Floreana Island
Our day started very early in the morning when arriving at Post Office Bay on Floreana Island. Here, the first post office barrel was erected a little over a century ago. It was originally set up to facilitate the delivery of mail to England and the United States. Letters left in the barrel would be picked up by ships and “eventually” delivered to their destination. The box has been replaced several times and is still used by visitors. After getting to know a little bit of the human history of this island, we went to visit la Loberia, also known as the sea lion rock, a place where the sea lions rest a relax! After breakfast, we repositioned the ship to Champion Island. This rather small island is a symmetrical spatter cone with a very healthy population of giant cacti on it. A very small population of the endemic Floreana mockingbird is also found here and nowhere else in the world! It was a great morning for bird watching, since we also found blue-footed boobies, swallowtail gulls, noddy terns, and a couple of red bill tropicbirds nesting right on the cliff side. The best part of the morning was to swim with the very playful sea lions. They were spinning their bodies and chasing each other with incredible agility, and everybody got their chance to play with them.
As if it was not enough, this afternoon we headed again for more underwater encounters. This time we choose a location called Devil’s crown. As its name aptly describes, this formation is the rim of a sumerged crater where sea lions and reef fish swim among rare coral and basaltic formations. After our literally very refreshing activities, we started our walk on the lowlands of Floreana. We soon found ourselves among typical vegetation and walking along the shoreline of a brackish water lagoon, were we found many flamingos and lots of shore birds. On our way back to the ship we had a beautiful sunset, which is, in my opinion, the best way to finish another spectacular day!
Our day started very early in the morning when arriving at Post Office Bay on Floreana Island. Here, the first post office barrel was erected a little over a century ago. It was originally set up to facilitate the delivery of mail to England and the United States. Letters left in the barrel would be picked up by ships and “eventually” delivered to their destination. The box has been replaced several times and is still used by visitors. After getting to know a little bit of the human history of this island, we went to visit la Loberia, also known as the sea lion rock, a place where the sea lions rest a relax! After breakfast, we repositioned the ship to Champion Island. This rather small island is a symmetrical spatter cone with a very healthy population of giant cacti on it. A very small population of the endemic Floreana mockingbird is also found here and nowhere else in the world! It was a great morning for bird watching, since we also found blue-footed boobies, swallowtail gulls, noddy terns, and a couple of red bill tropicbirds nesting right on the cliff side. The best part of the morning was to swim with the very playful sea lions. They were spinning their bodies and chasing each other with incredible agility, and everybody got their chance to play with them.
As if it was not enough, this afternoon we headed again for more underwater encounters. This time we choose a location called Devil’s crown. As its name aptly describes, this formation is the rim of a sumerged crater where sea lions and reef fish swim among rare coral and basaltic formations. After our literally very refreshing activities, we started our walk on the lowlands of Floreana. We soon found ourselves among typical vegetation and walking along the shoreline of a brackish water lagoon, were we found many flamingos and lots of shore birds. On our way back to the ship we had a beautiful sunset, which is, in my opinion, the best way to finish another spectacular day!
