Floreana Island
When Ecuador took possession of the Galápagos Islands in 1832, Floreana was designated the political capital of the archipelago and received its name in honor of the first president: General Juan Jose Flores. Three years later, this island was visited by Charles Darwin and he noticed how beautiful this place was. It is incredible that there were just three years of difference between these two very important events.
Early in the morning today, we disembarked at Post Office Bay, one of the earliest visiting places in Galápagos due to its ease of access by sailing ships. This is the place where the old barrel was erected by buccaneers. It has served as a primitive post office since the 1790’s. Today our guests repeated the same tradition, sending postcards to their relatives or themselves. Behind the old barrel, the rusty parts of the Norwegian fish-canning factory still remain as mute witness of that adventure that began in 1926.
After breakfast, we loaded into the panga and made our way to Champion Islet to find a magical world underwater. The marine life in this location is incredible because we could observe lot of colorful fish, sea stars, colorful alga, and playful sea lions. Definitely sea lions were the best because they swam with us during all the snorkeling, chasing us, twisting their bodies, and repeating our movements. We were so very concentrated on playing with them that we did not notice it was getting late. It really was incredible, that interaction we had with that beautiful creature.
In the afternoon, with the National Geographic Islander anchored in front of Punta Cormorant, I had the opportunity to kayak with our guests. The water was so transparent that we observed many sea turtles resting on the bottom or swimming beside our kayaks. On the rocks, a group of pelicans observed attentively while a group of mullets waited for the opportunity to jump and eat them. From the air, a group of blue footed boobies fished, penetrating the sea like arrows.
At 4pm we finished the kayaking, but another adventure was waiting for us, but this time from the beach. We disembarked at Punta Cormorant, a place located between two tuff cones. The green sand of the landing beach is due to the presence of olivine, a green semi-precious mineral with a glass appearance.
We walked behind the beach up to a large salt lagoon where we saw many flamingos and white cheeked Pintails with their chicks. For a long time we observed that beautiful creature feeding on small larva shrimps, moving the upside part of their head down and introducing their bill to the mud.
Continuing walking along the trail we arrived at a second beach, but this time it was white. On the upper part we distinguished many sea turtle nests and in the shallows, a group of stingrays tried to hide their bodies in the sand. We walked for a long time identifying different species of plants and crabs. Finally, just before the sunset, from the zodiacs we tried to observe the green flash, waiting few minutes to see it. When the sun was like a huge balloon, little by little it disappeared into the horizon and, finally, the last portion of sun turned to green.
We said good bye to another beautiful day here in this paradise called Galápagos.
