The quiet beauty of mangroves

Tortuga Bay is a beautiful site about an hour's walk from town - it has a long stretch of shore that surfers go to (="the surfers beach") and a protected bay with calm water (="the swimmers beach"), as well as plenty of rocky intertidal zone, a small forest of Opuntia cactus-trees. It's a popular spot with both the tourists and locals (and with Leslie and me who do not fall into either group).

The first time we visited, it was low tide (which we planned for so we could do some intertidal exploration). But when I noticed that the swimmers' beach was surrounded by red mangroves, I was determined to come back and explore it by snorkel at high tide. So we did, and this series of photos is the result. I have gone snorkelling in mangroves before, though I have explored them above water many times back in Singapore. So this was a bit of an adventure.

Red mangroves in the foreground, Opuntias in the back. I love the Galapagos.

Above the water, the roots form a tangled network. The water is still enough to see them reflected on the surface.

Beneath the surface, the sounds of people from the beach fade away and you can almost hear the trees breathing. The visibility is poor in this soft sediment habitat but if you are still and patient (and keep your fins off the bottom!) it clears out enough to make out the somewhat eerie shapes of the submerged roots, and of the fishes hiding in this silent, flooded forest.

A tiny sergeant major emerges, dwarfed by the submerged mangrove roots.

A little bullseye pufferfish peers outward.

Mangroves are known as important 'nursery' habitat - a relatively benign place with calm water and fewer predators for juvenile fish to grow up (including commercially fished food species like snapper - see below). There is definitely a high abundance of little fish here. But there are also bigger shapes lurking in the shadows of the underwater forest. They fade in and out of the murky water and occasionally emerge from among the roots to say hello and to feed in the carbon-rich sediments of the surrounding water.

Dog snappers play hide and seek with me.

Two diamond rays lurk under the shadows of the overhanging mangrove roots. These guys dig about in the sediment and feed on invertebrates living there - check out a video of that here. In the foreground is another bullseye puffer and a young snapper.

Moving out further from the swimmers' beach, the water gets clearer and you can see just how busy the mangroves are.

A buzz of activity.

Further outside of town, El Garrapatero on the southeast side of Santa Cruz has its own mangrove thickets as well - some were growing through/on the basalt (!)

Lone tree on the rocks. There are Opuntias in the background as well.

Pneumatophore roots coming up through the muddy basalt rubble