Floreana Island

We landed at six thirty in the morning at Post Office Bay. All of our optional outings are really nice, so I see it as “a must” to take them all! We set foot at a very historical bay where pirates, whalers, fur sealers, buccaneers and early settlers disembarked too, looking for treasures such as land tortoises and whales. Floreana Island, as well as many other islands of this archipelago, was for several years the supermarket of early sailors that would come looking for water sources, meat, oil and a way to make a living.

Several attempts of settlements also happened on this island. All of them failed until 1932 when the first baby of the island was born there and his family definitely settled down; these are the Wittmers, German settlers that made their living on Floreana Island and now their descendants are among us as boat owners, captains and even naturalists.

Floreana is the island that has the most interesting human history of the Galápagos Islands. Back in 1809, a Swedish buccaneer called Patrick Watkins was left behind by his captain as he was a renegade and a bad man. The captain left him there to his faith, to die. Watkins survived by exchanging cabbages that he would grow for rum with the sailors that would come to Post Office Bay to look for their mail and tortoises and water which was abundant on the islands but only in the rainy season. The story of Watkins is pretty interesting. He was a hard man, he survived draughts and hunger, just like the iguanas. He left the islands alive after about three years and not much was written about him after this. He might have ended up in Peru.

Going back to our early visit to Post Office Bay, we were told great stories about the early sailors that had been in that place hundreds of years before us. In 1793, Captain James Colnett decided to place a wine barrel there with the purpose of keeping the sailors of the South Pacific in contact. We still keep this tradition and our guests take mail to be hand delivered in their home areas and also leave their mail there to see who shows up to deliver the message. It is a very effective and fun way to exchange mail.

The natural highlights of the islands are many. We snorkeled and bird watched around Champion Islet, watching for the Floreana mockingbird. We kayaked, we snorkeled, and we enjoyed the flamingoes on the afternoon walk. We are not going to forget this magical island.