Floreana Island
Today, we went on a fresh early morning outing to see the oldest mailing system in Ecuador. We disembarked on a wet landing on the beach of Post Office Bay, a very historical protected bay on Floreana Island full of stories to tell about visiting pirates and buccaneers. There was a wooden wine barrel placed on this beach in 1793 by one of these former visitors. It was a very popular mailing system around the South Pacific for buccaneers, pirates and whalers during the 18th and 19th century. Nowadays we still leave and take correspondence this way so our guests can have the taste of how it worked in those times.
After leaving our own mail in the barrel, we had a relaxing Zodiac ride around a nearby sea lion colony, playful baby sea lions purposed around our Zodiacs as well as the big territorial males were always barking around making sure there was nothing around that could hurt the young pups.
Once on board, we had a great buffet breakfast and got ready for the second morning’s outing; snorkeling in shallow waters. Big schools of surgeon fishes, king angel fishes, parrot fishes, and wrasses were seen among others on the white sandy bottom of Champion Islet next to Floreana Island. After about an hour of snorkeling we came back on board to get ready again for the third outing of the morning, bird watching. This time we went after the endemic mocking bird of Floreana which has unfortunately disappeared from the main island because of the action of introduced mammals and now is only found in the satellite islets such as Champion.
The afternoon was a lovely, easy hike with a great look at the flamingo lagoon at Punta Cormorant; everybody had a good chance to take pretty pictures of the group of pink flamingoes and analyzed the special green olivine sand on the beach. A group of our guests kayaked with Lynn in a turquoise bay where we saw rays, sea turtles and sea lions. Happily, although we were all beginners, no one flipped or ran aground!
Today, we went on a fresh early morning outing to see the oldest mailing system in Ecuador. We disembarked on a wet landing on the beach of Post Office Bay, a very historical protected bay on Floreana Island full of stories to tell about visiting pirates and buccaneers. There was a wooden wine barrel placed on this beach in 1793 by one of these former visitors. It was a very popular mailing system around the South Pacific for buccaneers, pirates and whalers during the 18th and 19th century. Nowadays we still leave and take correspondence this way so our guests can have the taste of how it worked in those times.
After leaving our own mail in the barrel, we had a relaxing Zodiac ride around a nearby sea lion colony, playful baby sea lions purposed around our Zodiacs as well as the big territorial males were always barking around making sure there was nothing around that could hurt the young pups.
Once on board, we had a great buffet breakfast and got ready for the second morning’s outing; snorkeling in shallow waters. Big schools of surgeon fishes, king angel fishes, parrot fishes, and wrasses were seen among others on the white sandy bottom of Champion Islet next to Floreana Island. After about an hour of snorkeling we came back on board to get ready again for the third outing of the morning, bird watching. This time we went after the endemic mocking bird of Floreana which has unfortunately disappeared from the main island because of the action of introduced mammals and now is only found in the satellite islets such as Champion.
The afternoon was a lovely, easy hike with a great look at the flamingo lagoon at Punta Cormorant; everybody had a good chance to take pretty pictures of the group of pink flamingoes and analyzed the special green olivine sand on the beach. A group of our guests kayaked with Lynn in a turquoise bay where we saw rays, sea turtles and sea lions. Happily, although we were all beginners, no one flipped or ran aground!
