Holy cow! So while
the previous day was absolutely amazing and the hammerheads we saw on that dive
as we braved the current and all saw our first real flock of hammerheads will forever
be ingrained in our memories, today’s dives steadily topped the ones at Wolf! The dives around Darwin Island have been the
ultimate fishbowl! We dove essentially
the same site four times today but continually were amazed by turtles, schools
and schools of fish, bait balls, dolphin and holy mother of hundreds of
hammerheads!!! The water was so warm
today many of us ended up diving without hoods.
The last dive of the day (the bonus dive we had been promised) ended
with the ultimate hammerhead fishbowl – as we drifted into the blue for the
last twenty minutes of the dive there were dozens of hammerheads below and then
hammerheads on all sides of us – so many it was impossible to count! Absolutely amazing!
Just prior to the dive we had also seen dolphin leaping from
the water – so as we dropped in we also got to see dolphins in the water too! Even pods with baby dolphins! Throughout the dive we could hear the pods
moving through and Daniel was lucky enough to spy multiple pods – he says he
saw 40 or 50! We have been steadily getting
to know the other divers on this trip, but by today everyone has really meshed
and we are all getting along swimmingly and really having a great time. Today was the most amazing so far! When I close my eyes I just see dozens upon
dozens of hammerheads swishing / sashaying through the blue and they go on as
far as I can see to the left and the right and up and down…and reminds me that
we traveled to the northernmost island of the Galapagos to visit one of the
best dive sites in the world.
Amazing.
(Click on each of the albums below to see the photos...I really don't know how to explain how they are three different albums except that I made a mistake and it was way easier to leave it as is!)
 |
| Darwin 1 |
 |
| Darwin 2 |
 |
| Darwin 3 |
The opportunities to interact with wildlife are also
astounding. All morning and afternoon
the boat has been visited/under siege by adolescent red footed boobies. Anytime you put your hand out their beaks
open in hopeful anticipation. They were
not keen on human contact, but they would curiously hangout while we edged
ourselves towards them. The adults are
only on the island – they really only venture out for a bath and snack and stay
on the island to nest, but the teenagers want
to be where the people are…up where they walk, up where they run….(it was
the ongoing joke - we imagined the red
footed booby teenagers being chastised by their parents for hanging out “with
those humans again” and the teenagers answering back “but mom and dad they have
all this cool stuff and they are so fascinating!”). Sometimes the boobies would get stuck on the
down draft of the boat as it sailed to different points of the island and the
crew had to actually physically pick them up and toss them up past the down
draft so they could fly away.
This evening we spent
our time using a spotlight on the silky sharks cruising around the back of the
boat. You could shine a big spotlight
down into the black water and suddenly illuminate multiple sharks swimming in
the current of the water as it swirled around our boat’s hull.
In case you have ever wondered how hammerheads swim…we have
it narrowed down to swishing / sashaying / slithering / nadar / swaggering /
wiggling / (this became an ongoing conversation of the evening, for nearly an
hour…not kidding). They move from side
to side as they swim with an air of confidence and yet simultaneously it could
almost appear to be a wiggle or a waddle and yet they are bad ass sharks. So? We
call it the distinctive Hammerhead Swaggle.
No comments:
Post a Comment