Floreana Island

Floreana has the longest human history in Galapagos and the strangest. Whalers set up a barrel at Post Office Bay in the eighteenth century where ships left letters for others to carry home, a system that still works: visitors leave postcards and take any they can hand-deliver. In the 1930s a handful of European settlers arrived, including a self-styled baroness, and within a few years several were dead or vanished in a case never resolved. Today about a hundred and fifty people live here. Punta Cormorant has a flamingo lagoon and a green-tinted olivine beach, Devil's Crown offshore is one of the best snorkel sites in the islands, and the highlands hold pirate caves.

What you actually see

• The Post Office Bay barrel - letters left and hand-delivered since the whalers.
• Devil's Crown - a sunken cone rated among the best snorkelling in the islands.
• The olivine beach and flamingo lagoon - the green sand at Punta Cormorant.
• The 1930s settler mystery - the disappearances never explained.

When to go

Year round; calmer seas December to May. A day trip from Santa Cruz, or overnight to see the highlands properly. Devil's Crown has strong currents and is not always workable.

Honest expectations

The day trip involves four hours of boat for a few hours ashore. Devil's Crown currents are strong and trips are cancelled when conditions are poor. The village is tiny with minimal services. Post Office Bay itself is a barrel on a beach and underwhelms some.

Nearby

Santa Cruz is north-east; Espanola lies east.