It is our third day of exploration around these magical islands. This morning you can feel the warm weather coming to Galapagos, sky is clear and the sun rise is perfect. Now prevails the hot Panama water current coming from California all the way down to the equator—this means that the water temperature increases, making it warm enough to evaporate to form thick clouds and pouring rains for short periods of time all over the archipelago. Due to the location of Galapagos and the influence of oceanic currents, this archipelago is very dry despite its tropical location. The weather is not an issue to consider for coming to Galapagos, because it’s very unusual to experience a pouring shower here. These heavy showers are sufficient for the vegetation to start blooming all over the archipelago. This is the time of the year when reptiles and land birds start breeding as well.
So this morning we disembark to visit Punta Cormorant. First we land on a green sandy beach made of olivine, a crystal very common in basalt formations. At the end of the trail we spot a white sandy beach, where many pacific green sea turtles are nesting, and we have the chance to see a couple of them. They were working very hard the previous night in building their nests, along the sand dunes, as we can see from the turtle tracks everywhere. Behind the beach is a lagoon with flamingos feeding on shrimps. Today we have a nice surprise when a juvenile flamingo comes out and walks up to the beach, starting to drink some water from the ocean and to dig some small crustaceans that hide below the sand. This behavior is very unusual, and amazing to experience!
Later we have breakfast on board and we get ready to continue our adventure; the next activities are deep water snorkeling, glass bottom boat rides and Zodiac rides.
Snorkeling with sea lions and turtles is great experience; around Champion Islet is a big colony of playful sea lions that make for an unforgettable experience. Also tons of multicolor fish are seen, rays, and some white tip reef sharks.
For the afternoon we visit the post office barrel, which is a system that was once used by whalers to transport mail to and from these islands. This afternoon we help to keep alive this old tradition, and before heading back onboard, we ride Zodiacs along the coast of the same area to see turtles, blue footed boobies, pelicans, sea lions, rays, marine iguanas, heron and a beautiful landscape. Before sunsets, we return on board and head to our outside decks to enjoy the sun disappearing in the vast Pacific Ocean.
