Diving in the galapagos

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Having decided to stay for 10 days in the galapagos, I devoted 4 of those to learning to dive, with a very gorgeous diving instructor - James, and his flirtatious little side kick - Christian. The four days were pretty standard, some theory, some practical under water, and lots of giggles, mostly involving the guys attempting to throw me off the boat (usually unsuccessfully). When it all ended I was $400 less well off with a padi open water diving qualification which meant of course that I wanted to go diving some more.

Throughout the holiday I had been hearing about people seeing whale sharks in the area, but at the more difficult diving sites. There were also a lot of sighting of hammer head sharks, galapagos sharks and white tips, so there was lots of potential for interesting dives. On my first day of qualified diving I went on three dives to one of the safer location. The first dive was at 30m, and was really cool: we saw a whole bunch of things including a sleeping turtle, which James woke. It then swam out from under its rocks looking all confused then swam off - doest sound all that exciting, but we we´re so close to it, less that a meter, it was really amazing. Throughout the rest of the day we saw a bunch of different sea creatures - giant star fish, manta rays, more turtles, lots of fancy coloured fish, but no whale sharks, or even any sharks of any kind.

The next day, I persuaded the dive company to let me go to Gordon rocks, the best site to spot hammer head sharks, but one of the hardest diving spots in the Galapagos. Fortunately James said I was good enough to cope with the strong currents so they signed me up for another days diving @ $120 a day - OUCH! (I spent a small fortune on those islands!)

Anyway, very excited/apprehensive we set off for gordon rocks; once a volcano, now three peaks in the sea, reaching down to roughly 35m at the base. As expected on route I made an effort to top up my tan, at this point getting quite nice, to which the dive master and boat driver didnt appear too disappointed - some of the island lads were seriously sleazy "peruvert", but being the confident girl from the UK it was no problem keeping them under control!

So on the first dive, we spent the first 15 mins looking for hammer heads, trying to get used to the currents and checking out some of the smaller fish in the shallower parts of one peak. Then roughly 6 white tip sharks appeared, very curious of us, and got very close, then as i had hoped a small school of roughly 7 hammer heads appeared, all different sizes - some huge! Along with this a few turtles and rays appeared. Then the hammer heads disappeared, so in an attempt to find them again we moved closer to the edge of the peak, then luckily they reappeared. Whilst gazing at these huge sharks, I heard our dive master trying to scream at me through the water, so I looked to see him going crazy making the whale shark sign. This is something like what a football hooligan would make at a match, 2 fists in the air, moving them up and down and screaming loudly - hilarious to watch under water. Then, when refocused, I realised to my surprise (and sheer delight) a huge whale shark was right in front of me just casually swimming past. It was massive, roughly 12m, looking rather like a giant macrall, dark blue with light blue spots. It was an absolutely breathtaking experience, we were so excited to have seen a whale shark, and truly lucky! Once the dive ended and we were back in the boat we were all jumping up and down and hugging in excitement. I dont think I will be forgetting that moment for quite a while. It was a perfect way to end my ten days in the galapagos!

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