Floreana Island
It is a privilege to visit, with the National Geographic Endeavour, one of the islands that Charles Darwin visited back in 1835.
This morning we landed very early at Post Office Bay, where in 1793 a historical barrel was placed by the English buccaneers as a very primitive but effective mail box. Today we keep the tradition alive with our guests. They collected some postcards to be hand delivered back in their country and they left their mail to be picked up sooner or later by other guests who will do the same in exchange. Let’s see how fast the letters arrive to their destinations!
After coming back from Post Office Bay, we took our second outing for a Zodiac ride around Champion Islet, in search of the elusive Floreana mockingbird. Swallowed tailed gulls, red-billed tropic birds, brown noddy terns and blue footed boobies were spotted first, but after few minutes went by we had our first sight of a mockingbird. Jumping from one cactus to the other, he approached the edge of the cliff, and he ended up right in front of our Zodiac. What a good opportunity to take pictures of this unique species of bird, only found now on the satellite islets of Floreana.
Then we had the opportunity to snorkel around the islet and we had a fantastic time. The water temperature was perfect and the water conditions ideal. We saw lots of different species of fish, some spotted a white tipped reef shark and we all had the opportunity to see some very strange marine creatures, tunicates, that later were explained to us in detail by one of our naturalists, Celso, during the nightly recap.
The afternoon activities were many: kayaking, swimming from the beach, and a walk. We all ended following the trail that took us inland where a brackish lagoon holds one of the largest populations of flamingos in Galápagos. There were at least 40 of them with a few juveniles.
At the end of the trail, and after learning about the very interesting human history of Floreana, we reached one of the most beautiful white coral sand beaches, the perfect nesting site for the Pacific green sea turtles. We were lucky since many of them were near the shore and we could see many of them popping their heads out of the water. Some of them were waiting for the sunset before coming ashore to lay their eggs. Sea turtle tracks were easily spotted on the beach as well as many shore birds.
Floreana not only fascinates me for all we see, but also because of the mysterious human history behind!
