Clear blue skies and ideal weather conditions made today’s visit quite pleasant. Floreana is one of the earliest explored sites in the Galapagos, due largely to its ease of access by buccaneers and whaling ships. Those early explorers found an abundance of natural resources here to use for their survival, and as a result the endemic population of giant tortoises on the island was taken to extinction due to hunting.
In 1792 a barrel was established by whalers to serve as a mailing system, perhaps one of the oldest in the South Pacific. Our guests had the opportunity to keep this old tradition alive by taking post cards and promising to hand-deliver them, as was done in the past by whalers.
The National Geographic Endeavour stopped at three different sites, navigating from the northeastern side towards the northwestern side of the island. In addition to that our guests on board were offered nature walks, deep water snorkeling, glass-bottom boating, Zodiac riding, and kayaking, so that they could find as much wildlife as possible and explore the diverse ecosystems of the visiting sites from different perspectives.
Some of the highlights of the days were penguins found close to flamingos and marine iguanas, turquoise waters with big schools of colorful fish, rays, and sharks, mating green sea turtles, and a walk from a green mineral sandy beach to a white coralline sandy beach.
