Floreana Island
We left the western Galápagos Islands with a little sorrow evoking the great time we just had there!
But today we woke up and we found ourselves in calm clear waters off Floreana Island. With a new landscape in front of our eyes, a nice cool morning, and the will to explore a new paradise we disembarked at Post Office Bay. This island is located on the southern side of the archipelago and home to small human population that has endured isolation since the 1830’s making a living out of farming and fishing and nowadays tourism.
Post Office Bay is a legendary place that has existed on the island since 1793. At the beginning it was vital for communications among whaling ships and seal hunters. Today it is still famous but with modern voyagers keeping a long tradition alive. We left postcards hoping that one day someone will knock at our door with that postcard in hand. And maybe we’ll be able to share some experiences of our journey in this remote place with whoever hand-delivers our postcards.
At mid-morning we visited a small off-shore islet called Champion for snorkeling and a Zodiac cruise. As we explored the place from the comfort of our Zodiacs, we sighted colonies of seabirds. Some of them are endemic to the Galápagos, such as the swallow tailed gulls. Others migrants that arrive in season, such as ruddy turn stones, plovers, whimbrels and sand pipers, to mention a few. The icing on the cake was spotting the elusive Floreana mockingbird. This bird is one of the icons of conservation on the islands because this little islet has only around 90 individuals. The rest of the population on Floreana died out long ago due to colonization and introduction of alien species such as domestic animals and rats.
Snorkeling was superb and we were delighted by a group of young sea lions that played with us for nearly an hour!
Just amazing, I can’t wait to see more!
