Floreana Island
Today was a full day of activities from sunrise to sunset, and this place is the best for learning about the human history of Galápagos. As the sun was rising over the Pacific Ocean horizon, we were disembarking to visit the old post office barrel. This communication system was probably the only way of contact between whalers and their families in England in the late 1700s, and amazingly was still in use by the first settlers from Floreana Island in the early 1900s. And our guests even collected and dropped some post cards with the hopes that they would be hand delivered and they could make new friends.
We had to reposition the ship to continue with our morning adventure at an islet called Champion. Once at this place, we took a Zodiac ride in order to see a very elusive mockingbird belonging to this area only, unfortunately becoming extinct on Floreana due to the introduction of domestic animals that later became wild. But we have hopes to restore their home and repatriate them back where they once belonged. The mockingbirds were roaming everywhere at this small satellite Island.
We ended our morning activities with snorkeling in the same area. Champion is considered to be the best place for these activities and it really was: lots of fish, sharks, sting rays, turtles and playful Galápagos sea lions came to play with our guests. What a wonderful morning activity we had at this location.
We continued our adventure with a wet landing at a green sandy beach to explore a brackish lagoon which is the habitat of some lagoon birds. Whimbrels, sandpipers, white cheeked pintail ducks and flamingos were right there to make this lagoon more colorful. We even explored a white sandy beach which is full of nests made by the pacific green sea turtles at this time of the year; soon they will start hatching. That’s Galápagos… no matter what time of the year you are here you can enjoy from the first day to the very last minute.
This is all without mentioning that two round of kayakers went to explore Punta Cormorant and enjoy the lush vegetation we have this time of the year thanks to the rainy season all over the archipelago. Another wonderful day will stay in our memories forever.
