After a relatively short nighttime navigation, we dropped anchor at Floreana, south of the archipelago. The morning was cloudy and misty. It is the cool, dry season after all, and a drizzly day is not unusual for this time of the year. We left our ship to land ashore at the olivine beach of Punta Cormorant. Hidden behind the landing beach we found a large lagoon of shallow, brackish waters. A lagoon like this can be the habitat of various species of birds like the greater flamingo, of which we spotted a few in the distance. Other tall birds were in the area today, like the great egret and the great blue heron. Further along the path, the landscape was dry and beautiful, with the bare yet elegant ‘palo santo’ or incense trees, a dominant species of the dry zone of the Galapagos. At the end of the trail we found another beach of white sands; called ‘the flour beach.’ This is a favorite nesting site for the Eastern Pacific green sea turtles. As we walked the length of the beach we could spot several fresh turtle tracks of females that may have nested last night. Many migratory birds find plenty to eat along this beach, like the sanderlings, ruddy turnstones and semi-palmated plovers, which travel from more temperate areas of the world.
Later in the morning we navigated further west towards a small islet called Champion. We explored its beautiful coastline from our Zodiacs, riding along the basaltic shore in search of unique wildlife. We were very glad to spot many red-billed tropic birds either landing or taking off from the narrow gaps between the lavas which are their nests. The most sought after bird this morning was the endemic Floreana mockingbird; once abundant in the island, it is now confined to the peripheral islets where they are protected from predation by introduced rats and cats. Luckily, today we didn’t have to work that hard to find them, as they were right at the edge of the shoreline. Not long after, we returned back to Champion already dressed in our snorkeling gear and ready to jump in the ocean; Champion is a fantastic place for snorkeling, because it is the home to a colony of Galapagos sea lions. And they certainly didn’t fail us as a group of very curious and playful sea lion pups delighted everyone, despite the cold sea temperature!
But the day wasn’t over and there were more adventures in the afternoon, when we visited Post Office Bay. Many of our guests explored the nearby set of islets called La Loberia by kayak. Everyone thoroughly enjoyed the experience of sharing the area with marine iguanas and Galapagos sea lions. Post Office has been known to be a good anchorage place for many visitors in the past, and one where they could find a very peculiar mail system that dates back to the early 1800s. Modern mail in the form of postcards is picked up from the barrel and hand-delivered to their rightful addressees by the many visitors that stop here. It is a tradition that we were happy to continue today. What a great way to end the day here in this isolated region of the wide Pacific Ocean.
