Floreana Island
Early in the morning we had a pre-breakfast outing to visit Post Office Bay. After a wet landing, we headed to a very rusty looking barrel that used to be at important way for Galápagos visitors to communicate with the rest of the world, put there in 1792. Once upon a time used by buccaneers, whalers and pirates, and now it is a historical place still used by the Galápagos guests.
After breakfast we explored the underwater world around Champion Islet (a satellite islet of Floreana) where some of us were enchanted by the playful sea lions and several schools of fish swimming in very clear water.
We also had the opportunity to go on a Zodiac ride around Champion, where during the ride we were able to see many different seabirds such as swallow-tailed gulls, brown noddy terns, a great blue heron, a striated heron, Nazca boobies (of whom some even were nesting on the cliffs), and of course the elusive Floreana mocking bird.
After heading back to National Geographic Endeavour and having a delicious lunch, we navigated just around the point to our next landing place called Cormorant Point, still on Floreana Island. After a wet landing on a greenish sandy beach (cause of the semi-precious stone olivine), we had the chance to swim or walk along the beach, some of us even kayaked along the bay.
We have a very nice surprise. At 3pm when we were disembarking to the beach, we spotted a group of about fifty bottlenose dolphins. They were playing around our Zodiac.
The afternoon walk at Punta Cormorant was nice and relaxing. A lot of endemic species of plants were identified, some of the land birds like the Galápagos flycatcher and the yellow warbler were catching insects, and we saw the unique endemic medium tree finch of Floreana. Later on we headed deeper into the island until we reached the end of the trail where we arrived at a beautiful white organic sand beach with turquoise waters. Here we spotted some rays and saw a very large sea turtle in the water – what an amazing looking landscape!
At the end of our marvelous visit we returned to National Geographic Endeavour knowing that today we saw the wonders of Floreana, an island full of human history and ecological treasures, where buccaneers, whalers, pirates, Ecuadorian prisoners and even Darwin got to explore its most hidden secrets.
