Visiting Floreana Island marked the first full day of our Galapagos cruise, if you don’t count our previous evening of ogling Galapagos Tortoises and getting over the trauma of navigating the terrifying airport experience that precedes getting to this beautiful little microcosm.
Visiting Floreana island is awesome; besides having a lot of cool things to see and do, it has a quite colorful past full of pirates, shipwrecks, recently wife-swapped vegetarian German nudist settlers who shared a pair of metal teeth (no joke), death by poison chicken, a small-scale coup staged by a histrionic and maybe-fake Baroness who came to the island with three different lovers in tow, and straight-up cold case murder/disappearance mysteries that remain unsolved even today. Seriously. We learned all about this while taking nature walks with our naturalist guide and looking at flamingos.
Floreana was also the first full day we had together with our shipmates: 7 other couples and two women hailing from New Zealand, New Zealand-via-Figi, Austria, Germany, Holland, Canada, and good old Chicago (GO CUBS). Going on a wilderness cruise with strangers feels like summer camp. You’re all awkward around everyone the first day and you’ve pre-decided a lot about them already (I obviously made ornery mental notes about the individuals who asked us if we were sure we were wearing enough sunscreen and the lady who told me like 3 times not to get too close to the animals, when I was standing just as far away as she was, as if I was going to just run up and kick them or something. Then by the end of the trip you think they’re just the best people you’ve ever met and you’re making them all write down their info for your in your dumb little note book so you can bother them in a few months about going to Oktoberfest together and going fishing in the Maldives and going to Canada to visit all the places where they filmed Anne of Green Gables.
Anyhow, this is one of my favorite islands because A) the stories are amazing B) it’s the first island we sailed to and I was incredibly excited C) it is the first time I got to swim with a sea lion and all of us snorkelers from the boat bonded and my heart grew three sizes D) I will say in every post that “That island” is my favorite because I can’t pick because it all rules.
So… what did we actually do when visiting Floreana? Well just about everything.
Go Flamingo Hunting
Floreana is one of two islands that are best for spotting flamingos, as they love to hang out and lay eggs in a brackish lagoon just inward of Punta Cormorant. The flamingos are cool, and the birders on our boat were all losing their shit about getting photos, but I personally feel that if you grew up in the U.S. and spent every summer of your childhood life hanging out in the Everglades and looking at pink birds and 300 foot alligators (I definitely saw some that long… it’s truth), then seeing some more flamingos in a lagoon somewhere else isn’t that exciting. However, I did learn that they are named Flamingos after “Flamenco” dancers, and it was mutated to “Flamingo” because of simple mispronunciation. The association with Flamenco is NOT because of their gracefulness or pretty color but because their clicking beaks sound like a dancer’s castanets. So that was cool.
Experience a Green Sand Beach
Several beaches in the Galápagos are unusually colored, and we got to experience a Green Sand Beach when we were visiting Floreana Island. Olivine, a volcanic, glassy mineral that spewed out of ancient volcanic eruptions on the Galapagos, is so abundant on Punta Cormorant’s beach that it makes the sand take on a greenish hue. While it doesn’t look that attractive from far away, you can examine the sand close up and find all of these smooth, glassy little pieces of emerald green stone. It’s quite beautiful. You can also visit a Red Sand Beach on Rábida Island formed from extremely high volcanic iron deposits, but we didn’t make it that far north on our cruise route.
Avoid Getting Stingray Death-Barbed While Visiting Floreana Island:
So after the flamingos, we happened upon this beautiful little hidden beach cove with just about the prettiest water you’ve ever seen. I was hot and and also entranced by the Hawaiian Punch Blue water yet again and wanted to go wade in the surf, but I figured since these naturalists are all about getting permission to do things first that I might as well ask. And I’m glad I did because she looked alarmed and said “um, no please do not go near it until I tell you about it,” which was weird, but I assumed was because there was a strong undertow or something and I’d be all like “I’m an awesome swimmer, whatever.”
However, once she gathered our group she explained to us about some curious creatures living in the shallows of this seemingly angelic little cove – dozens upon dozens of stingrays, that defend themselves by effing your shiz up if you step on them. So, the theme of hanging out in The Galápagos Islands is ask your naturalist if it’s ok to breathe before you do it. Minutes later someone almost leaned against a tree that we learned was a Poison Apple Tree that will also eff your shiz up in the form of a hideous rash. The sea lions are cute and all but the Galápagos are also secretly trying to kill you.
We also saw our first marine iguanas, frigate birds, Sally Lightfoot crabs, and an amazing Great Blue Heron on Floreana. if you’re visiting Floreana Island, be prepared with a camera that has a full battery because you’ll be a little shellshocked by how much you’ll see.
Sea Kayak and Flip Out Over Eagle Rays!
Since we just got engaged and we want to start our married life on the right foot, Kevin and I tumbled ourselves into one of the Divorce Boats (2-person sea kayaks) that our dinghy brought our for us after lunch to explore more of Floreana and then we immediately got into a fight. We beached ourselves on some inland islet and then Kevin got out of the kayak without asking permission and then Maria our guide yelled at us I told him he was an idiot who never listens to anyone (I overreacted).
Some badass eagle rays saved the day and distracted us because fighting over kayak etiquette isn’t as important as these amazing polka-dotted graceful creatures that sail underneath your boat with their 10-foot wingspan. It was glorious. We weren’t fast enough to get any pics, but look them up because they are awesome.
Swim off of Floreana with Sea Lions… and Turtles… and Millions of Fish:
The snorkel trips we took while visiting Floreana Island will always be my favorite of the trip, partly because the water here was so clear but mostly just because it was our very first experience in the water in the Galápagos and it was everything I hoped it would be and more. You have to be prepared for some pretty nippy water if you visit the Galápagos and want to swim, but I’d go swim up around the North Pole if it meant I got to float around a bunch of amazing sea creatures that aren’t afraid of you in the least and practically invite you to swim right alongside them.
Sea Lions…
Floreana is where we met our first sea lion, and it was magic. The sea lions will dive right off the rocks where they sun themselves to check out anything that looks remotely fun to play with. They are notorious for dragging back out to sea the hard-working little marine iguanas trying to make their way ashore so they can get their body temps back up. We encountered a had a pair who had decided that our crew looked fun to mess with, and they arrived to check us out while doing a cool little backstroke and then pretzeling their bendy little necks upside down underwater to get a better look.
It turns from cool to downright awesome though when you dive underwater yourself and engage them; it’s hard to remember they’re not human when you watch how excited they get to play with you and mimic (i.e. perform much better than you can) every little twist and turn you make. I’ve mentioned this before but it’s like a breakneck underwater version of Simon; every move you make they’ll copy and then dare you to add something else on to your little underwater ballet routine, while frequently taking breaks to swim underneath you and check out what you look like from an upside down point of view.
Turtles and More…
The Galápagos are nuts because they can make you momentarily blasé about what would be making your head fall off anywhere else; outside of The Greatest Sea Lion Show on Earth it’s almost an afterthought that we watched little Galápagos penguins rocketing themselves in and out of the water between our dinghies, moseyed along underwater with literally dozens of Green and Brown Sea turtles that didn’t seem to have a care in the world, swam through a submarine Sea Turtle Spa of sorts when 8 turtles had just partially buried themselves under the sand and were all just taking a relaxing mid-day snooze, and floated through schools of hundreds of angelfish and triggerfish that looked like they were pulled out of a scene from Finding Nemo.
I wanted to make snorkeling part of our Galápagos itinerary as much as possible when we were down here, but before visiting Floreana Island I had absolutely no idea how good the snorkeling would actually be. The best kinds of trips are where you get a little more than you bargained for and down in the Galápagos that happened basically every hour.
Visiting Floreana Island is not complete without Visiting the Post Office Box!!
Post Office Bay on Floreana is somewhat legendary. Along with all of the anthropological lore that shrouds this kooky little island, there’s the magic of the Post Office Box. Back in the days of whaling and fishing and star navigation and high-seas-hijinks, Floreana was also a popular spot for ships to refuel and regroup before continuing on their journeys. Because of the dangerous nature of these journeys, also because more and more settlers arrived on Floreana as time went on, there was always a lot of news that risked getting stuck in time and never carried back home across the ocean: who was still alive, who had died, news of good fortune, news of bad luck, when people planned to come home. As part of an informal pact, the ships visiting Floreana agreed to make use of the Post Office Barrel, which still standa today, and not only leave letters but take back any letters that had been posted to a place on that ship’s intended course.
The tradition continues today and the barrel is full of letters. If you find one addressed to someone close to where you live, you are supposed to take it with you and post it from home once you get back. Unfortunately for us there were no letters close to Denver, but we did mail one ourselves and we’ll see how long it takes to get delivered – it can take weeks, months, or decades apparently!