Floreana Island, 12/26/2022, National Geographic Endeavour II
Aboard the
National Geographic Endeavour II
Galápagos
Floreana Island has many visitors’ sites, and we started our day with a pre-breakfast activity on Cormorant Point. This site has a beautiful white sand beach. It is the ideal place for turtles to nest this time of year. The site also has a brackish lagoon with pink flamingos.
Walter was born in a very small town on the mainland of Ecuador. His first trip to the Galápagos was when he was 12 years old, visiting friends and aunt, who had moved to the islands. From the first moment he saw the Islands, he fell in love with the...
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National Geographic Endeavour II awoke in the western realm of the Galapagos Archipelago. We visited the youngest Island, Fernandina! The single shield volcano is still active, and large fields of basaltic lava are covered by Galapagos marine iguanas, a rather harsh environment that hosts amazing wildlife. From the top predator to the colorful Sally Lightfoot crabs, everyone is trying to survive. In the afternoon we visited Volcano Ecuador and enjoyed a Zodiac ride along its coast, where Nazca boobies were spotted as well as Galapagos fur seals and Galapagos penguins.
Today we explored two small islands full of wildlife and radiant colors. In the morning, we explored North Seymour, a 0.73 sq mi island that hosts a colony of frigatebirds. As soon as we landed, we observed swallow-tailed gulls nesting. These photogenic birds are endemic to the Galapagos. They nest all year on the islands, so it’s quite common to find nests, chicks, and eggs along the rocky shores. We observed land iguanas, which are not native to North Seymour. They were introduced by an American captain named Allan Hancock in the 1930s. Although the island is dry, the iguanas survive and reproduce here today. It was a great day spent exploring the islands!
National Geographic Islander II anchored this morning at Chinese Hat Island, where at sunrise we went to enjoy kayaking and paddleboarding. Meanwhile, some guests chose to relax and stretch on the beautiful white sandy beach. Later, we went to explore the shoreline to look for penguins and to admire the amazing geological features of this area. In the afternoon, we visited the Sullivan Bay lava flow. Definitely an experience we could not skip while visiting Galapagos. It was a walk on a symphony of shapes of recent formations of lava flows on one of the islands where Charles Darwin spent the longest time during his journey back in 1835. This was an amazing day full of wildlife above and under water!
