Today sadly is our last full day in the Galapagos Islands and today we are visiting Floreana Island. Our landing is on a beach which looks like it has green sand because of the olivine crystals in it. It is only about 8:00am but the equatorial sun is already starting to heat up the day. We climb up through the island passing some lagoons where there are a handful of Galapagos flamingos feeding on the shrimp hiding amongst the silt on the bottom. We summit the island and go down the other side to a wonderful sandy beach. This is a nesting beach for sea turtles – we are lucky enough (how sad are we) to see a pair of turtles mating. This is a slow process taking several hours – so after a few minutes listening to Washington tell us about sea turtles we leave them to their leisurely activities and move on!
We return to the Guantanamera as the heat of the day begins to kick in. It now time for our final snorkelling expedition – and the best has been saved to last!The Devil’s Crown is the remains of a volcanic caldera which has now been filled by the sea. Our dinghy carries us to the outside of the caldera and we climb out into the water. Being on the equator you might expect the water to be warm but it is pretty cold (about 72 oF) so the initial shock of getting in does take your breath away. The water outside the calderas is about 30 feet deep but the visibility is good and below us we see an assortment of fish, large sting rays and black tipped reef sharks. Emily is a bit scared of sharks so she stays back on the Guantanamera playing her Nintendo with Washington's daughter , Nicole. Neither speaks the others language but Emily's Hannah Montana game bridges the gap!
Erosion has resulted in some of the caldera's walls collapsing so we are able to swim inside what would have at one time been an ash and lava producing monster. Here the water is much shallower – perhaps 3 or 4 feet deep – and the water is so clear and pristine. Coral has formed a reef here and the variety of fish is astounding. There are huge star fish the size of dinner plates (shame Emily did not come she would have loved this). Washington finds a small octopus which he picks and passes amongst us – a very strange sensation holding one of these. By the end it gets just a bit fed up and releases a small amount of ink – time to let it leave. This was an amazing trip.
Returning to our boat we take a gentle sail around the island to Post Office Bay. Here we make another landing. A few tens of feet off the beach is the Post Office after which the bay is named. This is not your usual post office – it was originally set-up by the local pacific whalers – as a way of getting the mail sent around the world. They would write letters, address them and leave them in the barrels. Passing travellers would look into the barrels and if the letters were addressed to a location to where they were travelling they would pick them out and take them to that address. The tradition still happens today – so we spend some time looking through the mail and some people take some letters to deliver. Our companions on the Guantanamera are from Germany, Sweden, Austria, Alaska and New Orleans.We then take a short hike further into the island where we find the entrance to a lava cave (as the name suggests this is a cave formed by volcanic action !!!). This not the nice cave walks that we are used to in the United States where there is plenty of lighting and nice relatively even pathways. No! The descent is down rickety wooden ladders, slippery rocks (they do provide a rope of sorts to cling onto), and we have to provide our own lighting ( a couple of torches/flashlights). As we go deeper the cave fills up with water. The braver of us continue and eventually the water is so deep you have to swim – and the water is cold. There are a couple of ledges to stand on but it is a little scary – fortunately for the more timid of us the cave does run out after a couple of hundred yards, and after a few minutes of splashing around we decide enough is enough and return to the dry end of the cave. A very interesting experience indeed! With more than a little relief we return to the surface and the warm sun soon helps us forget the frigid underground waters. We get a final chance to swim in the sea before it is time to return to our boat and set sail once again.
Our final destination is Santa Cruz Island and the main town there Puerto Ayora. The journey across the strait takes 4 hours but we are entertained on the way by bottle nosed dolphins and manta rays. We arrive at Puerto Ayora at about 6pm – and after some dinner we are taken ashore to look around. This is the biggest town on Santa Cruz island – one of the few inhabited islands on the Galapagos – and it’s population of 14,000 is somewhat surprising. As one might expect it is geared up for the arrival of several tourist boats each day and most of the port area of the town is set aside for restaurants, bars and souvenir shops. Below the glamorous veneer of the shop frontage the underlying poverty of the islands is clear to see and living here in this ecological paradise must be hard for the native islanders. We soon have seen pretty much all there is to see of Puerto Aroya and take a water taxi back to the Guantanamera.
Returning to our boat we take a gentle sail around the island to Post Office Bay. Here we make another landing. A few tens of feet off the beach is the Post Office after which the bay is named. This is not your usual post office – it was originally set-up by the local pacific whalers – as a way of getting the mail sent around the world. They would write letters, address them and leave them in the barrels. Passing travellers would look into the barrels and if the letters were addressed to a location to where they were travelling they would pick them out and take them to that address. The tradition still happens today – so we spend some time looking through the mail and some people take some letters to deliver. Our companions on the Guantanamera are from Germany, Sweden, Austria, Alaska and New Orleans.We then take a short hike further into the island where we find the entrance to a lava cave (as the name suggests this is a cave formed by volcanic action !!!). This not the nice cave walks that we are used to in the United States where there is plenty of lighting and nice relatively even pathways. No! The descent is down rickety wooden ladders, slippery rocks (they do provide a rope of sorts to cling onto), and we have to provide our own lighting ( a couple of torches/flashlights). As we go deeper the cave fills up with water. The braver of us continue and eventually the water is so deep you have to swim – and the water is cold. There are a couple of ledges to stand on but it is a little scary – fortunately for the more timid of us the cave does run out after a couple of hundred yards, and after a few minutes of splashing around we decide enough is enough and return to the dry end of the cave. A very interesting experience indeed! With more than a little relief we return to the surface and the warm sun soon helps us forget the frigid underground waters. We get a final chance to swim in the sea before it is time to return to our boat and set sail once again.Our final destination is Santa Cruz Island and the main town there Puerto Ayora. The journey across the strait takes 4 hours but we are entertained on the way by bottle nosed dolphins and manta rays. We arrive at Puerto Ayora at about 6pm – and after some dinner we are taken ashore to look around. This is the biggest town on Santa Cruz island – one of the few inhabited islands on the Galapagos – and it’s population of 14,000 is somewhat surprising. As one might expect it is geared up for the arrival of several tourist boats each day and most of the port area of the town is set aside for restaurants, bars and souvenir shops. Below the glamorous veneer of the shop frontage the underlying poverty of the islands is clear to see and living here in this ecological paradise must be hard for the native islanders. We soon have seen pretty much all there is to see of Puerto Aroya and take a water taxi back to the Guantanamera.
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