Floreana Island
The first beams of light start to come out before 6:00 in the morning, and today we wake up early to explore the shores of one of the main nesting grounds of the Pacific green sea turtles. We take the Zodiacs from the National Geographic Endeavour, and disembark at Punta Cormorant. The thick air reveals a high percentage of humidity, a product of the rain of the last months. Thanks to this, all plants are in a flowering stage, something very unusual for the Galápagos flora.
We take the cinder trails that lead us to the interior of the island, where a lagoon formed by sea water and rain allows some birds to feed on microscopic shrimp, algae and bite fish. We find today three flamingoes, an endemic subspecies that evolved from the Caribbean flamingo. They are quite pink due to the diet described above and we find them feeding quietly on the lagoon shore.
Our path ends at a pristine, much-eroded coralline beach, where the whiteness of the sand is the ideal nesting ground for turtles. There we find several fresh nests made only hours ago, before the break of dawn. Lucky for all of us, we witness a couple mating very close to shore, so close that for moments they get stranded on the beach, as the waves turn them upside over and over again. Females must fertilize over 100 eggs, so they mate with several males. Even more, they are known for keeping sperm viable in their bodies for over a year’s time, using it only if needed!
Today we have endless options to encounter the marine life, and as we take the glass-bottom boat and snorkeling outings, large schools of king angel fish, yellow-tailed surgeons, chromis, anthies, Galápagos sea lions and more delight our experience in the crystal clear blue waters, at 83 degrees!
A Zodiac ride around the Champion volcanic cone reveals to us the last hundred Floreana mockingbirds that survive here, and in the nearby Enderby rock.
After lunch we kayak and Zodiac along the lava flows next to Post Office Bay, where we find several colonies of sea lions which cool off playfully!
Finally, is time to keep the whalers tradition alive, so we sort out mail from the oldest mail box in the Pacific. Here we pick up mail left by visitors and leave ours, hoping that one day that message in a bottle will make it to its destination…
