Galápagos Day 3: Floreana

With the use of motion-sickness medicine the night before, Justin and I were both able to sleep sans sickness and were ready and eager to start our next day of fun :) We took the Dingy and headed off to Isla Floreana.

First stop was Post Office Bay. Isla Floreana is best known for a rather colorful history of buccaneers, whalers, and convicts who lived on it. In 1793, British whalers established the Post Office Barrel to sent letters to and from England, and the tradition continues today. Enrique had us write a postcard and we put it (sin postage) into a plastic bag inside the barrel. We then searched through about a hundred or so other postcards to see if there were any addressed to a place close to where we lived. (With our fellow passengers being from Switzerland, Holland, Great Britain, Australia, Germany, etc…several people found cards close to their home). In exchange for putting our cards in the barrel, we needed to try and deliver a card ourselves. Pretty neat idea!

Meet our fellow pasajeros…

The first two were a Czech couple we never really got to know. To their right was Dee (from Britain), Ana (from Spain), Angela (from Switzerland), me, Dave behind me (from Britain), and Gary to my left (from Australia). Bottom row was Pepe (Ana's boyfriend, also from Spain), Justin, Ohad (from Israel), Richard (from Australia, traveling with Gary), and Aisha (from France).
After our stop at the post office, we were off to the Lava Tunnels! Since most of the islands were formed by erupting volcanoes, almost all of them have huge lava tunnels created by superheated lava flowing through more solid, cooler lava. The tunnels criss-cross over each other from multiple eruptions.
They were dark and humid, so unfortunately not great for photo taking, but we were excited to swim in icy ocean water at the far end of a tunnel in almost pitch-black conditions. It took me back to the spelunking I did in college. Very cool. Very cool indeed. I was actually the only girl to brave the icy water and only about three of the guys did. The rest were content to dip their toes in it.
After that, it was time to tour the rest of the island and learn the mystery surrounding Floreana. Back in the 1930’s a German dentist and his mistress, a young family named the Wittmers, and a self-styled baroness with three lovers came to settle in the island. Shortly after the Baroness and her lovers arrived, chaos ensued. Within a few years, the baroness and one of her lovers went missing (never to be seen again), another lover was found dead, and the dentist died of poisoning.

Here's a picture of the baroness. To this day, no one knows what happened to her, or why the others died. Perhaps we’ll never know....

Mystery aside, Floreana (as one of the oldest islands) is wild and beautiful. We spent the rest of the morning seeing all aspects of Floreana.

There was the beautiful lake with views of pink flamingos.

Here are some at maximum digital zoom.

And one a little closer.

And, as always, great beach views.

A bit of local wildlife...

A bit of human life:

Then we went to Champions Islet for some snorkeling. (Again, check our blog tomorrow for underwater photos)

And in the evening, it was back to mainland Floreana to view the sunset from Cormorant Point. Bear with me, I couldn't make up my mind which photos I liked better so I included about half of them.This one's the lake and a bit of the beach in the background.

Here's the sunset over the lake...

And several just of the ocean:

Another beautiful day, and growing friendships with our fellow pasajeros. As he did every night, Enrique went overthe next day's schedule. Then we ended the day with a poker game (using toothpicks for poker chips). I got to learn how to play Texas Hold’em, which is actually a really fun game! I have to admit, I like to bluff :) Happy with a full day, we took our motion sickness medicine and headed off to sleep.