Day 4-Isla Floreana

Monday April 1st

Isla Floreana

Schedule for day:

6:00 wake up call

6:30 short hike

8:00-9:00 breakfast

9:30 Zodiac ride

10:45 deep water snorkeling

12:30-1:30 lunch

1:30 kids make postcards

2:00 kayaking

4:30 Zodiac ride to post office and Zodiac cruise

6:45 recap of day and briefing on Tuesday's activities

7:30 dinner

Floreana is a peaceful, rolling island containing numerous extinct volcanic cones amidst a variety of scrubby vegetation  It's history dates back almost 2 centuries ranging from whalers to prisoners and colonists.   Floreana was the second of four islands that Charles Darwin visited ashore during his 5 week visit to the Galapagos in September 1835.

We began the day with a wet landing at Punta Cormorant.  We took a short hike around the island stoping to see vegetation such as passion fruit and the sticky leaf plant (pega pega).  We saw a flamingo (flamenco), brown pelican (pelican cafe), and saw where the giant Galapagos tortoise (tortuga de los Galapagos) lays it's eggs on the beach.

Sticky leaf plant (pega pega)

Zodiac ride at 9:30 we saw the very rare Floreana mockingbird (Cucuve de Floreana).  This is the only island where a small population of the Floreana mockingbird exists.  It almost became extinct due to the cats, rats and other predators.  I finally got to see the blue footed boobie (Piquero patos azules) on this ride.

At  10:45 we went deep sea snorkeling via Zodiac.  This was a wonderful experience.  The water wasn't too deep or too shallow for our first experience.  We saw several different species of fish including starfish -Chocolate chip Sea Star (Estrella Chispas de Chocolate) and lobster as well as sea lions (lobos marinos).

At  2:00 Morgan and I went in a double kayak around the inlets (with a guide and 14 other people).

At 4:30 the group left the boat to visit to one of the oldest post office in the world which is located on this island.  This post office was first mentioned in 1793 by British Captain James Colnett.  The idea behind this is that no one is to pay postage.  If you see a postcard with an address near you, you are to hand deliver it to the person (honor system).  The guides read aloud the address of the postcards and surprisingly there was a postcard with an Albany address which I volunteered to deliver.  There was also a Bethlehem, PA address which I also volunteered to deliver.  

Afterwards we took a Zodiac cruise around the island until sunset.  Got some of the best pictures of the sunset with sea lions.