Floreana
Today, the sun came up at six fifteen and shortly after we got on the Zodiacs for a wet landing at the famous Post Office Barrel beach. Many decads ago, a barrel was set by whalers to communicate between the ships, or to send letters to their families. Those leaving the islands would take the letters addressed to a place near their home and deliver them. Since 1968 when tourism started in Galápagos, in an organized way, the barrel has been used by all who want to join in this mail system. Anyone can leave a postcard without stamp, and take one or more to be hand-delivered if possible. So, we went through the post and left a few postcards ourselves.
We came back to the Islander for breakfast, traveled a short distance to Champion islet, off the coast of Floreana, and did some snorkeling. We had good light and clear water; we were able to see many razor surgeons, sergeant majors, trumpet, parrots and some sharks but, the highlight was two penguins swimming an inch away from our diving masks as they were feeding on some fish under a drifting piece of wood. Everyone was able to get a close up picture of them.
Then we moved to another visitors' site and, after lunch and siesta, we went snorkeling again. Some guests chose to do kayaking instead. Both options were tempting but most came along to Devil’s Crown for snorkeling where we had colorful fish, star fish, an octopus and some playful sea lions, like this one pictured who would look at us and release bubbles. Later on, we all went ashore and took a nice walk around a flamingo brackish water lagoon. This was the last activity of another full and exciting day.
Today, the sun came up at six fifteen and shortly after we got on the Zodiacs for a wet landing at the famous Post Office Barrel beach. Many decads ago, a barrel was set by whalers to communicate between the ships, or to send letters to their families. Those leaving the islands would take the letters addressed to a place near their home and deliver them. Since 1968 when tourism started in Galápagos, in an organized way, the barrel has been used by all who want to join in this mail system. Anyone can leave a postcard without stamp, and take one or more to be hand-delivered if possible. So, we went through the post and left a few postcards ourselves.
We came back to the Islander for breakfast, traveled a short distance to Champion islet, off the coast of Floreana, and did some snorkeling. We had good light and clear water; we were able to see many razor surgeons, sergeant majors, trumpet, parrots and some sharks but, the highlight was two penguins swimming an inch away from our diving masks as they were feeding on some fish under a drifting piece of wood. Everyone was able to get a close up picture of them.
Then we moved to another visitors' site and, after lunch and siesta, we went snorkeling again. Some guests chose to do kayaking instead. Both options were tempting but most came along to Devil’s Crown for snorkeling where we had colorful fish, star fish, an octopus and some playful sea lions, like this one pictured who would look at us and release bubbles. Later on, we all went ashore and took a nice walk around a flamingo brackish water lagoon. This was the last activity of another full and exciting day.
