Pelican Bay

The fish market is a place with its own life where fisherman come to sell their products. Fishermen sit on the side to talk about the community and amongst them some old experienced ones who are already part of the recent human history of the Galapagos, like “Pelo Fino” which means Thin Hair. Pelo Fino is a nick name of the oldest fisherman in the group.

Next to them is a Park Ranger, encharged of making sure that everything goes fine and surrounding them are most of the time young pelicans a great blue heron, a couple of sea lions, and as a matter of fact a female with pub number three or four, a couple of frigate birds perching on the roof and every now and then a blue footed boobie.

Can you imagine this scene? Animals, people, economy, chatting, gossiping all of this in front or next to a silent statue of a huge tortoise and a windmill. There has to be a story behind it.

It all goes back again to those years of the 1930s 1940s.

Ecuadorian and European families got established on Santa Cruz Island and since the entire archipelago does not have much fresh water these pioneers had to figure it out.

Pelican Bay was the center of town around those years as well, in a different way. Next to Gaston Goumaz a Swiss settler Adolf Henny established a sort of Windmill to pump brackish water out, and a few meters away was public pump, also brackish water used by the inhabitants then to cook, drink, bathing and so on. it was customary to do laundry by all families and women brought their children with them so they could play.

People had no electricity so everything had to be done manually and trading between them was the only way to live, then no one had much access to any currency. Farmers brought their products from the highlands and fisherman from the ocean. There was a trail from Pelican Bay connected to the highlands directly to the coast, walking perhaps 4-5 hours.

During those years the small town did not have a hospital or similar, therefore everybody who is now around fifty or sixty years was born in Pelican Bay.

Lifestyle has changed somehow there, but if you visit Galapagos you will hear a song about this place and the locals will tell that “if you drink water from Pelican Bay, you will never leave Santa Cruz Island.

I believe this is a good reason why this island is the most populated nowadays.