In the morning, we were supposed to go to the Post Office. Okay, you might ask what a post office is doing on some remote island in the Galapagos. It is actually a most unusual post office. It is one that isn’t manned nor does it use stamps. Basically, it is a barrel where passing sailors would leave messages and hoped the next ship would pick it up and (it was hoped that someone) forward it to their families.

Now it is simply a place where tourists deposit mail and hope someone that lives close by their home towns would find it and bring it to the them. Unfortunately, we couldn’t make a landing at the Post Office because of the fairly high waves going into the island so we gave our mail to the ship to leave the next time they went to the “post office.”

Punta Cormorant Floreana

Punta Cormorant is a beach. The sand is soft and white. It is a perfect place to put down your towel and just sit. It is also a place that lends itself to a beach walk. We went on a hike that took us from the beach to an inland lake. There were lots of water birds along the way that were different from ones we saw during the trip. It is also supposed to be a place to see flamingos. Unfortunately, the flamingos were probably on vacation somewhere else. I was really hoping to see them in the wild but they just weren’t there that day.

We did see lots of turtle nests. It was egg laying time and you can see the mounds that the turtles build to protect their eggs. The females lay 72 eggs per nest and usually set up multiple nests. Once hatched, the babies head down the beach to get to the water. Unfortunately, there are predators that are also anxiously waiting for them to hatch.

Endemic birds including the Galapagos mockingbirds were seen there as well as oyster catchers near the lagoon and other native birds that we didn’t see on other islands.

Thought I would include a picture that was pretty much taken every day as we debarked to the ship from any of our trips on the zodiac. It was a fairly steep climb.