, they didn't know their geology as well as our clever Irishman. They built a coastal community, on the driest part of the island, miles away from the highland springs they would have to depend upon for water. After struggling for a few years, most gave up and returned to Norway, defeated. The unique animals of the Galapagos have had hundreds of thousands of years to get used to the lack of water. Giant tortoises established their homes in the wet highlands, where they drink from pools of rainwater and find shade under forests of giant sunflower. Marine iguanas, unique among reptiles, gave up their dependency on fresh water altogether, and took to the sea. They live on the coasts, feed underwater off algae-covered rocks, and make their nests in the warm beach sands. Back home we take water for granted, even though we know we shouldn't. People here on Santa María know what it's like to not have water for days, to go without showers and to settle for just one glass of water a day. That trickling rock where pirates filled their water casks still keeps Santa María alive. Rubber hoses carry water over four miles downhill to town, irrigating gardens and watering cattle along the way. Back to our crazy Irishmen. Patrick Watkins didn't last long on Santa María. After causing trouble on the island for years, he seized a passing vessel, made slaves of the crew, and set to sea in search of a new life and better rum. My exit from Santa María is going to be a heck of a lot easier. You voted to send us to Villamil on Isabela to investigate sea cucumbers. The Samba crew has agreed to set sail for Isabela so I guess I won't be seizing any vessels tonight. Rock on, John RELATED STORIES: Galapagos volcano eruption forces evacuation of giant tortoises RELATED SITES: Classroom Connect
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