Day 23 - Galapagos - Floreana Island and sudden end to our cruise.

Neither of us could sleep last night.  My feet were hurting from the difficult walk and the boat was rocking about so much that I thought I was going to fall out of bed.  Eventually I got up and made my way to the bathroom and looked out.  The starry sky was amazing.  I could see the Plough so clearly up above and it looked so much nearer that when we see it at home.  Paul took a look and then we went out of our cabin and saw the other side of the boat.  We saw more stars than we have ever seen and also saw the milky way very clearly.  This is because we are close to the equator and there was no light pollution and no moon.  We watched this for some time before going back to bed where we did eventually get to sleep.  We thought it would easily photograph but it didn't.


We arrived at breakfast at 7.00 to be told that due to the Corona Virus, the Ecuadorian Government had given the instruction that all tourists must leave the island that day.  As we still had an 8 hour sailing to Baltra (where the airport is situated) they suggested we do our morning tour earlier (before breakfast) and the boat would set sail when we returned.  We were told that our travel agents were making arrangements for us to leave Galapagos on a 19:30 flight but without internet we didn't know anything more than that.


We visited Cormorant Point on Floreana Island which was the first of the islands to be populated.  Today there are around 100 people living there, employed in farming, fishing and tourism industries.  Here we saw nesting Blue Footed Boobies close up. 

Blue Footed Boobies

Blue Footed Boobies

Blue Footed Boobie

This island has freshwater lakes with Flamingos on.  These flamingos will not return to the mainland.  Sometimes they are joined by Chilean Flamingos who migrate but these birds are not as colourful.
  

Galapagos Flamingo

Galapagos Flamingo

Galapagos Flamingo

Galapagos Flamingo nest with chick on the right.

The freshwater lake on Floreana Island

Brown Pelican on the lake

Sanderlings?

The trail led us to a high point overlooking the lake where we had a really good view of all the flamingos.  We then walked to the other side of the island where there were a lot of recently dug turtle nests.  

View of lake from Lookout Point

Galapagos Flamingos from Lookout Point

Large Cricket or Grasshopper.

Caterpiller on the path.  We didn't see many butterflies on the islands we visited.  

We did see plenty of large Bumble Bees.

Floreana Beach area

We paddled into the sea up to a depth of about 18 inches and sting rays were swimming over our feet.  We were told that we were quite safe as long as we didn’t step on them so we just shuffled about and enjoyed watching them.  

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Best photo we got of a Stingray

We then returned to the Pangos and back to the boat which set sail immediately for Baltra Island.

We had breakfast then went back to the cabin to pack.  At about 11.30 we were all called out of our cabins because there were a group of Bottle Nose Dolphins swimming and diving around the boat.  The Captain slowed down and we all got some good photos.  We also saw Manta Rays occasionally.

Bottle Nose Dolphin

Bottle Nose Dolphin

Bottle Nose Dolphin

Manta Ray

We had the planned Ceviche demonstration at 12:00 which showed us how to make the Ecuadorian version of this Fish Soup.  We had lunch and then relaxed on the upper deck until 18:00 when we had a farewell cocktail followed by dinner and then left the boat at 19:00 for the airport.


There were not many passengers at the airport and the emergency flight that we were booked onto was not full although it was the last one taking foreign visitors back to Quito.  Quito was not our intended destination after the cruise – we should have gone to Guayaquil.  When we landed in Quito we were taken to a very nice airport hotel about 15 minutes drive away.  It had an enormous garden – almost a park – and a little petting zoo next door as well as a swimming pool and spa.  As it was after midnight we didn’t get a chance to look around.  We were told by the tour rep that we were booked on a flight to Guayaquil early the next morning.  

Although our tour finished unexpectedly early (about 1 and a half days) we were incredibly lucky to have been near the end when it happened.  Some tourists had only just arrived or didnt even get to the Galapagos as they were turned back at Quito airport.  The things we didnt see were the planned visit to Post Office Bay on Floreana where we were going to leave Post Cards for some future tourists to deliver back to us and we in turn would find post cards from earlier tourists that live near to us and delivery them ourselves.  This is how the postal system used to work when the islands were used as whaling posts.

We also missed visiting the islands of Santiago and Bartholome  where we were expecting to see Galapagos Penguins and a final stop at a point on Santa Cruz on the morning of our planned departure..  The other creature we didnt see were the Giant Tortoises.  These, along with the Galapagos Penguins, are now mainly confined to the western side of the archipelago so would be better seen on the other tour.  We did however see such a lot and learned such a lot on this short 5 night cruise and we did take part in all the tours, snorkelling trips and events on the boat.