After breakfast, the Zodiacs took
us to an olivine green-sand beach in the Devil’s crown area of Floreana Island.
We hiked inland past some sandalwood trees to an overlook from which we could
see the island’s famous flamingoes. An endemic species of flycatcher, with its
yellow belly, followed us. The
flamingoes were wading in a brackish lagoon, looking for crustaceans to eat.
Alexandra warned us to be quiet because they are very skittish of people.
The trail led over a hill and
down to a white-sand beach where sea turtles had laid eggs the night before. We
could see the female sea turtles lolling in the shallow water. Alexandra
explained that they stayed in shallow water because they were tired from laying
eggs, and they wanted to avoid the males in deep water that would try to mate
with them. We could also see small sting rays in the shallow water and were
strongly advised not to step on them. We saw a pelican, a killdeer and
something like a sandpiper along the shoreline. Boarding the beached Zodiac to
return to the Coral I was much easier. This time as the ocean was completely
calm.
An hour later, at 11:00 a.m., we
re-boarded the Zodiac for deep water snorkeling. The two Zodiacs took us to
Champion Islet, named after a whaler, Andrew Champion. We dropped over the side
of the dinghy and began snorkeling. We had been issued yellow, inflatable life
vests to assist with buoyancy. We saw large schools of yellow-tailed
surgeonfish, king angelfish, a large stingray, parrotfish, and several other
species that I was not able to identify. Alexandra warned us to stay out of a
bay that the male sea lions consider to be their territory. However, some of
the sea lions came to us and swam so close that we could almost touch them.
After about 45 minutes, Alexandra was getting cold, and we all climbed the
ladder to board the Zodiac. Back on the Coral I, we were fed a traditional
Ecuadorean meal, starting with ceviche and including roast pork, fish, fried
plantains, potato cakes, rice and guacamole.
After lunch the Zodiacs took us
to Post Office Bay on the north side of Floreana Island. In 1793 Captain James
Colnett installed a wooden wine barrel at this location that would serve as an
informal post office for sailors passing through. They would leave letters in
the barrel for others to take to their homes. The wine barrel is gone, but the
tradition remains. Now tourists leave postcards to be delivered by other
tourists. We each took a sheaf of cards and looked through them. I found one
addressed to someone in Madison, WI, that I gave to Dick and Ingrid to deliver.
I left cards addressed to my parents and to Abby and me.
We returned to the beach on got
on our snorkel gear. Lolli (Delores) led us along the edge of a line of rocks
where we encountered two or three green sea turtles. (We encountered the same
turtles more than once.) We swam with
the sea turtles and watched them eat vegetation off the bottom. Fish would try
to eat the vegetation that the turtles had loosened, and the turtles would snap
at the fish. We saw angelfish, parrotfish, and a large school of blue fish that
I did not recognize. The water was neither as clear nor as deep as it had been
in the morning, but the turtles were amazing.
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