Floreana Island
Clear skies overhead with clouds around the edges as the sun rose. Postcards exchanged at the famous Post Office Barrel, and a Zodiac cruise around the islets known as “La Loberia,” where wide and stocky prickly pear cactus share lava shores with sea lions, herons and frigates. Calm seas while we were visiting the northern shore of Floreana Island where history, anything but calm, had taken place and left its mark.
The highlight of the morning for those that snorkelled were the endlessly entertaining young sea lions who swam with us, blew bubbles with us, and dove with us until energies began to flag with body temperatures. Schools of exotic-named fish surrounded the snorkelers: razor surgeonfish, blue-chinned parrotfish, damselfish, Moorish idols, rainbow wrasses, white-tipped reef sharks, scorpion fish. All and more in clear water that disappeared into the blue depths.
The afternoon offered an additional snorkel around “Devil’s Crown,” a fast-paced immersion in currents that passed like a film in fast-forward, but good enough to try twice. Others preferred the calm beach of olivine sand, where walkers joined them for a trip inland to see the flamingos ever so bright. Black-necked stilts and white-cheeked pintail ducks inhabit the lagoon behind the saltbushes, and the late light made their colours glow. On the other side of the isthmus, Flour Beach had clear, small breakers where juvenile stingrays rode the surf and scooted around, while a large gathering of mustard rays cruised deeper waters not too far offshore. We wandered at will on the white sand and gazed at the turquoise waters where the green marine turtles emerge at night to lay their eggs on this most precious of beaches.
No green flash tonight, but the gentle cruise in the Islander while cocktails were served on deck provided a fitting end to another very special day in the islands of Galápagos.
Clear skies overhead with clouds around the edges as the sun rose. Postcards exchanged at the famous Post Office Barrel, and a Zodiac cruise around the islets known as “La Loberia,” where wide and stocky prickly pear cactus share lava shores with sea lions, herons and frigates. Calm seas while we were visiting the northern shore of Floreana Island where history, anything but calm, had taken place and left its mark.
The highlight of the morning for those that snorkelled were the endlessly entertaining young sea lions who swam with us, blew bubbles with us, and dove with us until energies began to flag with body temperatures. Schools of exotic-named fish surrounded the snorkelers: razor surgeonfish, blue-chinned parrotfish, damselfish, Moorish idols, rainbow wrasses, white-tipped reef sharks, scorpion fish. All and more in clear water that disappeared into the blue depths.
The afternoon offered an additional snorkel around “Devil’s Crown,” a fast-paced immersion in currents that passed like a film in fast-forward, but good enough to try twice. Others preferred the calm beach of olivine sand, where walkers joined them for a trip inland to see the flamingos ever so bright. Black-necked stilts and white-cheeked pintail ducks inhabit the lagoon behind the saltbushes, and the late light made their colours glow. On the other side of the isthmus, Flour Beach had clear, small breakers where juvenile stingrays rode the surf and scooted around, while a large gathering of mustard rays cruised deeper waters not too far offshore. We wandered at will on the white sand and gazed at the turquoise waters where the green marine turtles emerge at night to lay their eggs on this most precious of beaches.
No green flash tonight, but the gentle cruise in the Islander while cocktails were served on deck provided a fitting end to another very special day in the islands of Galápagos.
