Galapagos Islands - Installment #5 - Jan 13, 2006

Post Office Barrel on Floreana Island

The early risers got up this morning to take a quick trip in to Floreana Island at 6:30 am to visit Post Office Bay. Dating back to the whaling days, one can leave a postcard (no stamp necessary) and as future visitors arrive, they take any postcards addressed to people in their town to hand deliver when they get back home. We took stacks of postcards and read the towns out loud - quite a few postcards were taken by people in our group for delivery. No California addresses were there so I couldn't help out. After a quick zodiac ride around to look for penguins, we returned to the ship for breakfast.

After breakfast, we went out snorkeling. For the first time this week, the conditions were beautiful - the waters were clear and the fish were abundant. I saw a white-tipped shark, a sting ray, tons of angel fish, a couple of star fish and a sea lion swimming amongst us. Spectacular. We also went out on a zodiac ride to look for the endangered Floreana mockingbird amongst the cacti (we found quite a few of them).

Flamingos

Juvenile Flamingo sleeping

After lunch, we had a choice of snorkeling again or kayaking. I decided to kayak and for the first time, was in a single kayak. What a fantastic afternoon paddling along the coastline and into the nooks and crannys along the way. We saw quite a few sea turtles and sea lions. I had one sea lion riding along with me for quite a while, spinning and jumping and wanting to play. What a wonderful experience! Following kayaking, we managed to squeeze in a quick walk on the beach near where the ship was anchored to view the Galapagos flamingos reflected in the shallow pool in which they were snacking as the sun began to set. A full day with a variety of
adventures that kept getting better and better.

Another beautiful sunset

Back on the ship, we had dinner outside on the sundeck as the full moon rose and a light breeze blew (still warm enough to be in short sleeves but very comfortable)...a wonderful way to end the day.