Galapagos 2018 Day Three - Floreana Island



Underwater Selfie
The first stop today was at Post Office Bay which in the old days was an arrangement of barrels where one could leave a communication (such as a letter for home) and someone else who stopped might pick it up and deliver it.  Still in "use" today.  Fairly decent system when it was established back in about 1793, but currently a touristy thing.  We did not bother too much but I think my friend might have grabbed a postcard destined for somewhere near her.








Stingrays on the beach

This was also to be an off the beach snorkel stop which almost got derailed because of the vast number of stingrays resting at the waters edge which blocked our access into the water.  They were not really obvious at first since they had a lot of sand settled on their top, but once you figured out what you were looking for there were an awful lot of them.  Luckily they eventually cleared out and we headed back into the water.





Sally Lightfoot Crab - these babies are all along the rocky shores

We also snorkeled at another point right near this island which was truly amazing.  We hopped out of the zodiac and into vast schools of silvery fish.  The numbers were amazing and one was tempted to reach out and touch what appeared to be a solid wall of fish.  Of course when we did try to touch the fish had moved and contact was never made but it did not seem to lessen the draw to do so.




A wall of silvery fish


Sea Turtle swimming just below me
There were sea turtles here as well as at the earlier snorkel and while amazing I found it a bit tough to get good photos.  But I did get some.  The whole underwater photography thing is more complicated than I anticipated.  My camera has a few underwater settings – action, still, macro – but getting it right was tough.  The distance for focus is set (I think) and varies with the setting chosen.  All the fish are moving, clearly, but so am I and if I try to get close enough to focus, well ….  In any case I was pleased with how they turned out for such a rank amateur.  The one here was in focus, but obviously too close.  They were swimming right below us.



Yes - Blue Footed Boobys here too
Final stop on Floreana was to see flamingos.  And yes, I guess we saw them.  Or more specifically we saw small pink dots on the far side of the lagoon.  I had decent binoculars with me and can verify that the dots were in fact flamingos but that is about as far as it goes.  Also hiked to the opposite side of the island (not as far as it sounds) to another wonderful white powdery sand beach which had several tracks from turtles who come ashore to lay eggs.  This apparently happens at night but if we looked into the water just off shore we could see turtle heads popping up and checking us out as if they were waiting for the coast to clear.

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