Floreana Island
We started our day bright and early on a beautiful morning, when we landed at Post Office Bay to visit its hidden barrel. One of the Naturalists, Juan Carlos, told the group the great story about how this barrel was established by British whalers in 1973 and explained its intricate system of depositing and taking mail from it. Since then we have tried to maintain the tradition, and it is now over two hundred years old! Two of our special visitors, Mayra and Aida who are part of the Lindblad Program “Teachers On Board,” were happy to see first hand what they have mainly heard from friends and family about the barrel. Today this historical tradition became a reality for them, and they took part on the tradition by taking mail to Santa Cruz, as well.
After breakfast we navigated to an islet named Champion. Here we spent the rest of the morning snorkeling, Zodiac cruising and riding on the glass bottomed boat. Every activity was great and our fellow travelers that were Zodiac cruising even got to see very close the allusive and famous Floreana mocking bird.
After lunch we made a wet landing at Cormorant Point, where we had a nice look at the greater flamingos that live on a near by brackish water lagoon. We strolled over a hill to reach the “other beach” on the far side of the island. This area had accumulated a large amount of extra-fine white organic sand, which was basically the hard work of thousands of industrious parrot fish and other reef fish.
Dozens of sting rays could be seen burrowing down into the soft, flour-like sand, and the occasional green sea turtle could be seen in the shallows. Our last stop was back at the green beach composed largely of olivine. This semi-precious gem/crystal is form basically within the mantle of the earth, but has been dragged out to the surface during volcanic activity. The crystal found so abundantly here is formed of a high concentration of magnesium and silica, and is part of the hardest materials found on the surface of the earth.
We started our day bright and early on a beautiful morning, when we landed at Post Office Bay to visit its hidden barrel. One of the Naturalists, Juan Carlos, told the group the great story about how this barrel was established by British whalers in 1973 and explained its intricate system of depositing and taking mail from it. Since then we have tried to maintain the tradition, and it is now over two hundred years old! Two of our special visitors, Mayra and Aida who are part of the Lindblad Program “Teachers On Board,” were happy to see first hand what they have mainly heard from friends and family about the barrel. Today this historical tradition became a reality for them, and they took part on the tradition by taking mail to Santa Cruz, as well.
After breakfast we navigated to an islet named Champion. Here we spent the rest of the morning snorkeling, Zodiac cruising and riding on the glass bottomed boat. Every activity was great and our fellow travelers that were Zodiac cruising even got to see very close the allusive and famous Floreana mocking bird.
After lunch we made a wet landing at Cormorant Point, where we had a nice look at the greater flamingos that live on a near by brackish water lagoon. We strolled over a hill to reach the “other beach” on the far side of the island. This area had accumulated a large amount of extra-fine white organic sand, which was basically the hard work of thousands of industrious parrot fish and other reef fish.
Dozens of sting rays could be seen burrowing down into the soft, flour-like sand, and the occasional green sea turtle could be seen in the shallows. Our last stop was back at the green beach composed largely of olivine. This semi-precious gem/crystal is form basically within the mantle of the earth, but has been dragged out to the surface during volcanic activity. The crystal found so abundantly here is formed of a high concentration of magnesium and silica, and is part of the hardest materials found on the surface of the earth.
