Day seven marked our final day on the Samba and what better way to honor the occasion with yet another early morning starting at six o’clock. We spent the night navigating to Floreana island, just straight south of Santa Cruz.
Mirador de la Baronesa (Baroness Balcony/Bay)
Since we were ending our day with a four hour navigation to Santa Cruz, all of our outings were concentrated before lunch, beginning with Baroness Bay. The bay gets its name from Eloise von Wagner Bosquet, a self proclaimed Austrian Baroness who settled on Floreana in the early 20th century with her two lovers, with the intent of building a luxury hotel on the island. After a spat with another Floreana family, she mysteriously disappeared, along with her two lovers never to be seen again.
Our experience on the island wasn’t subject to that level of intrigue and I’m happy to report that nobody mysteriously vanished but legend has it that Steve may have misplaced a sock that a soft shell crab is now using as home. We began the morning in the kayaks and paddled our way to the shores of the bay. Upon landing, a well worn trail awaited us with a viewing platform at the top of the hill that gave us sweeping views of the bay with a cameo by a short eared owl.
Some folks decided to opt out of the kayaks and took the zodiac instead, but you can see our beached kayaks in the lower left. 
The trail had an active light house halfway up which presented a great photo op 
Our friendly neighborhood short eared owl originally spotted by Josh. We spent a good two hours on a previous day to find one and ended up walking by this guy who was no further than 50 yards.
After the hike, we took the kayaks back to the Samba and turned around a hopped on the zodiacs to Post Office Bay. I won’t go into detail about it as you can read more when we stopped there on our previous trip to Floreana but as we were sifting through the mail, we did stumble upon a Great Blue Heron hunting for fish on the shore.
Devil’s Crown
Once we finished dropping off the mail, we ventured out to Devil’s Crown for our final snorkeling trip. This particular spot was a bit different than our previous snorkeling spots as the current was so strong that we drifted with the current around the rocks and took the zodiacs back to our dive spot to do it two more times. This allowed us to effortlessly coast with the current and gaze in wander at the life below.
Second only to our Day 4 snorkeling at Punta Vicente Roca, the amount of aquatic life we were able to get close to was spectacular, particularly the reef sharks that were swimming about in the shallow water. The photos above aren’t zoomed, we were really able to get within twenty or so feet of them and often times pushed into them, depending on how the current was flowing. While jumping in and out of the water eventually became exhausting, experiencing the ecosystem variety in three different sections of the rock was an incredible experience.
Santa Cruz
After lunch we began our navigation to Santa Cruz and started the arduous task of packing in preparation of our morning trip back to the airport on Baltra. As fortune would have it, a large pod of pilot whales showed up alongside the Samba as if wishing us farewell and capping off a memorable seven days in the Galapagos. These whales travel in pods upwards of 12 or so and get their name as each pod is typically lead by a navigator or pilot. They have a very short dorsal fin and require to surface to expel water and take in oxygen, like most whales.
We arrived in Santa Cruz in the evening and was able to spend an hour or so in town stretching our legs before having our final dinner onboard the Samba. In the morning, we said goodbye to the crew and headed inland to El Chato Ranch where we toured the lava caves and got to see the giant tortoises one last time. Afterwards we had a short hike and saw the collapsed craters from volcanic activity millions of years ago before saying our final goodbyes and heading to the airport to go home.
Final Thoughts
During our trip (and even after we returned home), one of the most frequent questions we received is how this itinerary compared with what we experienced the first time came and completed the southeast itinerary. While the areas we explored were significantly different, two things really stand out when looking at the trips side by side. 1. The sheer amount of wildlife we saw (specifically while snorkeling) was night and day. Its hard to say if it was due to the time of year we traveled or if the northeast itinerary innately has more activity, but we were able to see more and get much closer than we did during the southeast trip. 2. The folks we were able to experience all of this with were extraordinary. Lauren and I usually spend our trips abroad with just ourselves and a local guide so having a tight knit group of folks who are exceptionally friendly and a joy to be around can elevate a trip into something incredibly special. So on behalf of Lauren and myself, I want to thank each of you for being our temporary, eight day family!
Pictured L to R (Back Row): George, Heidi, Amy, Harry, Steve, Peter, Lauren
Front/Middle: Mary Beth, Dave, Janet, Devin, Cookie, Laurie, Karyn
Not Pictured: Josh
P.S. Special thanks to Steve for being such a good sport throughout this blog series. Knowing your sense of humor, I’m sure you enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it! 🙂
Featured Image – Our arrival into Santa Cruz on our final night
I confess it was Amy who first spotted that owl above. Yet that was still after we had all walked right by it.
Last week, I had a dream where we were on this trip again. It’s still pretty fresh in my head. Everything about this trip was just so wonderful. Including everyone on the boat. Thank you for all these posts.
I may have to amend my post then, just so Amy can get the credit for posterity, of course.
It’s funny you mention your dream, because I had one about a week or two reliving the experience. One of the unintended perks of creating these posts after the fact is the ability to relive what we did. I’m glad you and others have enjoyed all of these posts and hope this isn’t the last time we chat!