Floreana Island
We bounced along counter-current and into a strong wind last night, but in spite of the broken sleep, many of our guests were sipping coffee or tea when I came into the lounge this morning and made the optional wake up call at 0630. Two Zodiacs headed to shore at Post Office Bay where Celso entertained us with an account of the history of this personal delivery mail swap tradition that dates back to the 1790’s. Post cards addressed to cities and towns near where our guests live were eagerly collected to be hand delivered upon reaching their homes.
While we did justice to a delicious breakfast buffet, the ship was repositioned off the eastern islet of Champion where three groups of panga enthusiasts with their determined Naturalists went in search of the rare and sometimes elusive Floreana mockingbird. We all had good luck today and spotted several of these island endemics, along with seabirds that were roosting or flying over the cliffs of this picturesque islet; notably blue-footed boobies, red-billed tropic birds and swallow-tailed gulls.
Back on board we grabbed snorkel bags and wiggled into wetsuits for a snorkeling outing in the crystal blue waters surrounding Champion. The visibility was fabulous, the ocean calm and azure – we stayed in the water for well over an hour! We observed big schools of feeding yellow-tailed razor fish and colorful king angels, thousands of “booby bait,” the black striped salema, and blue sea stars tightly clamped to the rocks. But the curious, playful and unbelievably graceful sea lions, who swirled and twirled around and among us, stole the show this morning. One never tires of their funny, bubble blowing antics and they seem to enjoy themselves swimming with us as much as we enjoy them!
After lunch and siesta we offered two rounds of kayaking in the relatively calm bay off Punta Cormorant. We had some wind blowing today, but everyone who tried the kayaks had fun paddling alongside a couple of marine turtles and sea lions and with screaming and displaying tropic birds overhead. When the afternoon had cooled off somewhat, we disembarked on a greenish brown beach where the Naturalists showed us millions of tiny olivine crystals in the sand. A trail led us to the shores of a brackish lagoon where brilliant pink flamingoes were filter feeding on tiny brine shrimps or resting on one leg not far from us.
Across a rise we came to another beach, this one made up of fine white sand. La Picona Beach, as it has traditionally been called, is a major nesting site for the Pacific green turtles in Galápagos. This has been a record nesting season and the beach has been criss-crossed with turtle tracks and pitted with their nests since December. Now only a few stranglers are still nesting; meanwhile the earliest nests laid at the start of the season are already hatching. Hungry frigates were flying low over the beach and dipping into the nests of hatchling that have moved from deep in the sand to up near the surface, The baby turtles usually emerge at night and they rush down to the ocean and swim frantically out to sea. Not until they are about twenty years old will they return to nest (if they are females) and mate at these same beaches where years earlier they emerged from their eggs.
We bounced along counter-current and into a strong wind last night, but in spite of the broken sleep, many of our guests were sipping coffee or tea when I came into the lounge this morning and made the optional wake up call at 0630. Two Zodiacs headed to shore at Post Office Bay where Celso entertained us with an account of the history of this personal delivery mail swap tradition that dates back to the 1790’s. Post cards addressed to cities and towns near where our guests live were eagerly collected to be hand delivered upon reaching their homes.
While we did justice to a delicious breakfast buffet, the ship was repositioned off the eastern islet of Champion where three groups of panga enthusiasts with their determined Naturalists went in search of the rare and sometimes elusive Floreana mockingbird. We all had good luck today and spotted several of these island endemics, along with seabirds that were roosting or flying over the cliffs of this picturesque islet; notably blue-footed boobies, red-billed tropic birds and swallow-tailed gulls.
Back on board we grabbed snorkel bags and wiggled into wetsuits for a snorkeling outing in the crystal blue waters surrounding Champion. The visibility was fabulous, the ocean calm and azure – we stayed in the water for well over an hour! We observed big schools of feeding yellow-tailed razor fish and colorful king angels, thousands of “booby bait,” the black striped salema, and blue sea stars tightly clamped to the rocks. But the curious, playful and unbelievably graceful sea lions, who swirled and twirled around and among us, stole the show this morning. One never tires of their funny, bubble blowing antics and they seem to enjoy themselves swimming with us as much as we enjoy them!
After lunch and siesta we offered two rounds of kayaking in the relatively calm bay off Punta Cormorant. We had some wind blowing today, but everyone who tried the kayaks had fun paddling alongside a couple of marine turtles and sea lions and with screaming and displaying tropic birds overhead. When the afternoon had cooled off somewhat, we disembarked on a greenish brown beach where the Naturalists showed us millions of tiny olivine crystals in the sand. A trail led us to the shores of a brackish lagoon where brilliant pink flamingoes were filter feeding on tiny brine shrimps or resting on one leg not far from us.
Across a rise we came to another beach, this one made up of fine white sand. La Picona Beach, as it has traditionally been called, is a major nesting site for the Pacific green turtles in Galápagos. This has been a record nesting season and the beach has been criss-crossed with turtle tracks and pitted with their nests since December. Now only a few stranglers are still nesting; meanwhile the earliest nests laid at the start of the season are already hatching. Hungry frigates were flying low over the beach and dipping into the nests of hatchling that have moved from deep in the sand to up near the surface, The baby turtles usually emerge at night and they rush down to the ocean and swim frantically out to sea. Not until they are about twenty years old will they return to nest (if they are females) and mate at these same beaches where years earlier they emerged from their eggs.
