Floreana Island

From the itinerary: Cormorant Point and Post Office Bay

We started with watching the sunrise from "our place" - we found two seats in front of the bridge that no one knows about. In the morning it's amazingly quiet and peaceful. We thought we saw the Lock Ness monster, but it turned out to be a rock.

Breakfast was fruit, scrambled eggs, and a plantain pancake - quite tasty.

Today was a bit of a logistical nightmare that was timed down to the minute. Cormorant Point was not a place to see cormorants, but did have some very beautiful Blue Footed Boobies that were just about ready to mate

a Great Blue Heron

male and female lava lizards

and flamingos. They were all local flamingos; although, sometimes one can see Chilean or US flamingos.

We crossed over to a beautiful beach

were we saw some rays, but I couldn't get a shot in the surf, and crabs.

There were some pretty flowers

and a boobie fishing

Later on in the morning we went for a snorkel along a coral wall and saw some pretty fish. I also saw my first rock fish - unfortunately no photo. Here are some photo highlights using my GoPro.

Lunch was Ecuadorian cuisine starting with a fried egg, sweet potato pancake with some gravy followed by chicken, salad, and potatoes.

Finally a video of the boat - a passenger interrupted me, so there are 2 videos instead of 1

After lunch we had some time off and spent it trying to download photos for this blog with mixed success. We did this until the plague of flies began. What was surprising is the flies

wouldn't go away even with the wind picked up. I went down into my cabin.... Further miracle, my iphone appears to charge normally now, so crisis averted.

The next activity was a zodiac ride through a quiet area where we saw about 7 sea turtles, one of which was an old female who was quite large. We also saw a small black ray. Unfortunately no good pictures of anything and we weren't allowed to snorkel here.

We had to go to a beach on the part of the island where pirates put a mail box in the 1700s. Idea being you leave post cards and others pick them up for hand delivery. There were about 100 post cards in a wooden box. I added my three and took out three that I will deliver. I felt conned. No one reading this blog will get there post card - sorry about that.

This part of the island had horse flies and it was hot, so I was in a big hurry to get snorkeling. This wasn't as good as the morning swim - turgid and not as many fish - but I did see some nice parrot fish and an eel.

Sixteen of the current passengers leave tomorrow, so there was a "goodbye cocktail" party where they served blackberry daiquiris and toasted the crew,

The below boat flood lights were on and the fish frenzy started. Some sharks were visible, but nothing like last night.

Dinner was shrimp, mash and vegetables or filet mignon. I had the shrimp, Chris the beef.

The night is again clear and the stars beautiful for our three hour journey to Santa Cruz Island. Here is the Montserrat video montage of the four days of this itinerary