From the National Geographic Endeavour in Galápagos

Floreana Island

It was a magical pre-breakfast morning activity at Punta Cormorant; this hike provides a good opportunity to see different habitats in Galápagos. As soon as we disembarked at a volcanic-material beach, we were exposed to the littoral zone with black, white and red mangroves, which are the main representatives of this area; these trees have special adaptation to deal with high concentrations of salt.

We walked a few hundred feet and we arrived at a different habitat, and this time it was a brackish lagoon, which is the home for many lagoon and migratory birds; to make it even more interesting there were pink flamingos feeding on microscopic creatures. This place was so quiet, the vegetation was very dry (normal for this time of the year), but the colors were so impressive with green, grey, blue and pink.

We finally arrived at a white sandy beach which is the nesting ground for the Pacific green sea turtles, and there were lots of tracks as an evidence of the hard work carried on by these marine reptiles. This was just the beginning of the day and our guests were already fascinated with this activity.

Later in the morning we went to Champion Islet to continue with our activities. At this tiny island, we offered glass-bottom boat rides, zodiac rides and of course the main activity was snorkeling with many different species of fish and the most playful animals found in this remote archipelago, the Galápagos sea lions.

For the afternoon we visited a very historical place known as the Post Office Bay, visited by whalers who set a barrel to have a link of communication with their family back in Europe. At this location we also offered a Zodiac ride through little islets with giant prickly pear cactus, blue-footed boobies, sea lions, penguins and many other amazing sightings as well.