Floreana Island
We wet landed early in the morning on one of the most historical beaches of the whole archipelago. Post Office Bay has been a landing site since the pirates and whalers used to come to Floreana Island to look for food and water. Land tortoises where driven to extinction on this island as they were all taken away to be eaten on their galleys and their blubber used as lamp oil.
As we went a little into the vegetation we encountered the popular post office barrel, placed here back in 1793 by captain James Colnett; this ancient wine barrel has been effective mailing systems in the South Pacific for more than three hundred years and we still follow the tradition with all the guests that visit the Galápagos.
After breakfast we snorkeled around Champion Islet, a wonderful site filled with thousands of colorful tropical fish of all sorts – we even saw a manta ray!
Once back on board we changed into dry clothing and jumped back to the Zodiac this time to go cruising in the search of the Charles (or Floreana) mockingbird which is extinct on the main island and just restricted to a couple of its satellite islets.
The first afternoon outing was a couple of rounds of kayaks along the shores of Punta Cormorant; we later had an easy walk around a brackish water lagoon where we saw some of the very pink Galápagos Flamingos.
We wet landed early in the morning on one of the most historical beaches of the whole archipelago. Post Office Bay has been a landing site since the pirates and whalers used to come to Floreana Island to look for food and water. Land tortoises where driven to extinction on this island as they were all taken away to be eaten on their galleys and their blubber used as lamp oil.
As we went a little into the vegetation we encountered the popular post office barrel, placed here back in 1793 by captain James Colnett; this ancient wine barrel has been effective mailing systems in the South Pacific for more than three hundred years and we still follow the tradition with all the guests that visit the Galápagos.
After breakfast we snorkeled around Champion Islet, a wonderful site filled with thousands of colorful tropical fish of all sorts – we even saw a manta ray!
Once back on board we changed into dry clothing and jumped back to the Zodiac this time to go cruising in the search of the Charles (or Floreana) mockingbird which is extinct on the main island and just restricted to a couple of its satellite islets.
The first afternoon outing was a couple of rounds of kayaks along the shores of Punta Cormorant; we later had an easy walk around a brackish water lagoon where we saw some of the very pink Galápagos Flamingos.
