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Published: April 7th 2008
Post Office Barrel
Bob "mails" his cardVisit to the Post Office Barrel
Monday morning found us going out for a pre-breakfast outing (6:30 AM) to the Post Office Barrel on Floreana Island. It is an old mail swap tradition going back to whaling days. The tradition states that if you find a letter there addressed to your hometown, you must take it home with you and hand-deliver it to its recipient. After making a wet landing at Post Office Bay (get off the zodiac in the water), we walked a short ways from the beach to the Post Office Barrel. Then we had to fight off the mosquitoes......no one told us to be ready for them there. Suddenly everyone was reaching into backpacks to get the repellent that they forgot to bring. Luckily I had mosquito wipes in my pocket. They worked great---WE were okay. The naturalists all carry backpacks with the necessaries, mosquito repellent and sunblock, so soon the whole group was armed. Then we proceeded to do the mail swap. We took all of the accumulated mail from the barrel and chose three persons to read out the addresses. Bob and I took one for Reno, Nevada, because we have family who live
Ocean friends
Jelly and sea lion nearby in Carson City. It will be fun to deliver the card and talk to other people who have been to the Galapagos. One postcard was a kick.........."To President Bush: I hope by the time you get this, you are out of office!" I don't believe that one will ever get delivered. Groups have too much fun reading it. After a half hour of reading names on about 300 cards, we all left our own cards and went back to the ship for breakfast. Maybe someone will deliver the card I sent to the Aquarium!
Champion snorkelers---the best photos ever!
Champion Islet, just off the eastern shore of Floreana, is a wonderful snorkeling site and home to a large colony of sea lions. The deep-water snorkelers did something called "drift snorkeling,' while others with less ocean experience had the option of doing "bay snorkeling" in calmer waters. After breakfast we scrambled into our gear and by 9:00 AM we were in the water. It was amazingly clear. We were fortunate to get good pictures of sea turtles, yellow-tail razor (surgeon) fish, sea lions playing with us, colorful Mexican humphead hogfish, and blue parrotfish. Before we left this
A king and a star
King angel fish and a sea star site we took a zodiac ride around the island to try to spot the elusive Floreana mockingbird. We actually saw a few. They are unique because now they only inhabit small Champion Island off of Floreana.
Punta Cormorant walk, but no cormorants.
In the afternoon, some folks went kayaking, some snorkeled, and we were in the "other" group------we took a nap! Whew, traveling can be hard work. Later we all went for a walk (read HIKE) around Punta Cormorant. There aren't any cormorants heere---it was named for a shipwreck. It was another wet landing, but on an interesting beach of olivine sand. Then we walked to a second small beach of incredibly fine, white, coral and shell sand. It is a favorite nesting site for green sea turtles. The walk to the second beach skirted a large salt pond where we observed black-necked stilts and flamingos. Yes, flamingos! What an incredible sight they were, so unexpected. They figure they got to the Galapagos hundreds of years ago, perhaps having been blown off course from the Bermuda Islands. The plants, trees and flowers here are also very interesting, and many are endemic species. We made it back to
A merVal
Val flying through the water the boat at 6:30 PM and were greeted by a little sea lion napping on the lower rail of the boat.- Now we gotta rush to make it to 7:00 PM recap by the naturalists and then 7:30 PM dinner. What a day.
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Sarah Swain
non-member comment
Amazing!
Hi Val. Your trip sounds amazing. I am SOOO jealous. Your sea lion pictures are amazing. How cool that they were so close to you. Claudia asked if you were coming in today - I said "NO" she is still in the Galapagos!!