Floreana Island

Out of all of the islands that make up this remote archipelago, Floreana is the one that has the richest human history. This southerly island has fresh water, though rather scarce, so sailors set their eyes on it long ago. Humans also found a population of giant tortoises here, now extinct, so it was not surprising Floreana Island became a base for many visiting ships. It is said that an English whaler, Captain James Colnett, placed a wooden barrel at a little bay here, which would help seamen keep communication with their families at home while posted in these waters during the whaling era. This little bay eventually became Post Office Bay, and the tradition continues to this day, kept alive by the many visitors to the islands. An early excursion to this unique place was first on today’s list, and many of our guests were more than willing to honor this tradition.

Floreana Island is also very rich in both scenery and wildlife. At mid-morning we set off to Champion Islet, north of Floreana, in order to explore its coastline. There is no landing allowed here, so the Zodiacs rode us around this tiny volcano. Here we spotted several species of seabirds, like the Galápagos shearwaters, which were very abundant today, swallow-tailed gulls, brown noddy terns, blue-footed boobies, amongst others. Champion Islet is the home to a critically endangered species of landbird: the Floreana mockingbird, which most of us were successful in spotting today!

Afterwards, it was time for our guests to enjoy snorkeling, and a beautiful sunny day made it even more tempting! To our delight, some sea lions joined us, and there were thousands of fish of several species: king angel fish, razor surgeons, parrot fish, and more. Not everyone wanted to jump in the water, so some of our guests ‘explored’ the underwater world from the comfort of our glass-bottom boat. That was great fun!

By midday, the National Geographic Endeavour took us to Punta Cormorant, our next destination. Just before the land excursion, some of our guests decided to explore this bay from kayaks at their own tranquil pace. Upon landing at the olivine beach of Punta Cormorant, we walked behind it to encounter a large brackish lagoon, which is the temporary home to a small group of flamingos. This is said to be the pinkest flamingo species in the world found in the wild. They were certainly striking against the dry landscape behind them. We also encountered some white-cheeked pintail ducks sharing the lagoon with the flamingos. A smooth trail took us to another, quite stunning beach, locally known as ‘the flour beach’. This is a very important Pacific green sea turtle nesting beach, and in fact, we could see some of them floating in the shallow bay, perhaps waiting for the night to fall to land on this beach.

As the day was coming to an end, enlightening us with its gorgeous colors, we had to make our way back on board. We can definitely say that Floreana Island offered and delighted us with its full charm today.