Issue link: http://digital.canadawide.com/i/561260
istock F A L L 2 0 1 5 | G O I N G P L A C E S 39 oceanside ledges by the appearance of a school of awkward human snorkellers, the sleek, two- metre-long animals commence a performance that leaves me sputtering in amazement. One appears just centimetres beneath me, upside- down, pacing my speed, and turns his head upward as if to make sure he's being seen. Another swims barrel-rolls around me, spirals down amid deep-swimming fish, then rockets upward till he's airborne, splashes back into the water and turns toward me. Still others drift up to my facemask until their noses bump gently against the plastic, their doe eyes staring into mine. I float there motionless, halfway between fright and exhilaration, in suspended disbelief. is goes on for an hour: sea lion arabesques, somersaults, torpedo rushes and feints, chases, nose-kisses, aerial acrobatics. e ocean churns and I watch in awe. Each day, each island: a new set of crea- tures. Above the 45-metre cliffs of Española Island, waved albatrosses with two-metre wingspans ride the currents while their ungainly fledglings wander around my feet like characters from the Monty Python "Min- istry of Silly Walks" skit. High up on the lush slopes of Santa Cruz Island, amid the mud and elephant grass, live 5,000 of the Galapagos' land tortoises. Each meeting with these pre- historic creatures is a lesson in evolution. Descended from tiny Central American prede- cessors, this subspecies on the Galapagos has grown into lumbering 270-kilogram (600- pound) behemoths. When I stoop to look a 150-year-old tor- toise in the eyes, it stares out impassively. I stare back, trying to understand. Living for millennia without danger – until humans arrived a few centuries ago – the animals of the Galapagos lost their fight-or- f light instinct. In the end, what will save them is, I realize, their marketable innocence. eirs is a paradise found. But they are also trapped by evolution on these isolated islands. Like me, they are strangers in a strange land. GP Pelicans hunt along the coastline.