Floreana Island
Sunrise welcomed the National Geographic Polaris at one of the most famous anchorages of Galápagos, Post Office Bay. This was the place used for many years by pirates, buccaneers and whalers to stock up on water and tortoises as a source of food. Around the end of 1792 Captain James Colnet navigated the Galápagos waters in search of whales to get their precious oils. As a way of communicating with their families, since their trips would involve more than two years at sea, they erected a mail barrel, the first official mailing system established on the islands where visitors or fellow whalers would drop letters to the ones sailing around, and the ones leaving the islands took the outgoing messages and hand delivered them if possible. To date the barrel has been replaced several times; we follow the tradition, leaving some postcards sometimes address to ourselves to find out how long will they take to get home; and we pick up the ones that we can hand deliver.
In Floreana, animals and plants have evolved separately up to the point to turn into unique species to the island (endemic or found no where else), such as the case of Lecocarpus pinnatifidus, a relative of daisy flowers, which was at the brink of extinction due to introduced goats; many others have not had the same fate and disappear from the main island to confine themselves on small satellite rocks; like the Floreana (or Charles) mockingbird that we went to look for during our Zodiac cruise.
It is always pleasant to see that the efforts of the park rangers to eradicate introduced organisms is has been productive and one can see it reflected in the consecutive breeding cycles of the greater flamingos in the last two years.
Our most ambitious dream is to see the islands go back in time and to their pristine origins, before human beings discovered them.
Sunrise welcomed the National Geographic Polaris at one of the most famous anchorages of Galápagos, Post Office Bay. This was the place used for many years by pirates, buccaneers and whalers to stock up on water and tortoises as a source of food. Around the end of 1792 Captain James Colnet navigated the Galápagos waters in search of whales to get their precious oils. As a way of communicating with their families, since their trips would involve more than two years at sea, they erected a mail barrel, the first official mailing system established on the islands where visitors or fellow whalers would drop letters to the ones sailing around, and the ones leaving the islands took the outgoing messages and hand delivered them if possible. To date the barrel has been replaced several times; we follow the tradition, leaving some postcards sometimes address to ourselves to find out how long will they take to get home; and we pick up the ones that we can hand deliver.
In Floreana, animals and plants have evolved separately up to the point to turn into unique species to the island (endemic or found no where else), such as the case of Lecocarpus pinnatifidus, a relative of daisy flowers, which was at the brink of extinction due to introduced goats; many others have not had the same fate and disappear from the main island to confine themselves on small satellite rocks; like the Floreana (or Charles) mockingbird that we went to look for during our Zodiac cruise.
It is always pleasant to see that the efforts of the park rangers to eradicate introduced organisms is has been productive and one can see it reflected in the consecutive breeding cycles of the greater flamingos in the last two years.
Our most ambitious dream is to see the islands go back in time and to their pristine origins, before human beings discovered them.
