Welcome to Floreana Island in the Galapagos!

Our boat travels all night to get here. After a 7am breakfast, we shuttle to land for several hours of exploration on Floreana.

We are greeted by these guys, who could not have been more non-chalant about our arrival.

The sea lions hang out like they own the place (I guess they kind of do) and the tourists are just traipsing through their home.

We land on a green sand beach. Our guide Eduardo has binoculars so that we can examine the sand up close to see the color more clearly.

Check out this display of sea urchin remnants; it’s left on a rock for the tour guides to show off to their respective groups.

We trek over to a lagoon to watch flamingos. Floreana Island is one of only a few places in the Galapagos where you can see pink flamingos (Isabela lsland is another spot).

I love the texture of this cracked dirt.

The photo I took below has been used for on-set posters for the HBO show The Newsroom.

Flamingos!

We continue our hike to another bay, this time featuring a white sand beach. It’s stunning.

I love the bold pop of red color on this crab.

I call this next photo “peaceful co-existence.”

The guy below cracks me up, the way he’s “protecting” himself.

We return to the boat for lunch and begin to sail to nearby Post Office Bay.

This is the view out my room window as we dock.

There is a long tradition at Post Office Bay that dates back to the whaling days of the 1800s — people stop by this wooden barrel and pour over the mail to see if any letters are destined for their home country. They would then hand-deliver the letters, no postage required! While this may be an inefficient system, nothing beats the personal touch of a hand delivery.

Recent postcards are kept in a plastic bag inside the battered barrel.

Note the blue Limburg sticker on the right side of the barrel opening — that’s the region of The Netherlands I studied abroad in during college! Small world.

This tradition is still alive today. I dropped off a postcard for my parents, and then I picked up these two postcards addressed to people in Cape Cod (where I would be visiting over the holidays).

I am happy to report that I delivered them as intended! While I wasn’t able to speak to the recipients (in both cases they weren’t home so I left them with family members who answered the door), I did get some weird looks when I explained that I was a total stranger hand delivering a postcard from South America.

Sadly, it’s now been three years and my parents never received the postcard I addressed to them. Since the cards in the barrel seemed to be current (all dated within the previous year), I suspect mine is now long gone. But if someone miraculously drops it off one day, my faith in humanity will be restored.

These large, rusting containers are remnants from World War II, when nearby Baltra was used as a Naval base.

We continue hiking towards a nearby lava tube.

At a certain point we hit water. Our tour guide and Rob the Australian forge ahead, swimming into the dark. They are braver souls than I!

The photo below has also been used for on-set promotional posters for HBO’s The Newsroom.

Then we enjoy some shallow water snorkeling on the nearby beach.

Once we’re back on board, everyone retreats to their rooms to shower. Then it’s time for snacks and happy hour!

This ends up being one of the best sunsets of the trip.

A last look back at Floreana in twilight.

We are prepared for a rough night’s sleep. The boat will travel overnight from Floreana to Espanola, right in the path of heavy northbound currents. Check out this map:

[original image here]

Since we’re at the southern-most point of the Galapagos, there are no islands to break those currents before they hit us. So our little boat is vulnerable to lots of rocking back and forth all night long. Good thing I brought along Bonine.

But the long night proves worthwhile when we are greeted with views of Espanola the next morning. This will turn out to be my favorite island.

A full report on Espanola coming up soon!