Galápagos Islands: Floreana, a three-hour tour

I’m so overwhelmed I don’t know where to start. I began my day at what in just 48 hours has to have become one of my favorite spots on Earth: Mann beach in San Cristóbal Island. Sunrise in the company of no one other than two of my groupmates and dozens of sea lions. The adults slumbering. Their boisterous pups splashing around in the water, nagging their mommas for attention.

By 7:45am however we were saying goodbye to San Cristóbal, as we embarked on a three-hour tour. Thankfully there was no shipwreck on a deserted island, but within the space of 60 miles we went from being surrounded by sea lions to being surrounded by dolphins, Christmas iguanas and sea turtles. It’s simply too much to fathom.

As we neared Floreana all of a sudden our first dolphin sighting came. Then another. And another. And another. Within minutes they were all around us in every direction. Dozens, likely hundreds of dolphins in the waters surrounding our boat. As someone who counts snorkeling with dolphins in Hawaii as one of her most magical experiences, it took everything in my power not to jump into the water with them. But where there are dolphins there are sharks. And the Galapagos shark is not exactly a friendly one, so no jumping in.

Still on a high from our dolphin encounter we docked in Floreana, population 150. People that is. No sooner we disembarked were we met by one Christmas iguana after another. What is a Christmas iguana you ask? Well that’s not really its official name. These are marine iguanas. Meaning that unlike the ones we all know and love (or not) from Cancun, these swim. The males are also black, green and red. And their colors coincidentally become brighter as Christmas approaches.

In any case, we left the iguanas behind as we walked away from the beach towards one of the two restaurants in town and where lunch had been arranged for us. Even while Floreana is one of the four inhabited islands on Galapagos and has quite a “colorful” history, it has little to no tourism. And there are only a couple of options for people wanting to overnight.

Following lunch, we walked over to a stunning little beach. So calm and blue. More importantly the waters around it are considered a turtle sanctuary, and before you knew it we were snorkeling surrounded by these gentle creatures. Clearly if it had been up to us we probably would have never surfaced…sadly, our naturalist guide had a schedule to keep us on and it was time to depart Floreana. Our boat is not certified for night crossings and we still had another 1hr45min ride to go before making it to our destination for the next three nights: Isabella Island.

But if we were expecting an uneventful ride, that’s not what we got. We were, sailing through manta ray infested waters. One after another giant mantas jumped out of the water, once, twice, three times. It’s a movement, our naturalist guide tells us, is done to clean themselves from the animals that attach themselves to their wingspan.

Too much. It’s just way too much. By the time we got off our boat at Isabella and had to navigate an iguana infested sidewalk with our suitcases, we barely batted an eye. And neither did they.

These are the Galápagos Islands. The world, as it used to be. A place where wild animals have no fear of humans, because here, they come first.