December 31st – Darwin and Wolf and New Year’s Eve

The morning dives were at Darwin Island and were more excellent dives and  we were continually graced with breathtaking flocks of hammerheads.  During the second dive Daniel officially did it – he dove naked!  (which means without wetsuit, but he was actually wearing a swimsuit).  During the dive I felt like Daniel actually looked like he was skipping or frolicking through the water as he enjoyed the amazing freedom that comes with not having to wear a wetsuit.  He said he also felt so much more in control of his buoyancy because he could actually feel the water moving against his skin when he went up or down.  I hadn’t even thought of that – really the only way to know you are moving up or down is to watch your dive watch/depth gauge when wearing so many millimeters of neoprene.  

Out of the blue we would suddenly be able to make out not one, but dozens of hammerheads - how many can you count?  :)

This is Daniel and myself adventurously swimming into the bait ball and enjoying watching the fish all reroute around us.  (Gary's camera)

This is from Daniel's camera that he was holding - up close view of how cool it is to swim into a bait ball.

During the second dive (and final dive) at Darwin we dropped in amongst a pack of silky sharks and drifted down past them into waters that were full of a wall of hammerheads all swaggling by – I watched with childlike wonder, soaking in every second of it as I steadily drifted down surrounded by hundreds of hammerheads, again absolutely amazed.  Knowing it was my last dive at Darwin I tried to soak it all in even more – only to look down at my dive watch and realized woah I was already down to 90 feet and sinking.  Uhoh,  I thought – none of my other dives have been this deep and at a glance beneath me there was still plenty of blue to continue sinking down into.  I kicked and put some air in my BC and looked to my left – oops, I thought sheepishly – I had drifted down so slowly, enamored by the beautiful hammerhead fishbowl that I hadn’t realized my group had left – probably to swim to the rocky ledges which are more shallow (usually 60-80 feet).  I had a split second where I thought aww, I really don’t want to have to abort my last dive at Darwin because I have been separated!  I slowly looked in the direction I had last seen my fellow divers and made out a faint trace of bubbles and quickly beelined it to catch up with them and voila!  I was back with the group.  Ah.  No aborting the dive for me!  But I was lower on air through this dive then usual and had to try to keep it shallower than usual because I had chugged through a portion of my air kicking around at 90 feet.  (The lower you go the more compressed your air is, so when you breathe at greater depths you use up a higher percentage of your air than you would at say 30 feet than 90).  

Daniel loved the dive and seemed so happy and free in his “naked-ness” – we later found out he was the only person to dive in the Galapagos with no wet suit in 2012!  Go Daniel!

When we surfaced they took us over to get some quick pictures in front of Darwin’s arch, which is really a stunning chunk of rock.  There were cute sea lions hanging out at its base and more red footed boobies swooping all around.  

For some reason or another I did not feel too hot today.  I woke up a little queasy and skipped lunch to stay out in the fresh air as I dealt with a round of sea sickness.  I didn’t physically get sick, I just felt pretty bad and I sat on the back of the boat watching the horizon as I watched Darwin Island and Darwin’s Arch slowly disappear out of view and then fell into a nap.  When I woke up I felt awesome.  

The third dive was back at Wolf Island at a site called Landslide – in which the topography includes lots of rocks from a landslide on the island in which rocks crumbled away from Wolf’s steep cliffs.  On this dive, which was colder than Darwin, we saw mating sea turtles, some packs of hammerheads sweeping through – I tried to enjoy each one in case it was my last, a huge stone fish – the biggest one any of us had ever seen – it was several feet long!, a white tip shark, a Galapagos shark, a big beautiful eagle ray, and beautiful Dr. Zeuss style coral gardens.  It was a nice dive.

That evening we enjoyed watching the last sunset of 2012 with Daniel’s dad, Hannah, Bobby, Lorie, and Bob and actual saw (and captured on camera) the fabled green flash that can be seen as the sun sets on a smooth horizon at sea – it was so cool!  (I had never actually seen it happen before!)  What a way to end the year!

Dinner was an amazing New Year’s Eve feast with the best turkey I have ever eaten in my life and a carved zucchini penguin!  We enjoyed another cake, a gift from the crew (that is a very pretty hammerhead statue/token) and enjoyed a champagne toast to celebrate the new year.  Don’t make fun of us – diving is tiring! – but we declared 8 pm the celebratory midnight and counted down with Paul’s watch which was synced to the atomic clock.  We counted down, cheered, toasted, and went to bed.  :)

Click the image below for pictures!

December 31st - New Years Eve Diving at Darwin and Wolf

December 30th – Darwin’s Hammerhead Fishbowl and the Hammerhead Swaggle

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.  

December 29th- Happy Birthday Daniel! It’s Hammer Time!

The second all divers were on board after Cousins Rock until 7:30 am this morning we booked it up to Wolf Island – about 16 full hours – we cruised all night and woke up to see Wolf Island emerging and taking form as we drew closer.  It was really exciting to wake up in the night and just see us cruising through open ocean that was illuminated by the moon.  Wolf and Darwin are two islands that cannot usually fit on a proportional map of the Galapagos – they are Northwest of all the other islands by quite a bit!  Humans are not allowed on the islands and the only real way to visit them are with the diving boats, so with the exception of the Aggressor Galapagos I (we are on AG II) there is only one other dive boat up here – it is so remote and mystical!  

Approaching Wolf Island after a full night of cruising

Our first dive this morning was amazing and was much more of what I was hoping for!  We dropped down to about 60-70 feet and looked out to see hammerheads emerging from the blue!  We all tried to find a good stable place to grab onto and all watched happily as we were truly in a fishbowl full of several different schools of fish and multiple hammerheads.  At one point there was a school of 10+ all swimming past and at another moment one swam over us and we were able to see the frowny grimace on its face.  We saw turtles and other neat things, but this dive was really all about the hammerheads – and not just regular hammerheads, but scalloped ones too!  So awesome!   The water is much warmer here – closer to 75* and the my first dive I went as deep as 79 feet for 56 minutes.  Daniel has also been really impressed with how well I conserve my air as I have been outpacing him for a change!  Seems like visiting the pool the past six months and focusing on my breathing has helped a lot!  

Watch where you put your hands!  Stone fish!

In between dives we took a panga out to a cave in the cove of Wolf Island, rode the panga into the cave, used flashlights to watch male and female sea lions hanging out on the rock ledge taking a nap together, and then we dropped into essentially night time looking water and then swam towards to beautiful blue light at the opening of the cave.  There was a beautiful moment when the light silhouetted a turtle who was cruising around.  Once outside the cave, I was approached by two sea lions who took a moment to visit each of the snorkelers before retreating into the depths of the cave.

During the second dive the current had definitely picked up and was doing some strange things.  We were all clinging to the rocks with all our might and at some moments it got quite intense.  In other sections there was no current at all.  As we descended in I realized that I was descending directly on top of a hammerhead – who chose to swim away before I had to redirect.  On this dive we saw more hammerheads, bunches of schools of fish, turtles, huge moray eels, and an eagle ray who stopped by towards the end.  At the end of the dive when Daniel and were ascending to do our safety stop I managed to get caught up in a down current – which I realized very quickly as I noticed Daniel disappearing and my depth increasing rapidly – I went from 30 and climbing up to suddenly being plunged down to 65 feet in seconds.  No panic though!  I threw some air in my BC and kicked up with one eye planted on my depth gauge and pulled myself out of it quickly.  

We enjoyed a delicious lunch up on the top sun deck with chicken skewers, sliced flank steak, and a number of other yummy things.  We also ended lunch with some hammerhead spottings from the boat – and I have sat and typed my notes for this from my cabin with the window open and the sound of all kinds of different birds cawing and whistling back and forth.  It has been a wonderfully exciting yet serene day!!  The only deadlines I have are dive time and meal time and it is suiting us quite well!   

******

The third dive was AMAZING!  Probably the best in my life to date!  The second we were in the water and descended on the rocks we started seeing several hammerheads and we all parked it along the barnacle rocks and watched while taking very slow breaths.  As we drifted on we were suddenly confronted by a much stronger current which was also much colder.  Through this time the hammerheads never disappeared they just multiplied while the current simultaneously increased and got colder!  There were schools of fish cruising around and we also saw a Galapagos shark too (he was longer than me!) Daniel and Bobby also saw an octopus and the current was so strong that it ripped the regulator out of Daniel’s mouth and tore the bite piece on his regulator to the extent that he had to switch to his secondary to be able to breathe – crazy!  I found that it was easiest to clutch onto rock, let the air out of my BC, and settle behind a rock to the extent that the rock got the brunt of the current.  I could actually feel my regulator and mask vibrate from the current.  But all I wanted to do was be able to stay in the water!  I breathed as slowly as I could and often held my breath (which was okay b/c I wasn’t rising) so that I could enjoy the schools of hammerheads that were flowing above my head.  They just kept coming and coming!  Through the course of the dive we easily saw over 100 – at one point from my left to right view I counted over 35 scalloped hammerheads all at once – it was amazing!!!  Gary ran out of air first and had to go up by himself.  Daniel was at 500 psi when the schools showed up and was really dragging it out to head for his safety stop.  And I was gloating – I had 600 psi left when I surfaced, but I left to stay with the group – and to stay close to Daniel if he ran out of oxygen.  By the time Daniel got on the boat he was probably at 50.  Yikes!  

We were all completely elated and were all so excited when we got out of the water – what an amazing amazing dive!  It was another dive in which I caught myself laughing in disbelief into my regulator – what a wonderful birthday present for Daniel!  His request had been just that – lots and lots of hammerheads!

We thawed out in the Jacuzzi – although even at this point we have had yet to have a dive that left us in full blown shivers.  After that the Hals continued the tradition and encouraged Bobby and Hannah to join us – off the upper deck of the boat we went into the water – which felt refreshing for sixty seconds and then chilly immediately after.  The water temp here is a nice warm 74*…which any other time would feel cold, but after 63* yesterday 74* is awesome.  

Cruising the hammerhead highway current - at one point we could see 35 hammerheads at a time!

We ended our evening with a birthday cake for Daniel which was still warm and a delicious chocolate cake very similar to the zucchini bread I make.  Happy Birthday Daniel – you wished for hammerheads and boy did you ever get them!

December 28th - Summersaulting with a Sea Lion = Beth's dream come true!!!

After sleeping a full night as we traveled to Santa Cruz and Baltra Islands we woke up to eat a tasty breakfast of fresh fruits, granola, and made to order eggs/omlettes/French toast.  From there we sat down  on the middle deck for our dive briefing which didn’t just describe the dive we would be taking at Punta Carrion, but also received the full gamut of all of the dive rules and procedures for the boat.  The dive was an okay one – much chillier than the one yesterday and the thermoclines were distinctive both physically and visably (in the water when you hit a major difference in temperature you can actually see almost an oily pattern in the water).  Highlights of the dive included a red lipped batfish, a sea lion chasing a school of fish, several mobula rays, nudibranchs, a stone fish, a tiger snake eel, and more!  By the end of the dive I was pretty close to shivering, and I am sure as the day progresses if it is equally as cold I will definitely be shivering.  We went down about 73 feet, made the dive last about 50 minutes.   We were greeted with hot chocolate and pastries and are now spending the hour in between enjoying the views and doing our own thing.  Just a few minutes ago I saw a baby hammerhead cruising around along the surface!  Just before lunch a flock of frigate birds came up and cruised all around the sun deck as we took dozens of pictures – so cool!  Lunch was delicious and ended with a pod of dolphins breaching outside our window – when I got outside the dolphins were gone but Daniel had seen a manta ray and I saw a Mola mola just cruising by!  Again – the wildlife abounds and is so exciting!  

Four of the passengers had a major mishap in their attempts to fly to Ecuador and then the Galapagos which all stemmed from their flight out of Houston being cancelled.  So, while some of us dove Punta Carrion some of the crew went to port and picked them up.  The boat crew made the executive decision to skip the second dive at Punta Carrion (the visability really was terrible) and to instead focus our efforts on diving Cousins Rock – which is a rock jutting up out of the water just past Bartholome Island (a place we will be hiking next week during our land days).  This dive was surprisingly cold – a chilly 63* - but the dive was much more pleasant and we saw turtles, stone fish, schools of sturgeon fish and black striped salemas and a sea lion!  But this wasn’t just any sea lion encounter – this sea lion really liked to play!  It was probably a female, decently sized, but not huge, and when she came up to me I did a summersault to try to mimic her playful turns – evidently this was a bit hit, because I then spent the next ten minutes doing barrel roles, summersaults, and swimming in tight circles while she did the same!  Daniel watched from a distance and two other guys (Bob and Bobby) were there to watch as well and even tried batting a rock playfully with the sea lion.  We swam around for quite a while, and I felt bad because our guide was physically shivering – but even on this dive I managed to make it out without a shiver!  Playing with the sea lion the last ten minutes probably helped – it really was awesome!  I was so excited I was happily laughing into my regulator as I swam in circles with the sea lion that kept swimming up for air and coming back for more.  SO awesome!  It was a Galapagos = magic moment for sure! 

We warmed up in the jacuzzi when we got back and then proceeded to clean up for the evening – each showering, shampooing, etc.  I even dried my hair and put on real clothes!  To end our day, now that all the passengers were on board, the crew gave us full welcome and introduced the crew.  Dinner was a yummy shrimp skewer with some other sides. 

December 26th & 27th – Trekking it to the Galapagos and meeting some Sea Lions!!!

*Back-blogging from December 26th...

We woke up early, showered, and were off to Charlotte airport where we cleared security with ease and were soon bound for Miami.  We had a tight connection in Miami which was made even tighter by plane delays on Charlottte’s end and a really strong (and bumpy) headwind.  But, after walked a good 1-1.5 miles through the Miami airport and clearing security…again…we were bound for Quito!  This was a LAN flight and was MUCH nicer.  In four hours time we found ourselves in Ecuador facing an interminable line at immigration that took us an hour and a half to survive – it was rough because we had landed in Quito – a city up about 9,200 feet.  We were already dehydrated from the plane ride, add altitude to that and no access to liquids when we stepped off the plane and one can begin to imagine how miserable we were for that first hour and a half.  As soon as we made it through we were ecstatic to see that our bags had arrived (dive gear, check!), and we were immediately greeted by our pre-arranged hotel pickup.  The decisive moment of the night was when I spotted a little shop that sold beverages.  I handed all my stuff to the hotel rep, told Daniel and Gary to hold the van, and ran and bought SIX Gatorades.  We were all soooo happy – Gary called it sweet nectar, and we all felt significantly better after guzzling one and then sipping on the second.

Flying into Quito reminded me of our flight into Cuzco, only the city lacked the same terracotta uniformity that I noticed in Cuzco.  As our van drove us in it reminded me a great deal of Lima, but not quite as big.  Since it was after dark much of the city was already boarded up for the night and we could tell it Once we checked into our hotel we ordered dinner at the hotel restaurant (which was really delicious) and from there we cashed in our welcome drinks and headed to bed.  It was after nine, we knew the next day would really be a big one, and we were all exhausted.

The next morning we grabbed breakfast, packed up, and headed back to the airport – bound for San Cristobal!  At the airport there is a special wing for Galapagos bound passengers – we had to first have our bags x-rayed for potential species or specimen threats.  They sealed all big suitcases with a special tag certified by them and we were given customs forms to fill out and present in the Galapagos.  After that we had to check out bags, buy our “Ingala” card for 10 US dollars each which we would have to fill out and present in the Galapagos.  Then we cleared security and entered a room that was full of 200-300 tourists who were all Galapagos bound and waiting for their flight – which wasn’t exactly announced, you just had to sense  that it was close to time and that the line forming was the one you should be in.

This flight was also quite nice.  We flew to Guayaquil but did not disembark and then we were officially off to San Cristobal!  Before we landed they actually came through and sprayed everything in the overhead compartment with “World Health Organization approved pesticide” in case we were carrying anything that could be dangerous to the endemic species of the Galapagos.  Definitely have never had that happen before!  It was pretty crazy!  And then we were there!  The islands appeared as we flew down and out of the clouds and suddenly we were on land again.  We were greeted by signs that welcomed us to the Galapagos and a saying that “To us, the Galapagos means peace, ***, and evolution, we hope it means the same to you.”  The airport was small – an open air space, but definitely not as small as the one in Yap or Lizard Island, Australia.  We waited in line and each paid 100 US dollars to officially enter Galapagos National Park!  We were in!  Our passports currently contain exit papers, an Ingala card, and a Galapagos Park entry card – they are looking really thick!

And our luggage made it!!!  We were immediately greeted by Aggressor crew who ushered us onto a bus and took us directly to the port.  As we walked out towards the dock we were all so excited – there were sea lions everywhere!!!   The two women from the other family and I were all grins – I looked at them and said – “okay! It has already been worth the trek!” and they whole-heartedly agreed.    There were sea lions under most of the benches, in the water, on the rocks lazing in the sun reminding us of Chance, one in the water barking, they really were all over!  We boarded a little skiff with our handluggage and were off to our ship!  We had the traditional “fill in” about how everything works on the boat, daily schedule, procedures, etc.  Then we ate lunch and set out to unpack, set up dive gear, provide the obligatory paperwork/dive cards/passports, etc. and we were ready to start diving!  While we were doing all of that Daniel grabbed the camera because 20 meters away on the rocks of the island there were blue footed boobies hanging out!

As you can imagine the first time you don a two piece 7mm wetsuit with socks, boots, gloves, and hood, and all of the weight required to make it sink (over 10 kilos) it takes a while to get yourself sorted out.  Our first check dive really was exactly that – a check dive in which we swam around a sandy bottom looking for turtles and sea lions and got acclimated.  It was not the prettiest dive and we were definitely slowly working through adjustments to our gear, but!...seeing a sea lion that was bigger than us come zipping around was all it took for me to be hooked!  We saw several turtles, several sting rays, and when we surfaced we found ourselves eye level with the shore less than ten meters away from a sea lion beach.  Several of the sea lions were getting in and we got to see more of them swimming around us – Daniel even saw a baby do a corkscrew swim straight at him before it changed directions.  I saw an adolescent rolling in the surf on a rock who was showing off his ability to do rolls.  We also saw a sea turtle whose shell was bigger than my torso.  Just as we were finishing our dive I looked to the right an saw an eagle ray!  YAY!  I have always wanted to see one and he just came cruising by with less than five feet between us!  I couldn’t help but to think that this might be how many of our dives go – they may seem fairly fruitless for the majority of the time but in ten minutes we saw awesome things!

Dinner was quite yummy and I really enjoyed not feeling sea sick!  The patch works so well for me!  We ended our day with a conversation with the other family on the boat and went to sleep as the boat gently rocked us.  We made it!  We are in the Galapagos so far they seem like magic!