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After claiming Charles Island and renaming the island to Floreana after the first president, Florean Island became officialy part of Ecuador in 1832.
Floreana Island is known because of its colourful history of pirates, whalers, convicts, buccaneers and colonist and even today you still can smell parts of the history. The Post Office barrel that was established by British whalers in 1793 has been used to send letters to and from England. Even today, visitors may drop off and pick up letters. Drop your postcard in the barrel and see how long it takes to be delivered.
There are 4 dive sites in Floreana Island called the Enderby Islet, Punta Ayora, Champion Islet and Devil's Crown.
Devils Crown
Just a short distance from the island, Devil's Crown is an old eroded volcanic cone; a number of jagged rocks with a shallow center pool and a sandyh slope with large boulders and numerous tunnes and caverns. When you enter the water sea lions will join you and next to the sea lions you will find fish like hawkfish, filefish and fishes like the King Angelfish, Creole fish and grunts. About 20m to the east of the crown you will find endemic garden eels and outside the rocks where it is deeper you will find larger fish like Jacks, turtles and sometimes hammersheads and reef sharks.
Champion Islet
A little crater, yields nesting habitat for a colony of boobies, hideouts for sea lions, and an underwater labyrinth of rocky shelves, coral and reef fish.
Gardner Islet displays a huge natural arch like a cathedrals flying buttresses.
Enderby Islet
An eroded tuff cone, often reveals manta rays, turtles, tunas, and sharks. Sightings include sealions, thousands of tropical fish, barracudas, black coral, whitetip and Galapagos sharks, moray eels, some hammerheads and eagle rays.
The Pacific seahorse is the only seahorse in the eastern Pacific. It has very variable colorings, from reddish to gray, yellow, gold and various shades of brown. Around their eyes they have streaks and lines radiating. Adults have white light and dark markings. They are well camouflaged and are often found among black coral bushes and gorgonians or with their tail around seagrass. They feed on small crustaceans and zooplankton which are siphoned into their tubelike mouth. Although they are seen on reefs around corals, it seems that this seahorse spends a lot of its life in the open sea. About 24 to 29cm.
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