Floreana Island
Dawn finds us off Floreana Island, one of the outer islands of the Galápagos. The early morning call is for mail — delivering and dropping off using the traditional method, the Post Office Barrel. Whalers and other mariners might be at sea for years, waiting for a full hold of whale oil before returning to home ports. The only way to send mail and receive it was to drop it off in special places, then trust someone to pick it up when they were about to leave. Mail is left, mail picked up, no stamp required, and don’t dare just mail it when you get to Miami! Hand delivery, as in the days of sail, is mandatory.
It’s a short trip to the small island of Champion. Sharp eyes are on the top deck and soon the call “there she blows!” Our first whale! — A Bryde’s whale (pronounced “brooders’ whale”). It sticks around diving and surfacing unpredictably until everyone has seen it.
The playful sea lions of Champion provided company for the snorkelers. Another group went power birding. The island is small and predator-free. It shows, for there are nesting swallow-tail gulls under the cactus, red-billed tropic birds deep in cracks in the lava cliffs, and scores of Galapagos shearwater milling around the island. Champion is also home to the Charles (or better, Floreana) Mockingbird (Charles was the English name for the island).
Charles Darwin wrote when he visited the islands:
“My attention was first thoroughly aroused by comparing together the numerous specimens, shot by myself and several other parties on board, of the mocking-thrushes, when, to my astonishment, I discovered that all those from Charles Island belonged to one species; all from Albemarle Island to (another species); and all from James and Chatham Islands (to a third species).”
From his experience, he might have expected species to be mixed up — perhaps some island might have no species, others might have several, and for islands to share the same species with the mainland. He later wrote “these were aboriginal productions” — meaning they were made here. But how were they made? Of course, we know that he eventually came up with the answer: they evolved here, each island its own separate species.
Sadly, the Charles Mockingbird is now extinct on the main island of Floreana. Introduced goats and cattle stripped the vegetation and rats ate the eggs and nestlings. The bird that gave young Charles Darwin’s his momentous insight is now one of the rarest birds on Earth, with only about 200 left, living on Champion and one other remote and predator-free island nearby.
Snorkelers had a banner day today with a second trip, and kayakers had their day, too. For the rest of us, the end of a perfect day was a gentle walk to see flamingoes on a lagoon — several were nesting. And, as we watched the sun set, our guides recalled the tales of mystery and mayhem that make Floreana such a haunted island.
Dawn finds us off Floreana Island, one of the outer islands of the Galápagos. The early morning call is for mail — delivering and dropping off using the traditional method, the Post Office Barrel. Whalers and other mariners might be at sea for years, waiting for a full hold of whale oil before returning to home ports. The only way to send mail and receive it was to drop it off in special places, then trust someone to pick it up when they were about to leave. Mail is left, mail picked up, no stamp required, and don’t dare just mail it when you get to Miami! Hand delivery, as in the days of sail, is mandatory.
It’s a short trip to the small island of Champion. Sharp eyes are on the top deck and soon the call “there she blows!” Our first whale! — A Bryde’s whale (pronounced “brooders’ whale”). It sticks around diving and surfacing unpredictably until everyone has seen it.
The playful sea lions of Champion provided company for the snorkelers. Another group went power birding. The island is small and predator-free. It shows, for there are nesting swallow-tail gulls under the cactus, red-billed tropic birds deep in cracks in the lava cliffs, and scores of Galapagos shearwater milling around the island. Champion is also home to the Charles (or better, Floreana) Mockingbird (Charles was the English name for the island).
Charles Darwin wrote when he visited the islands:
“My attention was first thoroughly aroused by comparing together the numerous specimens, shot by myself and several other parties on board, of the mocking-thrushes, when, to my astonishment, I discovered that all those from Charles Island belonged to one species; all from Albemarle Island to (another species); and all from James and Chatham Islands (to a third species).”
From his experience, he might have expected species to be mixed up — perhaps some island might have no species, others might have several, and for islands to share the same species with the mainland. He later wrote “these were aboriginal productions” — meaning they were made here. But how were they made? Of course, we know that he eventually came up with the answer: they evolved here, each island its own separate species.
Sadly, the Charles Mockingbird is now extinct on the main island of Floreana. Introduced goats and cattle stripped the vegetation and rats ate the eggs and nestlings. The bird that gave young Charles Darwin’s his momentous insight is now one of the rarest birds on Earth, with only about 200 left, living on Champion and one other remote and predator-free island nearby.
Snorkelers had a banner day today with a second trip, and kayakers had their day, too. For the rest of us, the end of a perfect day was a gentle walk to see flamingoes on a lagoon — several were nesting. And, as we watched the sun set, our guides recalled the tales of mystery and mayhem that make Floreana such a haunted island.
