Floreana Island
The Galápagos were discovered in 1535, but for close to 300 years they remained a no-man’s land. In the 1700’s the whaling activity started in the Pacific, and the English came to Galápagos to study the possibility of having a whaling harbor here. In 1793 Captain James Colnett came to Floreana Island with this purpose. The harbor was never set, but after Colnett was here the Post Office Barrel started appearing on the maps.
We visited this historic place this morning, and of course we went with our postcards in our hands! We found the barrel as English whalers did hundreds of years ago. We opened it and we found several postcards that some of our guests promise to hand -deliver, as they were close to their homes. We left our postcards too, and came back onboard for breakfast.
Floreana was the first island to become inhabited; it was a common stop-over for buccaneers and pirates too. That is why many of the species have been affected and some have become extinct. The Floreana mocking bird, which is endemic to this particular island, is one of those, but there is a small population that survives on two islets nearby. We took our Zodiacs to look for it and we were surprise by how social they behaved with us, coming close to the shore and singing near our Zodiacs.
The morning continued with water activities; the glass-bottom boat and the snorkeling helped us discover the unbelievable world of the Galápagos waters.
In the afternoon, after some kayaking, we walked on Cormorant Point, a sandy trail that took us from an inorganic green beach to an organic white beach. Walking through a Palo Santo forest we discovered a brackish lagoon and finally the sunset added more color to our visit to the beautiful Floreana!
