Last full day - Floreana and Devil's Crown. We visited Post Office Bay on Floreana. There is a barrel there that has been used for centuries as an informal post office: sailors could drop off letters to home in the hopes that another sailor would pick them up and deliver them if they were going in that direction. This tradition continues, so we left a few cards and picked up some others coming back to the Boston area. Up the trail a way is another lava tube, this one with a large set of caverns, and a direct connection to the ocean, though the last bit was under water at our visit.
Next we went off to Devil's Crown, a cool formation of rocks near another islet. We anchored off the islet, and set off to the other side in the pangas. Christian first took us to another part of the islet, where there were ten or a dozen white-tipped sharks cruising or resting under an underwater rock outcropping. Very cool!
Then over to Devil's Crown, where we were dropped off up-current from the formation, then drifted down past the rocks. Drift is a bit too tame for the experience, though, as the current was 3-4 knots, I'd estimate, so we really swept past everything quite quickly. Christian took some of us up for a second pass, then dove down to pick up a pretty red starfish for us to look at.
After lunch we hit the beach on the islet. Kathy and Federico snorkeled for a while close to shore while Ben swam out along the cliff line to go back to the boat. On the way Ben encountered a large sea turtle feeding along the rocks and swam along with him for a full five minutes, snapping (blindly) away. Kathy also met the dude on her swim back to the boat.
That evening after another fine sunset we had a little farewell get-together in the common room aboard, with cocktails provided by Ernesto.
