Advertisement
After saying a sad farewell to the "Guantanamera" Stace and I checked into a cute little hostel on Isla Santa Cruz. This is the most populated of the islands and has plenty of little shops, restaurants and tourists. We went straight out to book a dive trip for the following day.
My stomach had been dodgy since the second day on the boat but fortunately I didn´t miss any of the activities, managing to do all the land and sea excursions without incident (sometimes only just!). Again I was lucky I wasn´t feeling too bad on the day of our dive.
We were really keen to dive at Gordon Rocks, the most famous dive site in the Galapagos and one of the most famous in the world as it is a favourite haunt for hammerhead sharks. Stace has never seen a shark whilst snorkelling or diving and so we were pretty excited. Also a little anxious cos it´s a diifcult dive site due to strong currents and the depth.
I don´t know why I´m saying anxious, that´s a lie - I was peaking. Sharks being a bigger fear than birds and always being a bit sketchy in the
ocean I was barely holding it together as we headed out to the dive site.
We were doing 3 dives. The first 2 were pretty ordinary, we didn´t see anything majorily exciting and we were both sucking pretty hard on our air so didn´t last too long way down there. We were pretty bummed about the lack of hammerhead action as we sat and waited till we could go on the final dive. Finally we backflipped in, a sea lion came up to play, we spotted a sea turtle then it was struggle town as we tried to navigate through rocky crevices using the strong currents and sometimes holding on with our bare hands. Again a little bit of peaking and a lot of air sucking.
The dive master pointed at something infront of me and I thought it was just a big fish, certainly not a shark. I looked again and noticed the distinct outline of the shark fins and then the funny little hammer shaped head. I was pretty excited and waited for the rest of it´s mates to show themselves but unfortunately they didn´t and it disappeared super quickly. So much so that when we
got back up and were talking about it we discovered that Stacey never got to see it! Devestated! To this day we have not seen sharks snorkelling or diving and she is not a happy camper! Every other day they saw heaps out there, it was just the luck (or unluck) of the day.
We were going to do another dive later in the week but I got really sick and was unable to go again so maybe we´ll have better luck in the Carribean in Colombia.
We headed to Isabella Island for a couple of days where I spent a lot of time in bed but our pad was right on the beach so it wasn´t too bad. I managed to fit in a little boat and snorkelling tour of some little islands offshore where we saw about 8 really big white tip sharks (from the land though, not whilst snorkelling but Stacey did feel a little happier).
On the hellish 2 hour speed boat ride back to Isla Santa Cruz I was feeling really rough and decided after 12 days of the dodgy stomach it was time to see the doctor. He diagnosed parasites and
guardia in my stomach and intestines and gave me a heap of drugs which for once I didn´t put up a fight over cos I was just too sick of being sick.
I slept a lot actually both of us did but on the last day we went for a long walk to Tortuga (Turtle) Bay (always good when you haven´t eaten properly for almost 2 weeks and don´t have any energy). It was worth it though. We stepped upon one of the loveliest beaches I have seen (well in the top 5 I reckon). Pure white soft sand, turquoise waters, noone else around. We couldn´t swim though due to strong currents but we went to the next beach and relaxed and swam int he tropical waters.
We flew back to Quito on Sunday, both really sad to have to leave the islands. We had extended our stay there and ended up spending 2 great weeks exploring their beauty and wonder. We would have loved another week but well you can´t always get what you want and other places beckon and call.
The Galapagos is one place you only go to once in your life as it
is so far away and so expensive (although we got a great deal on our cruise by shopping around in Quito and not booking it ahead of time) but I am thinking I may have to return one day in search of the elusive hammerheads, to play once more with the friendly sea lions, to check in on old "Lonesome George" and of course to gaze upon the brilliant blue footed boobies. If you´re ever planning on going...let me know as I may just be persuaded to tag along.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.13s; Tpl: 0.024s; cc: 11; qc: 51; dbt: 0.0465s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb
Sara
non-member comment
Ono el tiburon!
One hammerhead is better than none... You know that I all I need to be persuaded is, to be asked and Im def in! Im glad you finally went to the dr... I got the awful bugs in my stomach too, it seems lots of grinos do, the drugs work pretty quickly and you wont even think twice about them. Im really enjoying your blogs...keep them coming. xx