The Galápagos islands are known for their diverse wildlife, studied by Charles Darwin on his trip around the world. Every year, many people visit the archipelago to get a glimpse of the giant turtoises, penguins or unique bird species… but also to send and pick up mail!
It all started a couple of centuries ago, back when the island was regularly visited by whaling ships. The ships stayed at sea for long stretches of time, often years, and so communication between the fishermen and their families was difficult. To solve this problem, in 1793, Captain James Colnett established a post office of sorts in Floreana island — a simple wooden barrel where mail could be left to be picked by other visitors. Ships often stopped on Floreana island to do repair works or pick up water and food, so sailors started taking the mail which was destined to their home ports with them, hand-delivering the missives to their intended recipients by hand.
Photo by claudiah on Flickr.The place became known as Post Office Bay and to this day, visitors still rely in the kindness of strangers to bring their letters and postcards home (mailing items with stamps is considered cheating!) — and to tell the story of how these missives made it home! :)
28 comments so far
This is just great! :)
Fun fact to know!!!
Cool! The Cocos Island had barrel mail too...
http://www.shipsonstamps.org/Topics/html/bottle.htm
This is very interesting to know.
Incredible!
That is really interesting to know. There are so many unexpected, funny and strange things in the world, and such great ones. Unbelievable that strangers will pick up the mail and deliver them personally. A great gesture, now and then :)
Makes me believe in the goodness of mankind, yay :D
Thank you for sharing this!
Damn I was there just couple of months ago and I didn't know anything about this postbarrel. I need to go there again :D
Nice!!! I really wish to see it with my eyes one day (it's difficult but I keep dreaming! ;) ).
Thanks for sharing! :)
wonderful story
Makes you wonder what this means
" visitors still rely in the kindness of strangers to bring their letters and postcards home (mailing items with stamps is considered cheating!) —"
Is using stamps only cheating for the sender? Or also for the middle man who could take those things home and apply home stamps to the letters and cards?
I have always wanted to go to see the wildlife. Now I want to go to mail a letter!
Cool
interesting story
I love this! It personifies this statement, "Practice random kindness and senseless acts of beauty".
Super :)
Thank you for the story - I wonder if it still works :D
Isn't that AWESOME!!!!
Wonderful story!
Awesome !
sooooooo nice!!!!!
Last year I went there, it was an amazing experience!
There is also a book called "Floreana", it tells the history and interesting facts about social life there! I would recommend it to you, if you are interested in the story of that island.
This is really interesting and somehow really cute! Humans are amazing ^^
OMG! I am from Ecuador, I´ve been in the island but never knew about this, it is so nice!
Thank you for sharing this post with us.
Wow what a nice story!!!Thank you a lot!!!!
Simply amazing!!! Very interesting to know about these unique post concept. :)
So cool
it's so good
Awesome so cool :) :)
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