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We went ashore at 8 am at Post Office Bay in Floreana. There has been a barrel postbox here since 1783. Its name comes from the Captain James Colnett, who installed a wooden barrel that will serve sailors’ as a post office. Seamen will drop-off letters there, in order for another sailor, who would be headed back home, to take the letter with him and deliver it to the recipient. Nowadays, the tradition is still alive and tourist leave letters and postcards, with the hope that another tourists will take them, for free, back to their country. The delivery time can take days, weeks or even up to years! However, there has been cases where the letter arrives back home before the sender does!
Silver Sea punters were invited to write their postcards and post them here. We declined to do this - based on probability of a Spanish resident delivering the card being very small.
We walked a little bit further inland to see the remnants of a canning factory for fish. Then we returned to the beach and had a good walk in both directions before Chris went for a swim at the far end where there were fewer breakers. She had acquired a flotation jacket from the ship and had a pleasant float once David had got her into the sea.
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Then at 9:30 a zodiac, manned by Javier and our Butler, Danny, picked us up for a special zodiac cruise which Paulina had offered us the day before due to our comments. This was extremely nice and we landed on a beach in Floreana and walked up to a viewing platform from which there was a wonderful view. Once back on the zodiac, Danny produced a bottle of Prosecco - from such as this are memories made
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We got back to the ship in time for the 11 am Galapagos plunge. To Chris's surprise David volunteered for this and was the first one in.
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Then back to the cabin for about an hour before lunch here we were a bit rushed, as we were out again quite quickly in the afternoon
After lunch Chris had a snooze and at 4 pm we went out again on a zodiac to Floreana and had a nature walk at Floreana Island’s northernmost point, Punta Cormorant – named after the British HMS Cormorant and dating back to the late 19th century.This was with a different Javier, who was not a wondrous guide. We saw the odd yellow bird plus flamingos and walked across to another beach.
Back at the landing beach a short track leads to a shallow lagoon that is famous for its flamingos. The brilliantly pink birds skim the salty waters for shrimp and tend to chicks on the nest. The trail then scales a low hillside through scattered Palo Santo trees to reveal an idyllic white-sand beach on the other side of the point. Standing at the edge of the waves, we saw female sea turtles tracks in the sand where they had hauled out of the sea to lay eggs in the sugar sand dunes that lay high above the tide line.
Back at the ship, there were tapas in our cabin and we had a glass of Prosecco with these. The lecture was on humans in the Galapagos and sent me to sleep. Then Paulina described the following day before dinner. After dinner, we had. An espresso martini in the lounge as the only occupants of it. We then wandered up to deck 8 to see the full span of the Milky Way and Orion before retiring to bed.
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On to Thurs 14th March - Santa Cruz - Puerto Ayora & Highlands & Breeding Centre