Floreana Island
First light arrived at 5:40 showing us a beautiful blue sky. Temperatures were quite pleasant in the mid 70’s early in the morning as National Geographic Islander calls onto Post Office Bay. Here we are off to visit the oldest mailbox in the East Pacific, established in 1793. We sorted through mail left by past visitors and found a handful of postcards that we took with us to deliver by hand, giving us the opportunity to keep the post office barrel tradition alive.
Afterward, we returned to National Geographic Islander and navigated to Champion Islet. Here we boarded a flotilla of Zodiacs, riding along the coast of this old volcanic cone, looking for the Floreana mockingbird. Only about 140 of them survive, which is a bit of a consolation given that the ancestor population in the main island went extinct due to introduced animals! Later on we snorkeled along this same islet, where we sighted playful sea lion pups and large schools of tropical fish.
Just when we thought we have seen it all, we spotted a humpback whale and her calf breaching close to National Geographic Islander! After observing them for awhile, our Captain set course to our next destination, and we were joined by bottlenose dolphins riding the wave off the bow of our ship!
In the afternoon, National Geographic Islander cruised to Punta Cormorant. Here we had the opportunity to kayak, and later on we disembarked at a brown-olivine sandy beach, composed of eroded tuff and peridot, a semi-precious stone.
We took a trail to the interior of the island, and found one of the largest lagoons, where we observed a number of whimbrels, a type of migratory bird. The trail crossed an isthmus that took us to a white sand beach, formed millions of years ago by the erosion of ancient coral reefs, an ideal nesting ground for the Pacific green sea turtle. Here we found their nests, which have been very productive with sea turtle hatchlings in the past weeks.
