Those of you who've been reading this may remember I had to cancel my trip on Thursday. Was told that this was "the best Island" by some of the grand tour mob. So was really looking forward to it when I managed to re-book yesterday. It was a bit damp but not as rainy as it was back here in Puerto Ayora.

It was fab. You can see the Gallery here and the snorkel video bellow

Right click here to download

Floreana 

Has some interesting history, murder, piracy and post offices. Some cool snorling can be found around the Corona de Diablo - Devil's Crown which is the jagged edge of a volcano just poking out of the water.

One of the bay's I've not been to contains the post office barrel a ramshackle driftwood barrel and marker where you can still drop off mail, with no postage to be delivered by who ever's passing. The Barrel was put there by whalers in the 1800's so homeward bound boats could pick up mail. Its a fabulous tradition. Camomile are on route to New Zealand, have retrieved a postcard addressed there. They are planning to hand deliver it when they get there. I hope the recipients treasure it, how fabulous would it be to leave post in the barrel and have it delivered as was originally intended half way around the world by sailing boat. Another rallyist has one for Singapore on board.

I reckon if you still want your Blue Peter badge you should just drop one in there addressed to them. If it gets there I'm pretty sure it 'd make the program.

Between the wars 3 German families settled on floriana, mystery still surrounds much or what has happened since. Steve's book describes one of them as "a somewhat crazed German Philosopher, Dr Friederich Karl Ritter" another as "the self styled 'Empress of Galapagos'.... and her three lovers." four possibly violent and unexplained deaths occurred. The "Empress" and one of here lovers disappeared without trace another lover died in an open boat trying to get to another island. Dr Ritter, a vegetation, is officially listed as having died of food poisoning from eating spoiled chicken.

My sources, wikipedia and "Galapagos a natural history guide" make no mention of the locals. The Ecuadorian population of  Floreana is 90, + 2 soldiers. The population is so small because according to the guide many died of what they believe to be poison after being invited to dinner by the Germans. The Natural history guide(1990) says that one of the original Germans her kids and grand kids still run a post office and a café on the island. Our guide said, and there's clearly no love lost here, that they have 4 large tour boats and a hotel. He didn't say "murdering scum" but I got the distinct impression that he thought they got the where they are today the same way the old school aristocracy did in the days when nobility got noble out by carving its own dominion with fire and of course the sword.

Updates

The exodus is beginning, Aspen and Angel have hauled the Anchors and are heading out in to the (very) wide blue yonder. We're hoping to leave on Saturday, when our new(ist) water maker filters.

The forecast swell is here, yesterday our landing on the west side of Floreana was "interesting". What with breaking swells hitting the wall and the stone steps. It isn't made any easier by the fact that stone steps of ordinary size are about the right size for one sea lion. The result being that any steps on a dock round here become bunk beds for sea lions. No they don't get out of the way you have to step over them.

As the last two galleries and the home movie above show. Its not hard to be a wildlife photographer here. All that guff you get on the end of Blue Planet or South Pacific Sunday night BBC documentaries about how hard it is, starts looking awful suspicious here. I think Attenbourgh probably hires a bloke with a pointy stick to prod the wildlife into actually doing something interesting. if you watch any of these programs can you have a gander at the credits, see if there's a "cattle pod operator" or "penguin pesterer" listed. Maybe they hire football fans, those that still have passports, to bait the animals into reacting. I doubt they'd feel exploited just tell them that the animals are foreign, that should set them off. Since football supporters are, in evolutionary terms, well down the tree from even crustaceans it shouldn't be a problem.

As I'm writing Gaultine III called up to say goodbye 10% of the rallyists are now under way.

M.C. Esher, yacht designer

We thought we'd a buggered bilge pump, then 2 buggered bilge pumps, then 2 buggered bilge pumps and a buggered bilge alarm. Surprisingly enough this isn't the case. What we have is insanity in the bilges.

Bilges are the bottom of the boat where water accumulates. Well I say water, what with gravity and entropy everything eventually ends up there. If you want to know what they're like I produced this handy guide on how to simulate them at home The only problem is we appear to have bilges based on M.C. Eshers perpetual motion water mill, the bilge pumps, automatic switch and the alarm are all working fine - there is no water there. However the area under the engine is full to the brim. No connection can actually be located but we know that, previously, when you pump the water does leave that area. Not any more. We've located a pipe at very bottom of the boat which appears to inexplicably go right under the engine bilge (full) to a lower bilge further forward. Which in its self makes no sense. Another pipe who's end we can't even guess at, may appear somewhere in accessible under the engine and be blocked. This is only a theory, I've prodded a piece of wire up it approximately 2 feet, but then it stops and no sign of it appearing anywhere.

I'm reading (read put down for a month now) a book on Super String Theory, even that's no help. I admit I did consider kidnapping the Miss Tippy kids and sending them down there, Victorian chimney sweep style, its too cramped for us adults. Think I'd have been busted what with their white dresses and that.