Floreana Island
This week’s voyage is one of Lindblad’s Family Departure Trips with many young guests on board. Some groups have 3 generations represented and many are with grandparents, cousins, aunts and uncles. The participant list is truly cross-generational in make-up. One of the pleasures of working on a Family Departure Trip is seeing the world through the eyes of all age groups, and to experience the sharing of the day’s experiences by the younger guests at the evening recap or through their art projects
We began today very early with a visit to the Post Office Barrel on Floreana Island. Many guests participated in the old sailors’ tradition of leaving mail for others to deliver and picking up cards to deliver to our home countries. The night before, the children had taken time to write postcards to themselves or parents and are excited to see how long it will take for their mail to reach them. As we rode the Zodiacs back to the ship we passed green sea turtles, sea lions, boobies diving for fish and soaring frigatebirds. After breakfast, the morning was spent snorkeling around Champion Islet. The sea conditions were excellent for scuba divers, drift snorkelers and bay snorkelers. I joined the Zodiac with some of our very young guests and we explored the beauty of one of the bays. The joy and wonder of seeing the wide variety of tropical fish was only matched by the squeals of excitement from the children as they entered the water and discovered this sea world of color. There were schools of wrasses, hogfish, yellowtail surgeon fish, parrot fish, angelfish, damselfish, cardinal fish and guineafowl puffer fish just to name a few.
One of the most special moments was when 4 - 6 small sea lions decided to interact with us by swimming around, under, behind and in front of us. They were very curious about these “creatures” who seemed to look like them but were wearing blue/yellow plastic glasses with pink or light blue flippers! One sea lion hung suspended upside down in front of two 8 year-old snorkelers. The children stopped swimming and the three of them stared at each other for a few minutes, then, with a quick flick of its hind flippers, the sea lion dashed away. The children surfaced and began to talk very fast about what happened. There was a common feeling of awe and anxiousness to be so close to a wild animal and have it accept us so completely. On the way back in the Zodiac, the children were wondering what the sea lions were thinking as they had swum with us for over 30 minutes.
The afternoon found us off another beach, Punta Cormorant, with olivine and white sand surrounded by the cones of old volcanoes. A short walk brought us to a saltwater lake where flamingos, white-cheeked pintail ducks and shorebirds were feeding. We returned to the beach for more snorkeling and playing in the surf. Again, sea lions arrived to inspect us and we saw very large green sea turtles swimming by. Many of the children have read books or seen movies about the Galapagos before arriving on this trip and their excitement in actually seeing an animal that they “truly love” is, indeed, infectious!
This week’s voyage is one of Lindblad’s Family Departure Trips with many young guests on board. Some groups have 3 generations represented and many are with grandparents, cousins, aunts and uncles. The participant list is truly cross-generational in make-up. One of the pleasures of working on a Family Departure Trip is seeing the world through the eyes of all age groups, and to experience the sharing of the day’s experiences by the younger guests at the evening recap or through their art projects
We began today very early with a visit to the Post Office Barrel on Floreana Island. Many guests participated in the old sailors’ tradition of leaving mail for others to deliver and picking up cards to deliver to our home countries. The night before, the children had taken time to write postcards to themselves or parents and are excited to see how long it will take for their mail to reach them. As we rode the Zodiacs back to the ship we passed green sea turtles, sea lions, boobies diving for fish and soaring frigatebirds. After breakfast, the morning was spent snorkeling around Champion Islet. The sea conditions were excellent for scuba divers, drift snorkelers and bay snorkelers. I joined the Zodiac with some of our very young guests and we explored the beauty of one of the bays. The joy and wonder of seeing the wide variety of tropical fish was only matched by the squeals of excitement from the children as they entered the water and discovered this sea world of color. There were schools of wrasses, hogfish, yellowtail surgeon fish, parrot fish, angelfish, damselfish, cardinal fish and guineafowl puffer fish just to name a few.
One of the most special moments was when 4 - 6 small sea lions decided to interact with us by swimming around, under, behind and in front of us. They were very curious about these “creatures” who seemed to look like them but were wearing blue/yellow plastic glasses with pink or light blue flippers! One sea lion hung suspended upside down in front of two 8 year-old snorkelers. The children stopped swimming and the three of them stared at each other for a few minutes, then, with a quick flick of its hind flippers, the sea lion dashed away. The children surfaced and began to talk very fast about what happened. There was a common feeling of awe and anxiousness to be so close to a wild animal and have it accept us so completely. On the way back in the Zodiac, the children were wondering what the sea lions were thinking as they had swum with us for over 30 minutes.
The afternoon found us off another beach, Punta Cormorant, with olivine and white sand surrounded by the cones of old volcanoes. A short walk brought us to a saltwater lake where flamingos, white-cheeked pintail ducks and shorebirds were feeding. We returned to the beach for more snorkeling and playing in the surf. Again, sea lions arrived to inspect us and we saw very large green sea turtles swimming by. Many of the children have read books or seen movies about the Galapagos before arriving on this trip and their excitement in actually seeing an animal that they “truly love” is, indeed, infectious!
