Floreana Island
We woke up early this morning and disembarked on the green sandy beach of Cormorant Point off the north coast of Floreana Island. As we started to walk along its trail, we stopped by a brackish water lagoon where greater flamingoes were observed. There were about a dozen flamingoes feeding, and as we returned from our walk these birds were long gone. This path took us to a white coralline beach, which is one of the most important nesting sites for green sea turtles and is also a good place to see several diamond stingrays.
After this early walk, we returned aboard for breakfast and we sailed towards Champion Islet. There, we had a great Zodiac ride along the coast to explore this islet and to look for the elusive Floreana mockingbird which is only found here. Along the coast we saw sunbathing sea lions and one female had just given birth to a pup; both mother and young looked perfectly fine, the mother even chased a hungry marine iguana away from the fresh placenta. We also spotted blue footed boobies, Nazca boobies, Galapagos shearwaters and brown noddy terns.
After this ride along the coast we returned to gear up and went snorkeling in deep waters around Champion Islet. This is one of the best places in Galapagos to snorkel; there were large schools of creole fish, king angel fish, razor surgeon fish and black stripped salemas. We also saw diverse species of marine invertebrates such as black coral, white stony coral, pencil sea urchins, sponges, hydroids and different types of sea stars.
This afternoon we navigated towards the west to Post office bay, where we looked into an old wooden barrel and followed the ancient tradition of picking up mail addressed to the same city or town where our guests live or travel. Our guests took the mail, with the promise to hand deliver it just like the whalers did centuries ago.
As we were finishing up at Post Office Bay, there was a small bird that was found in one of our Zodiacs and was liberated immediately and happily flew away in to freedom. Later, some of our guests went kayaking while others joined a Zodiac ride along the coast of La Loberia; this afternoon we encountered sea turtles, sea lions and also a school of spotted eagle rays.
We had a great sunset to end a great day.
