As I write this entry I feel especially accomplished and
victorious. We not only survived diving
in one of the more challenging (and rewarding) places in the world – but we had
a wonderful time doing so! Diving in
cold water is no easy task – before a dive I have to do the following:
1. Put on neoprene
dive socks to make it easier to slip into my wetsuit, to add warmth, and to
prevent blisters.
2. Wriggle into my
“farmer john” style 5mm wetsuit bottoms.
3. Put on my dive
booties and then zip my 5mil down over the booties so it is snug around my
ankle.
4. Put my 5mm merino
lined hood on and then pull the zipper down to create a snug fit.
5. Wriggle into my 7
mm jacket (which covers my thighs, torso, and full arms) taking care to tuck
the hood into the jacket.
5.5* For the especially cold dives I then also wriggled into
my 3mm jacket
6. Fasten my dive
watch over my wetsuit(s)
7. Make sure my
regulator is hooked up to the tank and check air levels
8. Prep mask
9. Put on weight belt
– which means I am strapping at least 16 kilos around my waist to compensate
for my ridiculously thick and buoyant wetsuit
10. Strap into my BC
(bouyency compensator device)
11. squeeze your
hands into the gloves and seal them around your wrists
12. board the panga
with fins and mask in hand
13. snap fins in
place
14. Make sure octo
(secondary stage) is fastened into its clip
15. put on mask, make
sure your hood doesn’t interfere with your mask’s seal to your face, locate
regulator since the wetsuit means you can’t physically feel where it is around
you, acknowledge you are ready to go…
16. dive!
So, if you consider that every single one of those steps was
followed in succession to dive 16 times, you can imagine that while we are sad
our liveaboard vacation is coming to an end, not having to “suit up” and take
on steps 1-15 to be able to do step 16 is a bit of a relief. That said – I could not have been more pleased
with all of my gear and its ability to keep me warm and as comfortable as one
can be when strapped into all of that gear.
I was dreading the notion of shivering to death through every dive and
am really excited to say that I did not shiver once! The dives today were cold, and yes, I felt
cold – but no uncontrollable shivering for me!
This trip was especially daunting – the cold waters, the huge wetsuits,
the crazy amount of weight to sink down, the intense currents – all very
intimidating, but in the weeks leading up to this trip I have really tried to
put my concerns out of my mind. I am
glad I did because while there was a certain amount of mental toughness
required to continually do steps 1-15, and during the dives you really had to
be aware and on your A-game, it was soooo worth it! And it feels awesome to have been so
successful. Daniel and I were also the
only two divers to use oxygen (and not nitrox) the whole time and held our own,
matching the other divers’ bottom times if not exceeding them! Go us!
:)
Last night we left Wolf Island and started booking it for
Isabella – which was going to take all afternoon and all night. We arrived at Isabella very early this
morning and had an especially early wakeup call to dive. We headed out to dive Punta Vincente Roca –
which is on the Northern point of Isabella island on the Southwest side where
the currents bring much colder waters – we were warned they would be between
58-65. As soon as we go in the water for
the first dive we knew we were not going to be able to see much – the
visability was terrible. Walter, our
guide, said the strategy would be to the coldest water first so that as we came
up through the thermoclines it felt warmer and warmer. The current was fairly dead, so we had to
kick continuously, sometimes even fighting current, and thus we all chugged
through our air really quickly. There
were a few highlights though! We saw two
seahorses coiled together that were an orangey color and later on one that had
stripes – they were pretty decent size too!
We also saw baby Galapagos bull-head sharks – which were brown with dark
brown spots. I also saw a flightless
cormorant at about 60-70 feet! He popped
into my view and then swam around me. We
also have a few buzz-by’s from a sea lion as well!
After that we enjoyed a nice breakfast and then had the
opportunity to hop in the panga with our land cameras and go animal watching! One really cool thing is that the blue-footed
boobies all fish here and live along the cliffs of Isabella – so we got to see
them continually dive-bombing the water for fish – they can hit the water at
speeds as high as 60 miles per hour! We
also saw sally light-foot crabs along the rocks – which are very brightly
colored crabs that earned their name from their ability to run across the tops
of the water. We saw dozens and dozens
of marine iguanas hanging out of the rocks soaking in the sun until lunch time
when they would hit the water.
The second dive was fairly uneventful until the end – even
worse visability and more of the same. I
tried to focus on the little things and found dozens and dozens of little
turquoise nudibranchs, little brilliantly colored crustacean like creatures, an
octopus tucked into the rocks, a big stone fish, etc. Then, at the end of the dive I came across a
HUGE turtle in the shallows. We had
washed up on the shallows and were able to half snorkel half dive and see all
kinds of things – including marine iguanas, penguins, a flightless cormorant
who fearlessly swam right up to me and started pecking/biting at my mask and
fingers and managed to really nip one of my fingers (even through my Kevlar
lined gloves!!!).
On our way back to the boat (we were on the panga) we
noticed a large number of snorkelers out in the cove all swimming near
something with a fin just tipping the surface – when we asked them what is was
they said Mola-Mola! What?!?! We all ran onto the aggressor to grab our
snorkels and in seconds were back in the panga on a Mola-Mola hunt! On the first attempt Daniel and I did manage
to make it out to see him – Bobby was not so successful because he didn’t put
fins on, had no snorkel, and had his wetsuit half on to create a TON for drag,
Gary didn’t make it because he was late in the water and had his camera…but in
the end, after two passes, I got to see the fellow twice and kept pace with him
for a while on the second attempt, even getting to enjoy his face and Gary,
Bobby, Hannah, Bob, and Daniel all ended up getting to see the Mola-Mola at
least once. So cool! I couldn’t believe how large they were, how
funny he looked, or how he looked like a big moon – with an odd crater looking
pattern on him. So neat! On the way out of the cove later on in the
day we saw several other Mola-Mola’s with one fin just out of the water –
Hector the captain and Walter our dive master said they never ever ever do
that!
The third dive was a bit pitiful on my part – but I did make
it for a third dive! (Daniel opted
out). Visability was still terrible and
at one point in the dive I had major trouble clearing my ear, but overall the
highlights included more awesome up close and personal turtle time, a frogfish,
more sea lion time – and this time there were two of them playing together –
biting eachother’s flippers and swimming in summersaults, and I saw another
flightless cormorant, and I ended up cutting it short because I had gotten
separated from the gang, couldn’t clear, and was enjoying snorkeling with sea
lions more. Such fun!
Two sea lions tumbling together and playing - watch how one bit the other's flipper!
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| January 1st - Punta Vincente Roca (click on the image to see the photos in the album) |
I cannot begin to describe all the ways in which this trip
has allowed such unique animal interactions – it really has been so much
fun! And it has varied widely too! At Darwin there were the red-footed juvenile
boobies, around Santa Cruz there were the frigate birds, today it was the water
dive – bombing blue footed boobies.
We’ve had seals, sharks, dolphin, mola-mola, turtles, and countless
other fish all hanging out too – what an awesome experience!
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