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| Sunrise on Day 4 |
Day 4 of the wonderful trip to the Galapagos started off with a wet landing on Cormorant Point on Floreana Island, another Island in the Galapagos archipelago. This was a beautify oviline green beach, which gets its green colour from the small oviline crystals in the sand. The first sighting of the day was a Galapagos penguin in the water just off the beach. I was very excited to see the penguin as it was one of the species which was very high on my "Wish List". I would have loved to have seen them outside the water, but just seeing one was great.
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| Nice wet landing |
There were also flamingos on the lagoon, but on the far side. I did get a few photos, but not good enough to put into the blog. There were, however, some very photogenic Galapagos ducks which were posing quite nicely. Over the ridge, we came to the beach were turtles come ashore to lay their eggs. There was evidence that one came ashore in the evening to do the deed as there were very fresh track leading away from the area where many turtles had dug up the dunes. You could see turtles in the bay, either waiting to come ashore, or resting up after the effort of laying eggs. Numerous stingrays could also been seen in the waves.
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| Our boat |
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| In the sunglasses |
After this trip, we did a deep water snorkel trip. This was to a small island some way off the bigger Island. This was by far, the best of the snorkeling trips. We got into the water from the dingy and were immediately in a wonderful world of fish. The visibility, unlike the previous snorkeling spots, was great at about 30 meters. There was also no major current. This would have been a fantastic diving spot. The perfect wall dive. The sides of the small island were sheer and rose up from the deep. Larger numbers of beautify tropical fish were everywhere. There were also Sea Lions in the water and a large white tipped reef shark. I am quite happy to see sharks when I have Scuba gear on, but I am not sure that I was that happy to see a shark when flapping around on the surface of the water! It was quite a large shark for a white tipped reef shark and was about 1.5 meters long. I know that things look bigger in the water, but this was not a small shark.
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| Sight for the deep water snorkeling |
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| Around the post office barrel |
The afternoon we went to the post office on Floreana Island. In 1793, Captain James Colnett put up a barrel where sailors from passing ships could deposit letters for home. The tradition was that the sailors would check through all of the mail and if there were any for the port where they were heading they would take them with and where possible hand deliver the the mail. This tradition is still ongoing. It has become know as the "Magic barrel" as there are quite a few stories of marriages which have happened as a result of someone arriving at your door with a letter from the Galapagos. Not sure how true this is, but it makes a nice story.
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| Looking for post cards |
Never let the truth interfere with a good story! We all wrote out a postcard either to yourself or someone else to deposit in the barrel. Then everyone looks through the cards that were there and take a few which they could deliver. One of the NewZealand couples on the boat found a card from people who live three houses from them! Small world.
There were no post cards for anyone in Bloemfontein and not even any
from anyone in South Africa. I guess that there are not too many South
Africans who have been to the Galapagos.
The last activity of the day was another snorkel in the bay. There were many large turtles in the bay.
The end of another great day on this wonderful trip.
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