Day 147: January 9, 2008 Isla Floreana
Trip Start
Aug 15, 2007
1
150
202
Trip End
Mar 01, 2008
Puerto Villamil,
Ecuador
Thursday, January 10, 2008
The crossing to Floreana was pleasant or it must have been; I slept through the whole thing. We awoke in a pleasant bay a half a kilometer offshore of Green Beach on Punta Cormoran, Isla Floreana. The island is covered with Palo Santo trees and boasts more than 60 late stage volcanic cones, none of which has any historic activity. An offshore, eroded tuff cone, Devil's Crown, lay off to our port side. Like yesterday, the sky was mercifully overcast, protecting us from the intense equatorial sun.
We took the panga in to Green Beach. With my hand lens, we examined the olivine-rich sand and then looked at exposures of a tuff cone and a cinder cone on the margins of the beach. Then, we took a short trail back to a lagoon on the other side of the dune that is fed by ocean water seeping through the sand. It is a haven for flamingos and about a dozen were scattered around the shallow water eating brine shrimp.
We countinued across the point to Flour Beach, a very fine-grained white sand beach composed of shell fragments and about 1% basalt fragments. Antonio took me aside and dug down 30 cm to show me another, medium-grained green sand beneath. It was about 70% olivine. Meanwhile, people down on the shoreline fotografed a school of stingrays. I got some pictures of Sally Lightfoot crabs and a sea cucumber.
We returned to the boat and quickly donned our snorkeling gear. The panga took 11 of us out to Devil's Crown and let us out in the deep water off of the rocks. The water was extremely clear and we could easily see the bottom more than 10 m below. The area near the rocks was teeming with fish. A couple of 2 m white-tipped sharks prowled the depths below us. Antonio showed me a nice stingray at the entrance to an underwater cave that goes through the rocks to the other side. I turned down his offer to swim through it with me.
It rained on us for about five minutes but for some reason, no one seemed to mind getting wet. A little while later, we were joined by two playful yearling male sea lions who swam with us for the rest of our dive, following us into the shallow crater on the other side of the rocks. They came within centimeters of my mask several times.
The bottom of the crater exhibited numerous red-spotted sea stars and bluish brittle stars. I saw a third, medium-sized sea star in the deeper water. The colors of the fish, corals, rocks, and sand were spectacular.
After an hour, we were ready to get out because we were getting cold. Joe dropped his camera getting into the panga and it sank to the bottom. Antonio dove in to look for it and miraculously found it after a 5-minute search.
We had lunch as we cruised 20 minutes to Post Office Bay, where pirates and whalers left messages and letters to be delivered by anyone heading in the direction of the address. A few people took some letters and several others left letters for delivery. I left three. We'll see if they get there!
We walked inland a hundred meters to visit a lava tube. Unfortunately, the batteries on my headlamp were about expired so I had to return to the surface. When the others returned, we returned to the boat and immediately set sail for Villamil on Isla Isabela. With three hours of sunlight left, a group of us stayed up on top looking for whales, dolphins and whale sharks, without luck. I admired the rugged volcanic landscape of the receding Floreana, counting more than 30 cones. As we headed northwest, Isla Tortuga and the Los Hermanos islands came into view, dwarfed by Sierra Negra and Cerro Azul, two active volcanoes on the south end of Isabela.
Antonio and I mapped out a future GSA trip as the sun set. After dark, we went into the salon for our cocktail hour. During dinner Antonio told me that seismic tremors occurred today beneath Tungurahua, on the mainland, suggesting that it may have a good eruption tomorrow. Todd and I tried to find the story on the news but all we got was politics and agricultural reports. I went below to write and turned in around 10:00.
