Floreana Island
Early in the morning we had a wet landing in a historical place called Post Office Bay at Floreana Island. This old mailing system was settled by a famous captain to be used as a way to communicate with the rest of the world. Nowadays we still follow the tradition and leave our stamp-less postcards in a wooden barrel; according to the old whaler’s tradition, someone living close to where the mail goes will take and hand deliver those letters. A very easy but practical use, so we also took some mail with us back home to be delivered.
After a delicious breakfast, our next activity led us to explore the underwater world around Champion Islet (a satellite islet of Floreana ) where we had an outstanding time swimming with large schools of king angel fish, white tipped reef sharks, many species of sea stars and at the end we even had some sea lions playing with us.
We headed back on board and during lunch we spotted some bottle-nosed dolphins from the dining room; we had a great time observing them jumping way up high and also enjoyed seeing them so close riding the bow.
Along our afternoon’s expedition we had a wet lading on Cormorant Point, a place that holds a beach with golden greenish sand; there we landed first. As we headed further into the island, soon we encountered a brackish water lagoon with about 57 greater flamingos; it was beautiful to see the contrast between the pink and black colors of the lava fields behind the lagoon.
The trail took us to a beautiful white sand beach with remarkable turquoise waters, one the most important pacific green sea turtles nesting areas; the nests were all over the place, and some of them even had fresh turtle tracks. In the water there were many female turtles waiting for the night to come so they could go on land to lay their eggs.
We also learned about the mysteries of Floreana and the secrets of the human history that makes the island so interesting besides its unique nature.
