Floreana Island
Galápagos is a very good place for human history when it comes time to talk about whalers, buccaneers, privateers, and anyone who travel at sea back in the 17th century. When it comes to find a place in the enchanted islands that gathered most of these famous adventurous seamen, Floreana is the right place to explore. From an intriguing baroness to well-known sailors, this island is quite a source of mysterious human history in the enchanted archipelago.
A day full of enthusiasm started with a pre-breakfast outing and a wet landing on Punta Cormorant. As we walked further into the island, we could see a brackish water lagoon covered with mangrove tress, and as we looked into the shallow waters in the middle of the lagoon, about 20 greater flamingos were spotted. Our flamingo population within the archipelago isn’t very large, so we were more than lucky to see that number in the lagoon. Some very curios birds came very close to us and some of them even landed on one of our cameras, being the case of a Galápagos flycatcher that fought its own reflection on the cameras. A beautiful white sand beach welcomed us on the other side of the cove where we disembarked, some green Pacific sea turtles were seen mating and many tracks from early turtles laying their eggs were seen.
After breakfast, we went on a Zodiac ride to look for the very rare Floreana mockingbird, which is a species in critical danger of extinction; however we explorers and naturalists found about 8 of them flying and pecking on the prickly pear cacti. There was also a lot of amazing underwater life waiting for us. We have to remember that the Galápagos experience is also incredible underwater, so many of us went snorkeling around Champion Islet (a satellite islet of Floreana Island) where many aggregations of fish were seen, some sea lions playing with us as they blew bubbles from below and around us, white tipped reef sharks were also seen along the rocky reefs, some of them sleeping in some small caves, it was just a blast!
During the afternoon we visited a very famous site in Galápagos known as Post Office Bay. The waters around the area were very well visited by many well-remembered sailors, captains, and whalers from the early 17th century. Seeking a way to keep in touch with the rest of the world, they established here the oldest mailing system in South America. In 1792 Captain James Colnett settled a barrel where anyone could leave letters, then later on someone who was going home would pick up and hand deliver the letter if they were addressed to an area nearby that person’s destination or home. So we could not have skipped this early tradition in the enchanted islands and we all followed this practical but easy way of communication by leaving many postcards in the barrel and taking some home with us.
