The garua comes early in the morning during the cold dry season in Galápagos. The morning is chilly, but beautiful; it is a good way to begin our day. At 6:30 am we are ready to jump onto the greenish beach of Punta Cormorant at Floreana Island. Floreana is a very well know place since centuries ago when pirates, buccaneers, whalers, and the early colonists visited this magical place. Why? Well, because of the fresh water spring located at the mountains—fresh water in Galápagos is gold and these people knew it! If you want to hear about legends, stories, mysteries, and more, just come here; the human history is fascinating.
At the moment we landed a multicolored rainbow came across the sky and decorated the bay, which was a very special moment for all of us. Later on we found some greater pink flamingos feeding on shrimp and small crustaceans in the ooze of a brackish water lagoon. Behind this place is a very small coral sandy beach where green turtles nest and sting rays rest along the shoreline. Vegetation here is so interesting—we found endemic lecocarpus and scalesias, which are two species of endemic plants to Floreana. Palo Santos, or burseras, are found everywhere. It is a very dominant tree in the islands which right now looks dormant, naked, with no leaves, but they will bloom as soon as the rain hits the islands in few months.
After this early exploration we came back on board. Then our captain pulled the anchor up to motor over to Champion Islet, a satellite formation where a very small population of Charles Darwin’s mockingbirds survived the extermination on the main island, which was caused by the introduction of mammals such as goats and cats. Now these alien species are being eradicated and in the future we will be able to restore the dynasty of this emblematic land bird that Darwin once collected on his visit to this archipelago in 1835. We circumnavigated Champion Islet and our guests enjoyed the ride, especially the red-billed tropic birds and hundreds of shearwaters we found along the cliff. Our mission here is to see at least one mockingbird, and finally, we saw one. One was better than nothing, so we were happy and our mission was accomplished.
Then we went for snorkeling, where visibility was super and many fish were spotted. Sea lions as always put on a great show—playing, flipping, diving, and biting the fins of any human snorkeling around.
Later in the afternoon some of our travelers went kayaking and others took a Zodiac ride along the coast of Post Office Bay. At this place, in 1793 Captain James Colnett set up a wooden barrel as a post office to help sailors send correspondence to home. During those years it works by hand delivery and nowadays still works the same way with all our visitors—they leave some postcards there for future visitors to pick up, and they themselves take some letters home, addressed to people living close to where they live.
It has been a marvelous day. We are so pleased to be here, enjoying all the unique wildlife and the very impressive landscape that Galápagos offers to our intrepid explorers.
