Galapagos, Part II
Floreana and Española Islands
April 14, 2024
We had another excursion before breakfast today. We took a Zodiac to a spot on Floreana Island known as Post Office Bay. There has been a barrel for mail at this location since the late 1700s. People leave letters and post cards in the barrel in hopes that other travelers will be going to the same destination and deliver them.
Ironically, the naturalists told us that Ecuador no longer has any regular mail service!
The staff read the addresses of about 150 post cards in the hopes that today’s passengers would volunteer to deliver them to their destinations. Passengers claimed about twenty-five or so of them by shouting “tradition.”
We then returned to the Zodiac and toured the shoreline for about a half hour and saw many birds including frigate birds and blue footed boobies, Galapagos sea lions with their pups and several sea turtles swimming by our Zodiac (too fast to photograph). We returned to the ship for breakfast. Here are some photos from the zodiac. Not the best photos ever, but they give an idea of the things we saw, including a profile of the magnificent frigate bird, which will be the villain later today.
In mid–morning, we departed for our second snorkeling expedition around Champion Islet. This time we snorkeled from the Zodiac (this was called “deep water snorkeling”). The rocks dropped off very quickly into deeper water. We saw many colorful fish (including a very large and beautiful parrotfish, lots of angelfish and sergeant major fish, a pufferfish and schools of yellow-tailed surgeonfish), swimming sea lions and many more birds, including brown pelicans, before returning to the ship for lunch. Our underwater photography efforts were a bust, but we were later provided a video taken by one of the naturalists that showed footage from three snorkel expeditions. Below are two above water photos from the area in which we snorkeled.
After lunch, we attended a talk from a Galapagos-native naturalist about the human history of the Galápagos Islands over the past 500 years, including the soap opera about “the Baroness” Eloise von Wagner Bosquet.
The late afternoon activity was a ride on a Zodiac to land at Punta Cormorant, a green tinted beach. There are no cormorants here, but there were a lot of other birds. We walked up to a view point and down to a beautiful white “flour” sand beach. There we saw baby sea turtles emerging from their nests. Unfortunately, there were almost two dozen hungry frigatebirds nearby. It was both fascinating and horrifying to watch the spectacle of the frigate birds plucking and eating the baby turtles. The naturalist told us that only about 1 out of 1,000 baby sea turtles survive.
Cooperative blue-footed booby from the Zodiac on the way to the “wet” landing. Note how they appear cross-eyed due to both eyes facing forward (most birds’ eyes are on the sides).
Beach at the end of the walk.
Turtles while all seemed well, below.
Big frigate on left, swooping in. The first terrible moment on the right.
By the time they were done, they got all the baby turtles. Very sad.
One more frigate. We also saw a beautiful great blue heron, some pelicans, more blue footed boobies and Galapagos sharks.
Great Blue Heron on the beach, and lava lizard, below.
We walked back toward the Zodiac landing beach and visited a lagoon, where there were about forty Galapagos flamingos, of which the total population for the Galapagos is about 314! We were told we were lucky to see this many birds (usually there are only a handful). They were a beautiful, pink–orange color in the setting sun. We were told they are the second largest species of flamingo and the only population of the birds in the Pacific. Here are some photos of these colorful birds.
We returned to the ship, where we had a cocktail hour talk about the local artisan activities that improves the lives of the Galapagos Islands residents. We were also shown a small sample of sea water with a magnification of plankton in it. They were an amazing variety of shapes and colors.
Dinner was a barbecue on the deck. As it was ending, we saw a school of about ten sharks that were each about ten feet long swimming near the ship.
April 15, 2024
We arose early again for our kayaking expedition at Española Island. We entered the kayak from the Zodiac in rough water. We paddled about two miles along the shore to a colony of sea lions. Others in our kayak group reported seeing green sea turtles, but we weren’t so lucky.
On the way to kayak outing. Getting in them from the zodiac was easy, but climbing out, not so much.
We returned to the ship for breakfast, and during the meal were graced by a large school of golden rays swimming near the stern of the ship.
The next kayaking group was heading out around this time, too.
About an hour later, we went for another round of deep-water snorkeling at Gardner Islet. We saw many similar fish, and were also lucky enough to see a large sea turtle swimming near us. After a quick stop back on the ship, we were taken to a beautiful white sand beach at Gardner Bay with fantastic turquoise colored sea water. As we were getting out of the Zodiac, a Galapagos shark swam by. The beach also has a large colony of sea lions, including many mothers nursing their pups. This was really an incredibly beautiful spot. The photos cannot fully capture the beautiful colors.
On the way back to the ship, we watched marine iguanas swimming in the sea. Here are photos of the beautiful Gardner Bay. It has been voted one of the most beautiful beaches in the world many times.
After lunch, we listened to a naturalist presentation about Charles Darwin, who visited the Galapagos in 1835. Then we boarded a Zodiac to view birds and other wildlife around Punta Suarez on Española Island. Many landing sites on this island are currently closed to visitors due to an outbreak of bird flu brought in from South America. The sea was very rough, which made the blow-
holes along the shore spectacular. We saw many birds, including Waved Albatross, Audubon’s Shearwater, Red Billed Tropic Bird, Nazca Booby, more blue footed Boobies, more frigate birds and a Galapagos Hawk. The highlight was an area of rocks that had several marine iguanas sporting their red breeding color and more sea lions.
Juvenile nazca booby.
Two views of a waved albatross.
It was hard to get all the iguanas in focus or good light. There are at least a dozen.
Here’s a close up of one of the reddest ones. This is the breeding color for males.
Almost everyone on the ship got this shot!
We returned to the ship for a presentation by staff naturalists of an underwater video they have been shooting for the last three days.
Tomorrow we head to San Cristobal Island, one of five inhabited islands, and the capital. But as has been the case so far, the places we will go are not where the residents live. The only people we have seen are from a couple other small tour boats.
