Floreana Island
We loaded into the Zodiacs for a pre-breakfast visit to Post Office Bay. The sea was mirror calm and a pair of mating sea turtles bobbed up and down not far from the ship. We made a wet landing and took a short walk to reach the well decorated barrel which held a stack of post cards left by previous visitors. Naturalists Daniel and Graciela related the human history of the island of Floreana, then we read the addresses on the cards and took those we could hand deliver while leaving some of our own. A fun and pleasant morning!
The real excitement began after breakfast. We wiggled into our wet suits and boarded the Zodiacs for deep water snorkeling around Champion Islet. The water was chilly. The visibility was excellent. There were schools of bright king angels and razor fish feeding on tiny fish larvae, and we were surrounded by noddy terns lunging from above the water on the same tiny, hapless bait fish. But the friendly and playful sea lions, swirling and twirling gracefully among us, stole the show! They seemed to enjoy their water ballet as much as we enjoyed swimming with them.
Back at the ship we shivered and drank hot chocolate and then showered and changed for a panga ride around Champion in search of the elusive and rare Floreana mockingbird. They were not hard to find today, and so this bird was easily added to everyone’s life sighting list.
Two rounds of kayakers paddled along the coast at Punta Cormorant in the afternoon in the company of sea turtles, sharks and sea lions. And as the afternoon cooled off, we hiked from the olivine landing beach to the shores of a receding, brackish lagoon where we found four grayish juvenile flamingoes dozing on one leg not 2 meters from the trail. Several more brightly colored adults were resting and feeding not far out in the lagoon and all of us got spectacular photos. Our hike took us over a rise along a cindery trail to a beach of fine white sand where three sea turtles had nested the night before. Stingrays flapped in the surf and more turtles were waiting just off the beach for night to fall, so they could come ashore to nest.
Back to the ship for recap, Video Chronicler Steve’s previewed a segment of his footage; later, a delicious sky deck barbeque buffet topped off with latin dancing made for a complete and extremely entertaining day!
We loaded into the Zodiacs for a pre-breakfast visit to Post Office Bay. The sea was mirror calm and a pair of mating sea turtles bobbed up and down not far from the ship. We made a wet landing and took a short walk to reach the well decorated barrel which held a stack of post cards left by previous visitors. Naturalists Daniel and Graciela related the human history of the island of Floreana, then we read the addresses on the cards and took those we could hand deliver while leaving some of our own. A fun and pleasant morning!
The real excitement began after breakfast. We wiggled into our wet suits and boarded the Zodiacs for deep water snorkeling around Champion Islet. The water was chilly. The visibility was excellent. There were schools of bright king angels and razor fish feeding on tiny fish larvae, and we were surrounded by noddy terns lunging from above the water on the same tiny, hapless bait fish. But the friendly and playful sea lions, swirling and twirling gracefully among us, stole the show! They seemed to enjoy their water ballet as much as we enjoyed swimming with them.
Back at the ship we shivered and drank hot chocolate and then showered and changed for a panga ride around Champion in search of the elusive and rare Floreana mockingbird. They were not hard to find today, and so this bird was easily added to everyone’s life sighting list.
Two rounds of kayakers paddled along the coast at Punta Cormorant in the afternoon in the company of sea turtles, sharks and sea lions. And as the afternoon cooled off, we hiked from the olivine landing beach to the shores of a receding, brackish lagoon where we found four grayish juvenile flamingoes dozing on one leg not 2 meters from the trail. Several more brightly colored adults were resting and feeding not far out in the lagoon and all of us got spectacular photos. Our hike took us over a rise along a cindery trail to a beach of fine white sand where three sea turtles had nested the night before. Stingrays flapped in the surf and more turtles were waiting just off the beach for night to fall, so they could come ashore to nest.
Back to the ship for recap, Video Chronicler Steve’s previewed a segment of his footage; later, a delicious sky deck barbeque buffet topped off with latin dancing made for a complete and extremely entertaining day!
