Floreana Island
Our day started at a place with an ancient post office system set during the whaling times in the Pacific Ocean. Due to the Galápagos position, this archipelago was visited by whale and seal hunters during the eighteen hundreds. This activity took place away from the home countries of the whalers and hunters, do one of them, James Colnett, had the idea of placing an old wine barrel at Post Office Bay to collect mail. These seafarers, when they were ready to go home after a few years away, would pick up letters from the barrel and have the opportunity to take correspondence home to be hand delivered. This pre-breakfast activity gave our guest the opportunity to drop post cards with no stamp needed, and collect some to take to their home countries, making new friends by hand delivering them. As we were coming back on board a pair of Galápagos penguins showed up inside the bay, much to our guest’s delight.
We continued our adventure in a satellite islet known as Champion. A Zodiac ride was offered to look for the elusive Floreana mockingbird and many other marine birds. As soon as we returned from this activity, a deep and shallow water activity was offered. This is probably one of the best visitor sites for fish identification and swimming with playful Galápagos sea lions. Some others of our guests preferred to see the same fish under water using our glass bottom boat.
Early in the afternoon we offered two rounds of kayaking to explore the coastline of Punta Cormorant. Our last activity was to disembark at a beautiful green sandy beach and walk to a white sandy beach, giving our guests the opportunity to learn about the formation of organic and inorganic beaches in this oceanic archipelago. Apart from that, this place is the best to observe our Galápagos flamingos, which have been able to colonize the different brackish lagoons found in this lost paradise.
It was really an amazing day from the beginning to the end.
