Floreana Island
The exploration continues; today we spent time on Floreana Island and a satellite islet called Champion. Early in the morning before breakfast some of us landed at Cormorant Point. Here we walked through a native forest where we encountered flamingos and some waders in a big brackish water lagoon. The colors at the two different kinds of beaches offered a great contrast: one was a white sandy coralline beach and the second one was a brown-green sandy beach full of crystals of olivine.
Later in the morning after our breakfast, we embarked on a Zodiac cruise and deep-water snorkeling outing. During the Zodiac ride around Champion Islet, we found about seven different types of seabirds and the famous Charles mockingbird, which is unique to this area. When we went deep-water snorkeling along Champion Islet, the sea lions were the stars, very playful and inquisitives, they surrounded us moving quite fast. We also saw a couple of Galápagos sharks and a great diversity of fish.
In the afternoon we went kayaking, on another Zodiac cruise and explored Post Office Bay. Both the kayaking and the zodiac ride took place near a sea lions colony and a feeding place of green pacific sea turtles. We succeeded finding all of these creatures as well as some seabirds and courting spotted eagle rays were seen.
Our day finished with a short visit to the Post Office Barrel. Here everyone had the chance to keep this alive an old tradition of collecting and leaving mail with the promise of hand delivering the collected mail – as we all say, sometimes this system is faster than the traditional mailing system.
