The day started with a beautiful sunrise as we landed at Point Cormorant at 6:30 in the morning. The beach where we landed had a green sheen on the sand due to the presence of fine pieces of olivine crystals. The first group that landed on the Island went on a nature-oriented walk to learn about the natural history of flamingos and green sea turtles. The second group went on a photo-oriented walk along the beach searching for the best compositions. The highlights of this visit ashore were a small flock of blue-footed boobies that were performing a courtship ritual. We watched the males sky-point with their beaks in order to attract the attention of some females that were flying around this area. We also observed a pair dancing as they showed their feet to each other. Of course aside from the great pictures, the guests had the chance to learn from their naturalist about the natural history of all these species. It was 8 am and everyone returned on board for breakfast.
After breakfast, by 9:45 am, the National Geographic Islander had changed her position to our new stop at Champion Islet. At this site everyone went on panga rides to explore the cliffs at the coastline of this interesting Islet. While circumnavigating this location our guests observed and learned about Galapagos swallowed tailed gulls, Galapagos shearwaters, Nazca bobbies, brown noddy terns, red billed tropic birds, Galapagos sea lions, and Floreana mockingbirds. By 10:45 everyone got back on board and immediately got ready to go on a snorkeling outing. Everybody had a great time as they encountered good size schools of yellow tailed surgeonfish, some king angelfish, a couple of white tip reef sharks, a number of streamer hogfish, and of course a few had the chance to play with sea lions. It was time for lunch so we headed back on board for lunch.
The action began again at 3 pm with our first group of kayakers going out to explore Post Office Bay at Floreana Island. The highlights of this activity were a number of Galapagos sea lions that were active in the water who kept following the kayakers. By 4:30 pm the guests got ready for more exploration and went out again for Zodiac rides and a short hike to check the mail at the post barrel. Here we learned about the human history of Galapagos from the naturalists of the National Geographic Islander.
