Galapagos Trip 2023 -- Day 6 -- Floreana Island, Part 2 -- Post Office Bay

After our exploration by panga of the area around Onslow Islet, we proceeded further southwest along the coast and made a wet landing on a green sandy beach in what is known as Post Office Bay.  Yes it really was green, or at least had a greenish tint.  More on that later. 

GPS track of the Day 6 morning adventures on the northern shore of Foreana Island

As seen in the photos below, the setting was quite picturesque. 

Beach at Post Office Bay

Beach at Post Office Bay with La Pinta in the distance

Why is this called "Post Office Bay"?  To answer that, we first we need a little history.  Commercial whaling was a major economic activity in the world in the 18th and 19th centuries. It was driven primarily by the need for whale oil to illuminate homes and to lubricate machines of the Industrial Revolution.  

Whaling begins in the Pacific.  By the latter part of the 18th century competition, trade restrictions, and a significantly reduced Atlantic whale population resulted in exploration of the Pacific as a potential new source of whales.  In 1788, the British whaler Emilia  undertook the first major Pacific whale hunts, finding whales off the South American coast.  That extremely successful voyage prompted many others in Britain and the U.S. to soon follow.  It was found that the nutrient rich waters around the Galapagos Islands as well as a deep water area to the west of the islands were prime locations for whales.

Floreana Island became a major whaling stopover.  Whaling expeditions typically lasted two years or longer.  Floreana Island in the Galapagos became a major stopover for  provisioning of ships.  It was one of the only islands with fresh water and it also had a plentiful source of fresh meat, the tortoises.  Given the description below of the whalers' diet staple, salt meat, it is no wonder ships would go out of their way to seek provisions of fresh meat.

Fresh meat of any kind was indeed a wondrous change for sailors restricted to a diet of salt meat. It is hard to imagine how unpalatable and disgusting salt meat truly was. Beef and pork—and occasionally horse—were chopped up, with no attempt to separate the bones and fat, and then thrown into wooden casks of salt brine where the meat would turn green with age.

Somebody's brilliant idea.  To take advantage of all of these ships stopping at Floreana Island, the whalers setup their own whaler post office. As legend has it, a wooden whiskey barrel was left on Floreana Island in 1793.  Any passing sailor could leave a letter in the barrel, but he also had to check if there was any mail that he might be able to deliver when he returned home.  When he finally reached port he was then responsible to deliver it. This was obviously a very slow mailing system, but it was simple and it worked for centuries.

It is still working!  There is still a barrel at Post Office Bay.  It is no more than a hundred yards or so from the beach.    This system has been in continuous use since it first started over 200 years ago.

"Post Office" at Post Office Bay

Even the post office has an interesting tidbit of history.  British whaling vessels had acted as privateers when Britain had conflicts with other nations and, as such, were considered fair game in time of war.  During the War of 1812, the American frigate USS Essex, under Captain David Porter, was dispatched to the Pacific.  She decimated the British whaling fleet, capturing 12 British whalers and taking 360 prisoners.   As the story goes, Capt. Porter was able to identify what British whaling ships were in the area and their approximate locations by going through the mail left in the post office barrel on Floreana Island. 

The first USS Essex of the United States Navy was a 36-gun or 32-gun sailing frigate that participated in the Quasi-War with France, the First Barbary War, and in the War of 1812. The British captured her in 1814 and she then served as HMS Essex until sold at public auction in 1837. (By Joseph Howard (1789 - 1857) - Originally from de.wikipedia; description page is/was here., Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=1741968)

 Visiting the Post Office. While we gathered around, the guides dug out the postcards left in the barrel and began to read off addresses.  Quite a few postcards were claimed by our group to be delivered once they returned home.  We did not hear any cities close to us, so we did not take any.  However, we did leave some from us, hopefully to be picked up and delivered by future visitors.

Guides with the postcards

Reading off destination cities on the postcards

There is more.  While people were milling around I went over and acted like I was checking out the inside, which actually I was.  Inside the barrel above the door was a geocache, GC3ND9R.  Found and log signed!

Back out on the beach. Once that was finished, we began to move on to other activities.  Most of the group was going snorkeling off the beach.  We were going to explore a bit and see what there was to see.  With that in mind, we started to walk down the beach.

Frog on the beach at Post Office Bay.  Several of the cinder or tuff cones are visible in the distance.

Another geocache.  However, the first order of business was yet another geocache, Green Sand Beach Earthcache (GC521N2)..  As the name implies, this has to do with the fact that this is a green beach.  

Only four green beaches in the world.  According to this article there are only four green beaches in the world:  Papakolea Beach on Hawaii's big island, Talofofo Beach on Guam, Hornindalsvatnet in Norway, and what they list as Punta Cormorant, which is on Floreana Island a bit further east from Post Office Bay.  Punta Cormorant is part of the afternoon adventures.

One requirement for claiming the cache was to identify what colors are in the sand and the approximate percentage of each.  Below is a picture of sand we scooped up off the beach.

Dry sand from the beach

The first thing to note is that this is dry sand.  Any dark color is the color of the sand, not from being wet.  Below is a blow-up of sand on the beach which I took later that may be wet.  However it really shows the array of different things in the sand..

Close-up of the sand

Rainbow of colors.  All of the rock/dirt/sand on the island came from the magma ejected when the volcano that created this island erupted.  As the magma cooled, crystals were formed. These crystals can be a rainbow of colors depending on which minerals are present.  In this case there appears to be some red from iron, as we saw in great abundance on Rabida Island.  The white is probably silica and the black is probably basalt.  However, of interest here is the green, which is the mineral olivine.  

Question for my snorkeling friends:  Olivine is more dense than the black lava rock.  Wave action on the beach will tend to wash away the less dense lava rock and concentrate the olivine crystals on the beach.  I saw one place that suggested the sand under the water is therefore darker, i.e. more rich in lava rock, than the sand on the beach, which contains more olivine.  Did you observe that?

Olivine crystals.  Olivine is a magnesium iron silicate.  It is the most abundant mineral in the earth's upper mantle.   I don't know much geology, but my understanding is that to form crystals and hence be able to create a green beach, the magma had to be explosively expelled through water.  I don't know what happened here, but it is true that there are on the order of 50 cinder cones (baby volcanoes?) on the island.  There was enough soft material (cinders and/or tuff?) ejected from these that enabled them to grow to hill or mountain size.

Floreana Island is a broad shield volcano whose surface is densely covered with cinder cones. The most conspicuous of these is Cerro de Pajas, seen here from the north with a spatter cone in the right foreground  There are more than 50 cinder cones dotting the island. (Photo by Ed Vicenzi, 2002, Smithsonian Institution.  https://volcano.si.edu/volcano.cfm?vn=353805&vtab=Photos)

Weathering of olivine.  Despite the fact that olivine is the most abundant mineral in the earth's upper mantle, it weathers rapidly above ground.  The olivine which which weathers away on the beach is replenished by material from the cinder/tuff mounds on the island.  The decomposition process involves combination with CO2 and is, in fact, one of nature's ways of removing CO2 from the atmosphere.  Some have suggested that olivine, volcanic ash and similar silicate rocks should be mined, milled, and spread  widely, mainly in the humid tropics where weathering rates are highest.  This would increase the rate of weathering and reduce the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere.  Who knew!?

Oops.  I am geeking out again.

Back to the travel blog.  As we walked down the beach, we saw one or two blue-footed boobies flying over the water.

 

Boobies hunting for breakfast.  It soon became apparent that they were looking for breakfast. They would fly along scanning the water below.  We could not see anything in the water, but they apparently could.

Once they spotted something they would generally turn back and hover in place, aligning on the selected target

Then they would begin a near vertical powered dive.

 

 Once close to the water they pulled back their wings along their body.

They entered the water looking like a  torpedo.  My guidebook says they may be going as fast as 60 mph when they break the water.

After a small splash, there was a longer than expected delay.  Apparently they swoop down under their prey and grab them from below on the way up.

Then they reappeared and flew low above the water, most of the time getting ready for another go around.  I never saw them with a fish, but the guidebook indicated they can swallow fish underwater, at the surface, or in flight.  If this bird caught anything, he always swallowed it under the water.

 Blue-footed boobies are comical birds when they are walking around on land, but they are anything but while diving for food.  There were only a couple of birds, but they were incredible to watch.  We spent quite some time just watching them dive over and over again.

Snorkeling.  By this time, most of the snorkelers were making their way into the water, so we walked back down to watch them.

We were content sitting on the beach watching the action, but the panga arrived to take those of us not snorkeling back to the ship.  Off we went.  That gave us plenty of time to get ready for lunch and one last afternoon of activities.

Galapagos Trip 2023 -- Day 6 -- Floreana Island, Part 1--Onslow Islet

We had spent a busy day on Santa Cruz Island visiting the Charles Darwin Research Station, exploring Puerto Ayora, then heading to Rancho el Manzanillo in the highlands to see wild tortoises. 

We ate dinner while anchored in Academy Bay off of Puerto Ayora.  As usual we had our choice of seafood, meat or vegetarian.  I didn't usually take pictures of the meals, all of which were fantastic, but I was particularly impressed by the size of the shrimp in what was billed as shrimp scampi. 

Shrimp scampi

I fix shrimp scampi at home, but it doesn't look anything like this.  Every time I looked at these shrimp, I kept thinking of Paul Hogan in one of the 1980's commercials for Australia tourism saying in his Australian accent,  "I'll slip another shrimp on the barbie for you."

We weighed anchor about 10:30 pm and headed almost due south.  Our destination for today was Floreana Island, the southern most island in the archipelago.

Combined gps tracks for the entire trip.  Floreana Island is the southern most island.  The track for today is the aqua colored track,

Onslow Islet.  First up after breakfast was a panga exploration of the shoreline in and around Onslow Islet, a tiny island off the northern coast of Floreana Island.

Northern shore of Floreana Island with the aqua gps track of today's adventures, Onslow Islet, Post Office Bay, and Champion Islet.

It soon became obvious that we were winding our way through an obstacle course  of  lava outcroppings.  A variety of birds and animals were taking advantage of these various rocks jutting above the water to catch some early morning sun.  I think we were four pangas spaced closely together since this was a very small space.  We wove in, out, and around the lava outcroppings.

Blue-footed boobies and a camouflaged marine iguana on the lava rocks next to Onslow Islet

Despite this big influx of people, the various critters seemed not to be concerned and totally ignored us.

Sea lion and some blue-footed boobies

This sea lion has an itch

Yet another blue-footed booby

We saw multiple blue-footed boobies that were happy to pose for us. And to think that before we arrived in Galapagos I was afraid I would not see any at all.

Pelican

We made our way into a little cove formed by the shape of the islet.  Just like the smaller outcroppings we had been circling, the island was made up of blocks of lava,  I am not sure, but presume this is more pillow lava like we saw at North Seymour Island, hunks or pillows of rock formed when magma is extruded underwater.

Galapagos prickly pear sitting at the very edge of the island

On shore there were lots of Galapagos prickly pear cacti.  I am not sure what prickly pear  subspecies it is, but it is clearly one of the ones with higher branches.  From a distance they almost look like normal trees.  Their trunks (if that is the correct term) seem massive.  I don't know if it is unique to this subspecies, but one of the guides made the point that it is unusual to have cactus so close to water.

It was about this time when everyone started to notice several sizeable groups of penguins in the water.

Multiple penguins in the water just below the surface, one of several such groups that appeared here all at once.

Some of the penguins came right up to the pangas.

A penguin right next to us

I was genuinely surprised to see them, because I thought they all lived in the cooler waters to the west of Fernandina.  According to Wikipedia most of them do live there, but a small population is known to live on the north and west coast of Floreana, i.e. where we are today.

Moving along, we could see a sandy beach on the small peninsula of Floreana Island that juts out towards Onslow Islet.

Beach with some sea lions at the water's edge.  The dark areas in the water are more lava rock just below the surface.  The water is low enough that some are sticking out above the water on the left.  I am not sure, but I think the tide was out.  This beach may not exist at higher tides.

We were weaving around the outcroppings, but the aerial picture below shows we were only seeing a tiny fraction of  the rock.  The water is so clear the lava formations below the water are readily visible.

Aerial photo of location of morning panga ride near Onslow Islet showing lots and lots of lava rock below the water as well as above.  Onslow Islet is the dumbbell shaped island near the top.  The small peninsula at the lower right is part of Floreana Island.

Just offshore of the beach was a small cluster of mangroves.

Mangrove trees

As we got closer and circled around, we could see a few orange Sally Lightfoot Crabs in among the roots.  Although we couldn't get a good picture, a sea lion had crawled up into the branches (probably at high tide) and appeared sound asleep in his secure little hiding spot.

A Sally Lightfoot Crab at the base of the mangroves

There was even a lava heron down under the trees intently waiting for a fish to go by.

Lava heron under the mangroves.  Check out those mangrove roots!

Post Office Bay. We had seen a surprisingly wide range of interesting things on this adventure, but the day was young and we were just getting started.  Once past the mangroves, we proceeded further southwest along the coast and into world famous Post Office Bay.  There we did a wet landing onto the green sandy beach  That is the subject of the next post.

Galapagos Trip 2023 -- Day 5 -- Santa Cruz Highlands

CAUTION   --  I KIND OF GEEKED OUT -- THERE ARE STILL LOTS OF PICTURES TO SCAN IF YOU GET BORED WITH THE SCIENCE

We had had a busy morning on Santa Cruz island, first visiting the Charles Darwin Research Station, then exploring Puerto Ayora including the Fish Market.  We had a very enjoyable lunch at Finch Bay Hotel.

Now it was time for our next adventure, a visit to the Santa Cruz highlands.  Specifically we were going to Rancho el Manzanilla, a ranch in the highlands, to look for giant tortoises.

The Turkey stalking a tortoise at Rancho el Mazanillo in the Santa Cruz highlands

As seen in the photo above, the vegetation in the highlands is totally different from the mangroves along the coast or the cacti and palo santo trees of the slightly more interior arid regions.  The highlands had thick grass, shrubs, ponds, and trees! 

Vegetation zones vs altitude.  Like the other islands in the archipelago, Santa Cruz Island was formed from a volcano, however now extinct.  The highest point on the island is 2,835 feet.  The existence of the mountain leads to the climatic phenomenon known as the rain-shadow effect:

Prevailing winds blowing across the ocean contain some moisture. When they encounter an island with high elevations, like Isabela or Santa Cruz, they are forced to rise. At higher elevations, they become chilled and their water condenses as rain or mist, which precipitates out at high elevation on the windward side of the island. On the leeward side, there is very little moisture left in the air and the climate is, if anything, more arid than normal. Thus, the larger island have a distinct zonation of moisture that forms the basis for its ecological communities.

Habitat zones as a function of altitude on an island such as Santa Cruz (https://www.geol.umd.edu/sgc/GEOL388/lectures/07.html)

The difference in rainfall vs altitude leads to different vegetation zones at different elevations (see diagram above).  

I believe all of the shore visits so far have been in either littoral (coastal) zones or in arid zones (roughly up to an elevation of 300 feet (91 m) on the southern sides and as much as 1600 feet (488 m) on the drier northern sides).  Both of these zones have little rainfall. 

Above the arid zone is the transitional zone, which is characterized by increasing moisture and hence more lush vegetation.  The scalesia zone, roughly 650-1300 feet (198-396 m), is the lowest of the humid zones and is named after the scalesia tree which grows at these elevations in dense forests. .

Below is a map of Santa Cruz Island with elevation shown by the colors.  The elevations near the center are clearly high enough for significantly greener vegetation than anything we had seen so far.

Map of Santa Cruz Island. El Chato is the location of another tortoise ranch.  Rancho el Mazanillo is SSE of the point labeled La Casseta. (By Bamse - own work, using:File:Ecuador Galápagos Islands location map.svg by NordNordWest, GFDL, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=49195398)

The Highlands--Traditional Home of the Tortoises.  The highlands are the home of dome-shaped tortoises.  Giant tortoises have long lived in the highlands and on the southern slope where the climate is wetter and the vegetation is more abundant.  Of course, humans looking for an ideal location for farming and ranching  chose this same area for much the same reason. 

When the Galapagos National Park was created in 1959, 97% of the land surface of the archipelago was set aside as a protected area.  This includes most of Santa Cruz Island (see below).  The remaining 3% was land already owned and in use by the human settlers.  It was to remain zoned for human use.  That included much of the Santa Cruz highlands as shown in tan below. 

Boundary of Galapagos National Park on Santa Cruz Island.  I think Rancho el Manzanillo is on the edge of the Impact Reduction Zone at the west end of the straight east-west boundary near the center. (https://www.scirp.org/journal/paperinformation.aspx?paperid=89472#return81)

However, the tortoises either did not get the memo or chose to ignore it.  The tortoises continued to live and migrate through the areas assigned to the colonists.  It has taken awhile, but it appears the two groups have found a way to live together.  Rancho el Manzanillo is one of three ranches/reserves (and the newest, I think) where tourists can view wild tortoises in the Santa Cruz highlands on what is essentially ranch land.

Drive to the highlands.  Below is the gps track of our trip on a topo map.  It was about a 10 mile bus ride from Puerto Ayora to Rancho el Manzanillo.  Our bus followed the main road out of Puerto Ayora, It is mostly the ONLY road.  It eventually goes as far as the ferry to Baltra Island where the airport is located. 

Away from the water it was an immediate and steady uphill climb.  As soon as we got away from the first few block from the water, we were into the non-tourist area of town with houses, schools, a large soccer field, etc.  

As we got further from downtown the contrast between the very upscale homes in German town we had seen earlier and the homes here was stark.  Most of the homes were cinder block.  Many were unpainted.  Many of them had what looked like rebar sticking out of the top of the building, leaving an unfinished top floor.  Our guide commented on this, indicating they had been left partly unfinished until the occupants could save enough money to finish them  It is so common that this article refereed to the architecture style as "permanently unfinished".

At some point, probably after the left turn at Bellevista, it became ranch land with scattered homes.  There were multiple fields of grass enclosed by barbed wire with a few cattle.  There were also a few small stands of plants that I thought might be bananas.  In any case, the area obviously has more rainfall than lower elevations.  That is consistent with an elevation of 624 feet at Bellevista on my gps.

I don't know the speed limit, but we moved right along except for intermittent speed bumps.  I also noticed there was a bike/walking path parallel to the highway but somewhat separated.  Despite the long uphill grade, I saw multiple people on bikes with packages.  It looked like the bicycle was likely their normal means of transportation.

GPS track of our trip

Side road  to Rancho el Manzanillo.  A few miles further we came to the turn off to Rancho el Manzanillo  My gps had an elevation of 1213 feet at the turn off, which should have been the scalesia zone.  However there were no scalesia forests here.   Everything had been cleared for agriculture decades ago. 

The drive back to the ranch was a  downhill drop on an unpaved road.  By the time we reached the parking lot, my gps was back down to 600 feet elevation.  We stopped multiple times due to tortoises in the road.  There were barbed wire fences on either side of the drive in most places, but they were not to contain the tortoises.  The bottom strand was set high enough to let the tortoises pass under.  

This is not our picture, but I believe it is the same entrance road.  Note the tortoise crossing sign.  (https://www.metropolitan-touring.com/blog/nature/giant-tortoises-highlands-santa-cruz/)

Rancho el Manzanillo.  Despite the tortoises in the road, we made it. The first order of business was moving to the open pavilion where we got rubber boots.  It was very reminiscent of getting bowling shoes.  We each asked for a size and they pulled a pair off the shelf. 

I was very glad for the boots.  It was not terribly wet or muddy the day we were there, but our shoes would probably have gotten wet from all of the tall grass. What is not apparent in any of the pictures are the MANY rocks (dare I say boulders) often as big as bowling balls hiding in the long grass that made walking a challenge.

With boots on we were off.  Almost immediately we began to see tortoises. 

Tortoises were randomly scattered around.  This was immediately in front of the parking lot.

The tortoises were totally wild, but could care less about humans.

He just kept munching away on the grass despite the crowd watching him

Grass hanging out of the left side of his mouth

Tortoises are ectothermic (proper name for "cold-blooded"), unable to metabolically generate body heat.  However, adult tortoises can maintain a relatively stable body temperature by behavior alone, i.e. moving into sunlight to warm up, moving into the shade to cool down, or possibly submerging in mud or water.  Several of the tortoises were taking advantage of a small muddy pond.

One of the tortoises was on his way into the water.  Notice the duck standing near the edge.

Sometimes tortoises will sleep overnight in the water because it helps regulate their body temperature.

This guy had worked his way down into the mud

Most of the tortoises we saw were wandering around munching on grass.  I don't know which is more interesting, the tortoise munching on grass...

Not sure how easy it is to see, but the white streaks on his chin are stained green from the grass

...or all the people watching him.

Most of the tortoises were chilling out, but some seemed to be in a hurry to get somewhere.  This one seemed to be on a mission.  These shots taken one after another make him look like he is really moving along.

 

 This video below is of him at normal speed, NOT slow-motion.

He may have been in a hurry, but hurry and fast are not the same thing.  Top speed for a Giant tortoise is about 0.2 mph.  However, even at that speed they can travel as much as 4 miles in a day.

Migrating to the Coast.  Although the tortoises spend a lot of time in the highlands, they do migrate between the highlands and the coast.  Importantly, the females lay their eggs on the coast.  Each female may lay several clutches.  Development is slow and eggs must incubate anywhere from four to eight months. Once hatched, the small tortoises live at lower altitudes, but eventually wander to the higher altitudes.  They reach sexual maturity at 20-25 years and are full size by age 40.  However, I could never find out at what age they typically return to the highlands.

Below is a map showing the gps tracks of some tortoises on Santa Cruz Island migrating between the  the highlands and the coast.  I think the easternmost set of tracks at the bottom likely include those at Rancho el Manzanillo.

Santa Cruz Island vegetation zones.  Black lines are gps tracks of migrating giant tortoises.  (https://phys.org/news/2012-11-galapagos-tortoises-migrating-species.html)

 

Why go to the coast?  As I was reading about all of this, I kept wondering why the tortoises bothered to migrate.  Why didn't they just stay in the highlands where it seemed living was good. I finally found this explanation in the book Galapagos: A Natural History, 2nd Edition, by John Kricher and Kevin Loughlin, page 137 (my underlining):

In recent years it has been learned that in many reptile species, sex is determined not chromosomally, as in birds and mammals, but essentially by the temperature at which the eggs are incubated while buried.  This appears to be the case with Galapagos tortoises. Research at the Charles Darwin Research Station has shown that embryos become males if the incubation temperature is less than 83 F (28.5 C).  Higher temperatures influence embryos to become female.  Recall that the tortoises bury their eggs in the lower and hotter zones found on the various islands.  Both males and females can be produced in a single nest because the actual egg temperature may vary somewhat based on the position of the egg in the clutch.  It is obvious as to why female domed tortoises must migrate to the arid lowlands for nest building. Were they to nest in the cool highlands, eggs would take much longer to incubate, many would perish from the cold temperature, and any that hatched would be males.

Interesting Flora.  Obviously our focus was primarily on the tortoises, but we still couldn't get over all of the lush green foliage so obvious in these shots.

 

 

Some of the trees looked like they had Spanish moss.

In one particularly wet area near a pond, the ferns were impressive.

Even though we were probably low enough in elevation that we were in the transition zone rather than the more humid scalesia zone, there was obviously a good amount of moisture here.  The plants were impressive.

If only the tortoises could tell their story.  Still, it was the tortoises I keep thinking about.

If only he could talk, I wonder what he would say.

Although mariners had been stopping at the islands for centuries, the earliest settlers came to Santa Cruz Island in the mid-1930's.  Presumably the highlands would not have been settled and cleared for agriculture until then or later, i.e. no more than about 90 years ago.  Giant tortoises can live 100-150 years or even longer.  Not only could the same families of tortoises have been coming back to this same location each year since before humans cleared the land, but the very tortoises we were interacting with, if they are older, may have been coming to this spot since then.  No wonder they acted like they own the place!

Iced tea, gift shop, and coffee farm??  We had really enjoyed wandering around looking at everything, but it was getting late.  We made our way back and handed in our boots.  Then we went to the beautiful open air restaurant and enjoyed some iced tea and downtime.

Paul tried out one of the hammocks

After someone mentioned how nice the gift shop was, we dashed over and found some t-shirts. 

It was only after I was home that I discovered online that the owner of Rancho el Manzanillo  (at least some time in the past) grew coffee on the property.  Coffee grown in Galpagos is supposed to be to die for.  However it is very hard to find.  After all, space for agriculture in the islands is very limited.  I did not see any such coffee for sale in the gift shop, but I wasn't looking for it.  If it was there, don't tell me.  I will never forgive myself for not getting some if it was available.

By the time we finished in the gift shop, the guide was pacing in front of the bus wondering where we were so we clamored aboard and the bus took off for Puerto Ayora.  We were soon back at the passenger dock.  While we waited at the dock for the pangas to take us back to the ship, the sun was setting, the temperature was coming down, and the entire area was coming alive with people. 

Of course there were also wildlife to watch.  There was a pelican who had a favorite spot on the dock railing.  He would watch intently, then dive into the water.  I don't know if he ever caught anything, but we sure enjoyed watching him.

Pelican watching for fish at the passenger dock in Puerto ayora

It had been an extremely busy day, but we had seen and learned so much.  We only had one more full day to go, but it was something I had been looking forward to seeing, Post Office Bay.