Floreana Island
We awoke to a beautiful, warm, clear morning to start the sixth day of our adventure in the Galápagos. After an optional wake up call, our troopers joined us to visit Post Office Bay in Floreana Island. A group of friendly penguins welcomed us as we approached the disembarking area on the beach. Post Office Bay is a very historical spot where a whaler named James Colnett placed a wine barrel back in the late seventeen hundreds to be used as a mailing system by whalers who were away from home for many years at a time. It has been a very popular and effective mailing system ever since. Originally the barrel was used by whalers and fur-sealers in order to deliver and pick up their mail and so we still do with our guests. After two hundred years, the post barrel still works!
After this first early morning outing, we enjoyed a well deserved buffet breakfast; we set up our snorkelling gear and went back out this time for snorkelling around Champion Islet. Everybody had a blast in this site as we saw a large number of different species of colourful fish together with a white tipped reef shark. The water temperature is around seventy five degrees Fahrenheit at this time of year so it makes snorkeling even more enjoyable. Young sea lions played with us too. Once done with the second outing we took bird watchers on a third morning outing to look for the Floreana mockingbird, already extinct in the island of Floreana because of the action of introduced predators but still present in the islet of Champion.
The afternoon was a nice easy walk at Punta Cormorant on Floreana Island around a brackish lagoon with flamingos as a highlight. We counted a couple of dozen of the Galápagos pink flamingos. Lots of bright adults and some grayish young were happily feeding in this area. Some of us enjoyed swimming and snorkeling after the walk to end up another beautiful day in paradise.
We awoke to a beautiful, warm, clear morning to start the sixth day of our adventure in the Galápagos. After an optional wake up call, our troopers joined us to visit Post Office Bay in Floreana Island. A group of friendly penguins welcomed us as we approached the disembarking area on the beach. Post Office Bay is a very historical spot where a whaler named James Colnett placed a wine barrel back in the late seventeen hundreds to be used as a mailing system by whalers who were away from home for many years at a time. It has been a very popular and effective mailing system ever since. Originally the barrel was used by whalers and fur-sealers in order to deliver and pick up their mail and so we still do with our guests. After two hundred years, the post barrel still works!
After this first early morning outing, we enjoyed a well deserved buffet breakfast; we set up our snorkelling gear and went back out this time for snorkelling around Champion Islet. Everybody had a blast in this site as we saw a large number of different species of colourful fish together with a white tipped reef shark. The water temperature is around seventy five degrees Fahrenheit at this time of year so it makes snorkeling even more enjoyable. Young sea lions played with us too. Once done with the second outing we took bird watchers on a third morning outing to look for the Floreana mockingbird, already extinct in the island of Floreana because of the action of introduced predators but still present in the islet of Champion.
The afternoon was a nice easy walk at Punta Cormorant on Floreana Island around a brackish lagoon with flamingos as a highlight. We counted a couple of dozen of the Galápagos pink flamingos. Lots of bright adults and some grayish young were happily feeding in this area. Some of us enjoyed swimming and snorkeling after the walk to end up another beautiful day in paradise.
