Modern-day message in a bottle at Post Office Bay

FLOREANA ISLAND, Ecuador -- What started in the 1790s as a homesick whaler's tie to home has evolved into a tourist tradition in the remote Galápagos Islands.

Post Office Bay was named for the battered wooden barrel used by sailors to deposit letters for other whaling ships headed back to the senders' home ports. Today, its graffiti-covered descendent is crammed with postcards from visitors around the globe — all scribbled in hopes that a passing stranger will pick one up and deliver it to the intended recipient.

By hand.

The system works: I pocketed three cards addressed to Washington, D.C.-area residents during my Floreana stopover last month, each written just days before my visit. And I delivered them a few weeks later, sharing fond reminiscences of the Galápagos Islands in the process.

According to an impromptu legend concocted during our tour, every time a Floreana postcard is distributed in person, a blue-footed booby — one of the islands' star residents — gets its wings.

I can hear the flapping even now.