Kathi's Boringly-Named Blog: G7: Post Office Bay, Floreana (9/30/13 PM)

During lunch we repositioned yet again, this time to Post Office Bay, landing site for Charles Darwin when he visited Floreana, the second of the four islands where he went ashore in September of 1835.

Before going ashore, however, Kevin and I had our first outing of the week in the double kayaks carried on board the Endeavour. I did not take the camera along on our trip, but I can tell you it was memorable. We were in and out of small bays, lava outcrops, and some mangroves. We saw green sea turtles swimming in the shallows, sea lions, blue-footed boobies, and the highlight--a Galápagos penguin! This species, averaging about 19 inches in length, is the 3rd smallest of the penguin species and the only one to live at the equator. It can do so thanks to the cold waters of the Humboldt and Cromwell Currents. The majority live on the two "youngest" and westernmost islands in the archipelago, Fernandina and Isabela, but they are also found in smaller groups on some of the other islands--thank goodness, because our itinerary did not include Fernandina and Isabela Islands!

When we returned from kayaking, we had a Zodiac cruise that covered much of the same territory with a naturalist on board, and we saw many of the same types of animals. But we also saw spotted eagle rays--hard to photograph, but I tried.

This male sea lion is protecting his beach & harem and will roar and chase away any males attempting to move in on his territory.

This sea lion came right up to the Zodiac and was playing with some of the lines (ropes).

Here are some of the spotted eagle rays.

Look carefully--there is a frigatebird in the shrubby tree.

I took this to show the lava flow in the center part of the rock.

And here is our little Galápagos penguin!!

Blue-footed boobies--they were also plunge-diving in groups while we were cruising around.

Sea lion and Brown Pelican

We went ashore and visited the Post Office Barrel. This "mail swap" tradition goes back at least to 1793. The tradition is that you look through the mail in the barrel and, if there is an envelope (or postcard these days) addressed to someone in your area, you take it with you and hand-deliver it when you get home. We put 2 postcards into the barrel in hopes that someone, someday, will deliver them. And our group took many cards and envelopes out of the barrel with promises to get them to the addressees. No postage required.