Sunday - Floreana Island

Floreana - Punta Cormorant

On Sunday morning, we had a wet landing on the olive green sandy beach on Floreana. The trail was much easier today, which was a relief for me. It was mostly compressed gravel or dirt, with slightly rolling hills. The first stop was to a slightly muddy area, where we saw flamingos, black necked stilts, and sandpipers.



You could also see the volcanic cones on the island reflecting in the water of the ponds.



There was only a small section that required any scrambling over rocks, and that led to an overlook over a pond, where we could watch flamingos and other waterbirds, along with watching the red billed tropic birds.

Coming down from that area, it was up another hill, then down to a white sandy beach. At this beach, we shuffled through the ocean water, trying to find stingrays. There were a lot of them.The water was a bit too sandy to take a decent picture of them. Standing among dozens of stingrays was pretty fun until one of them glided over my foot. That feeling creeped me out, so I shuffled back out of the water and onto dry beach. Actually, I jumped first, then the guide yelled at me for jumping, and then I shuffled out of the water - quickly!

Champion Island
After returning to the boat, we had lunch and then were supposed to change into our snorkel gear and head out to snorkel at Devil's Crown, a cluster of rocks just off the shore. The current there was too strong, especially since several in the group were novice snorkelers. Instead, the boat moved about 30 minutes away to Champion Island. It was back into the pangas, and we got closer to the island before we jumped out of the pangas to snorkel.

The snorkeling here was amazing! In addion to lots of fish and urchins, there were also sea turtles and pelicans. But the most incredible part were the number of sea lions. They would swim right up to you as you were in the water.

If you dove under the water, they would playfully chase you, and do all sorts of flips and spins. That was really fun when in a group of snorkelers, but a bit frightening when I suddenly found myself completely surrounded by sea lions - with the pups tugging at my flippers.

Post Office Bay
After the ever fun task of pulling ourselves out of the water and back into the panga, we headed back to the yacht for a post-snorkeling snack. Once we were all back on the yacht, it moved for another 30 minutes until we reached Post Office Bay. It was then back to the pangas for a wet landing on the white sandy beach of Post Office Bay. We had about 2 hours of free time on this beach, to either explore the beach, watch sea lions and crabs, or to snorkel. I spent most of that time in the water, but after 1.5 hours got a bit chilled.

I went back on land to dry off, to be greeted by a welcoming party of very hungry horse flies. We were instructed that this was one animal that we were allowed to touch (and even encouraged to kill!)

Once everyone was back on shore, we walked the 100ft or so to the "post office". In the past, ships would drop off mail in a bucket here, and passing ships would pick up any mail that needed to go to destinations on their itinerary and deliver it. The tradition continues with tourists dropping off their postcards here, and other tourists picking them up to hand deliver once they get back home. A couple people dropped a few of theirs off. I hadn't had time to shop for postcards or write any, so I didn't drop any off. Mauricio read through the stack of postcards, calling out cities. Several people took some.

As this dragged on, Lincoln and I went to stand under a tree in the shade. He didn't have any shoes on and his feet were burning in the sand. I teased him for not knowing to wear shoes. By this time, Lincoln had started making fun of me (usually for being cold all the time), and started refering to Arizona as "Volcania". We were laughing because none of the postcards were addressed to Brazil or Volcania (or Arizona) so we weren't able to take one..... not that we really wanted to anyway.

Santa Cruz

After leaving Post Office Bay, the yacht turned on the engine and started back to Santa Cruz. On the way, we were told that we might see whales or dolphins. As we got close to Santa Cruz, there were several groups of dolphins just off the bow of the ship. Most of the time they were so close to the ship I wondered how they didn't accidentally get run over!

We also saw a lovely sunset from the ship as it headed back into the harbor. We had dinner, and then had the option of heading into town. Of course, all of us took advantage of this opportunity. We did a bit of shopping (I didn't buy anything since we would have tomorrow to shop too) but Lincoln was on a shopping mission since this was his last night. Klaus, Hildegard, and I were sad about his leaving, since he was so much fun (and also acted as a translator for us!).

At 10pm, we headed back to the dock to get picked up by the panga. George (the bartender on the ship) was at the dock instead of working the panga. We asked what he was doing on shore. It turned out that he had tonsilitis and made a quick trip to shore to see a doctor. Great! Will we have any crew left by the time this trip ends?

I wasn't sure if I would see Lincoln in the morning before he left, so we exchanged email addresses and hugged each other goodbye. I promised to send him three of the bad pictures I took while snorkeling (since he seemed to thoroughly enjoy making fun of my lack of photography skills) - a half a shark, bubbles, and an arm. I'm really going to miss him!