Day Four
The wakeup call comes early - 5:30 a.m.! We are anchored off of Floreana at a landing site called Punta Cormorant and the morning hike starts at 6:00 a.m. so the heat will be less intense and the photographers will have ideal light conditions. Stan has been up for a while anyway photographing the night sky at the edge of dawn.

Floreana offers more vegetation and because it is the rainy season there are blossoms and even flowers so we see Galapagos bees as well as lots of birds that are nesting. There is a brackish lake where we see two flamingos in the distance. The Galapagos Flamingo is in decline and the guides are happy that we at least saw two.

We return to the ship for breakfast and kit up for snorkeling around Champion Islet just off the edge of Floreana. There are some currents here so there are different kinds of fish to be seen and the schools are bigger than we saw the first day. The big surprise of the day was having a white tipped reef shark swim underneath us. Stan got really lucky and caught him on video because he swam through when a large school of colourful fish were around us.

The daily schedule is organized to keep us out of the strong sun so we have some time back on board for photo seminars and break out sessions as well as time to have a siesta in one of the hammocks hung in shady parts of the deck, or on lounges or on beds in our well air-conditioned rooms.

Late in the afternoon we land at Post Office Bay to visit the Post Office Barrel. This location has been in use since the early exploration and whaling days. It was first mentioned in writing in 1793. Sailors wrote letters and dropped them here. The next ship along would go through the mail and find the letters that were addressed to go to the ports they were headed for and would take them to deliver when they arrived. We went through the cards that had been posted and found only one that we could hand deliver and it is actually headed for Indialantic where I am teaching in April. We have posted cards for the kids and the parents and we will will see how long it takes for them to reach us.

No surprise we were really early to bed. We have seen the itinerary for the next day and know it will be tiring.