Floreana and Isabela Islands
Today we had a great time on these two islands. Early in the morning we went ashore to continue with a very ancient tradition, which is visiting Post office bay and its barrel. The tradition is to pick up letters and post cards with the compromise of hand delivering them as in the old times when British whalers swap letters through this same system. We looked around a large pile of letters and found several to be delivered, and we also left some mail in to the barrel, hoping to get this mail some day.
Later on in the morning we went to Champion Islet and had a hallucinating snorkel, as well as glass bottom boat. Large schools of different species of fish were observed and we could almost swear these fish were also curious about us.
One of the greatest surprises for everybody was to find a Galápagos waved albatross resting inside a cave on Champion. First of all this species doesn’t live on Champion, second they left the archipelago two weeks ago and should be around Peru where they will remain until the end of March. This was definitely a very unusual sighting.
For the afternoon we visited Puerto Villamil and our time there was great. We visited the rearing center for the giant tortoises and a large male from “Cinco Cerros” (five hills) began to mate with a female of his same variety. The place suddenly was filled with the loud mating male sounds.
After visiting this facility we looked for some lagoon birds around the largest system of wet lands in Galápagos and found several white-cheek pintail ducks, common gallinules, and black necked common stilts with their youngsters.
This very colorful town has the most beautiful soft sand beach where we wandered around looking at the waves with the company of some shore birds. In the distance we could hear Galápagos music from one of the local bands (Iguanamen) being played at a bar.
"What a great day!" was the common expression among our guests and ourselves, and we are certainly looking forward to tomorrow and the Equator line crossing.
Today we had a great time on these two islands. Early in the morning we went ashore to continue with a very ancient tradition, which is visiting Post office bay and its barrel. The tradition is to pick up letters and post cards with the compromise of hand delivering them as in the old times when British whalers swap letters through this same system. We looked around a large pile of letters and found several to be delivered, and we also left some mail in to the barrel, hoping to get this mail some day.
Later on in the morning we went to Champion Islet and had a hallucinating snorkel, as well as glass bottom boat. Large schools of different species of fish were observed and we could almost swear these fish were also curious about us.
One of the greatest surprises for everybody was to find a Galápagos waved albatross resting inside a cave on Champion. First of all this species doesn’t live on Champion, second they left the archipelago two weeks ago and should be around Peru where they will remain until the end of March. This was definitely a very unusual sighting.
For the afternoon we visited Puerto Villamil and our time there was great. We visited the rearing center for the giant tortoises and a large male from “Cinco Cerros” (five hills) began to mate with a female of his same variety. The place suddenly was filled with the loud mating male sounds.
After visiting this facility we looked for some lagoon birds around the largest system of wet lands in Galápagos and found several white-cheek pintail ducks, common gallinules, and black necked common stilts with their youngsters.
This very colorful town has the most beautiful soft sand beach where we wandered around looking at the waves with the company of some shore birds. In the distance we could hear Galápagos music from one of the local bands (Iguanamen) being played at a bar.
"What a great day!" was the common expression among our guests and ourselves, and we are certainly looking forward to tomorrow and the Equator line crossing.
