Floreana Island
The morning started off as any other morning on the Islander with the wonderful wake up call, “Good morning, good morning! It’s time to go to the Post Office Barrel.” Yes that’s right, we set out at 6:30 am to go to the famous old mail-swapping barrel. This style of mailing goes back as far as the whaling days. What a hoot that was - I have a post card which now I have to hand deliver to some people in Santa Barbara. I hope that someday I will get my post card hand delivered too. No, you don’t need stamps – that’s where the hand delivery comes in. Then it’s back into the panga to do a short ride to see more sea lions before we go back to the mother ship M.S. Islander for breakfast.
As usual, there are many choices of adventures to choose from. Today we were given a special option to SCUBA dive. As you can guess, I was one of the ones who took the SCUBA offer, so here’s what happened on this adventure.
In the spirit of collaboration and customer service, Lindblad contacted a local dive agency and partnered with another vessel where two individuals from Israel had the same yen to dive the depths of the Galápagos waters. Our first dive was at Enderby and the currents were quite strong to get around to the other side of Enderby. We didn’t panic, but using our hands, pulled ourselves along the rocks on the bottom. We saw sea turtles, parrot fish, and entangled ourselves amidst multiple schools of fish... Then the real fun began. On the second dive, we saw sea turtles, a school of barracuda and, best of all, a sea lion who showed us that ecological tables can be turned by chasing a white-tipped shark. But it was all for fun and no one was hurt…I’ve dived for a long time and I was overwhelmed by the shear diversity and numbers of sealift in one place. I decided to return to the Islander for lunch.
As usual I ate too much, but still had enough energy to join the group. Following lunch, we disembarked at Punta Cormorant to check out the flamingos and nesting turtle grounds. Although we were told not to get off the path, no one told the male frigate who was circling above. We thought he was behaving as just another “pretty bird” flying overhead, posing for photos. Suddenly, the naturalist, Ramiro, being interviewed by the ship’s videographer, broke into a run and charged the frigate as it swooped down into the turtle nest for one of the newly hatched babies. The frigate won the race only to return with his friends. The promise of eating hatched eggs was too good to resist. It was hard to see baby turtles being eaten knowing they have seen so little of life and are so cute, yet we came to understand on a more personal level why this has to be. Our instinct was to intervene. The naturalist explained how the process of natural selection and survival of the fittest is truly present here on the Galápagos Island. It’s not just a theory, but is played out at many levels with all living creatures.
The morning started off as any other morning on the Islander with the wonderful wake up call, “Good morning, good morning! It’s time to go to the Post Office Barrel.” Yes that’s right, we set out at 6:30 am to go to the famous old mail-swapping barrel. This style of mailing goes back as far as the whaling days. What a hoot that was - I have a post card which now I have to hand deliver to some people in Santa Barbara. I hope that someday I will get my post card hand delivered too. No, you don’t need stamps – that’s where the hand delivery comes in. Then it’s back into the panga to do a short ride to see more sea lions before we go back to the mother ship M.S. Islander for breakfast.
As usual, there are many choices of adventures to choose from. Today we were given a special option to SCUBA dive. As you can guess, I was one of the ones who took the SCUBA offer, so here’s what happened on this adventure.
In the spirit of collaboration and customer service, Lindblad contacted a local dive agency and partnered with another vessel where two individuals from Israel had the same yen to dive the depths of the Galápagos waters. Our first dive was at Enderby and the currents were quite strong to get around to the other side of Enderby. We didn’t panic, but using our hands, pulled ourselves along the rocks on the bottom. We saw sea turtles, parrot fish, and entangled ourselves amidst multiple schools of fish... Then the real fun began. On the second dive, we saw sea turtles, a school of barracuda and, best of all, a sea lion who showed us that ecological tables can be turned by chasing a white-tipped shark. But it was all for fun and no one was hurt…I’ve dived for a long time and I was overwhelmed by the shear diversity and numbers of sealift in one place. I decided to return to the Islander for lunch.
As usual I ate too much, but still had enough energy to join the group. Following lunch, we disembarked at Punta Cormorant to check out the flamingos and nesting turtle grounds. Although we were told not to get off the path, no one told the male frigate who was circling above. We thought he was behaving as just another “pretty bird” flying overhead, posing for photos. Suddenly, the naturalist, Ramiro, being interviewed by the ship’s videographer, broke into a run and charged the frigate as it swooped down into the turtle nest for one of the newly hatched babies. The frigate won the race only to return with his friends. The promise of eating hatched eggs was too good to resist. It was hard to see baby turtles being eaten knowing they have seen so little of life and are so cute, yet we came to understand on a more personal level why this has to be. Our instinct was to intervene. The naturalist explained how the process of natural selection and survival of the fittest is truly present here on the Galápagos Island. It’s not just a theory, but is played out at many levels with all living creatures.
