Our day in Floreana Island has been filled with diverse and fascinating activities for every taste. Early in the morning we went out to one most important historical visitors' site in the archipelago, "Post Office Bay". After breakfast, in Champion Islet, for the non-swimmers we offered Zodiac rides looking for the rare Charles mockingbird. The diversity and beauty of the marine life of Galapagos was fully appreciated as well, with wonderful snorkeling and glass bottom boat outings. We recovered energy with a delicious and copious Ecuadorian lunch. After a well-deserved rest we disembarked in the afternoon at Point Cormorant. Located in the northeastern part of Floreana Island this place has several trails that led us to a beautiful lagoon with flamingos and a spectacular white beach known as flour beach, due to its fine and soft sand.
With the picture of today I just want to render a well deserved tribute to a very active marine organism that always welcome us when we disembark at Point Cormorant. The elusive "ghost crab " (Ocypode gaudichaudii) has an almost translucent clear reddish coloration that helps them to blend in with its habitat. At first sign of danger or, if a potential predator comes near by they run over as fast as they can, to go to burrows they have dug in the sand. They then immediately disappear like a phantom, being the reason for its common name. Once in the burrow, they survey the world through periscopic eyes. These eyes are so unusual that they can be raised vertically on eyestalks, or lowered into grooves of their carapace. Something that always captures the attention of our visitors in addition to their fast hilarious racing, are the characteristic traces of "sand-balls" on the beach left behind by these crabs. These balls are called pellets, they are just small promontories of sand the ghost crabs have sorted from tiny microorganisms they feed on, and have filtered from the sand.
Something remarkable happened today on Floreana Island, and I do not want to skip it. It was the unusual sighting of a group of very large squids stranded in the soft sand of flour beach. Some of the squids, including tentacles, were almost 5 feet long! Personally for me, this sighting was a real thrill. It was the first time I ever had the chance to talk about these intriguing creatures. Later this evening in our traditional Linblad Expeditions daily re-cap, I got the chance to explain to all a little bit more about the fascinating natural history of these marvelous creatures.
