Galapagos week 1

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Blimmin heck I’ve got to stop travelling as the backlog of blogs is beginning to get to be oppressive. This one is for the 1st week of the Galapagos. Being me I got excited about the trip the night before and went on the tiles straight after a late salsa class and met up with Rachel and Victor , and then later with Caroline, Hannah and John. It got a little bit late and I was a little shattered when in the morning the hostel porter remembered to book my taxi but not my wake up call. Caroline and Rachel were also heading to the airport so there were a few heads available to sort out getting me on the plane. I was sat next to my cabin mate from Canada, Brett and he challenged me to a bet as to how many rich fat Americans might be on our trip so I knew we were going to get along just fine😊 . Getting off the plane after the mild climate of Quito to face the heat of the Galapagos was a shock but we soon got used to it and it was nice to spend the next two weeks barefoot and shorted. We met the rest of the group in the terminal and headed to the yacht and it was great to nose around and get a feel for the place and we were off in a matter of hours to do a test dive off Gordon Rocks I think but at this stage I won’t pretend to remember the name or sequence of the dives as I am sure I have them all back to front. So the first dive was a shallow one but my memory of it was simply how much one can go wow during a dive. Everything was different to other places I’d dived, we came upon reef sharks and seals and all manner of little fish. The visibility wasn’t the hottest but the water temperature suited me fine. As a starter dive I was really up for getting in the water at every possible turn.
The yacht was fantastic with a free bar, flat screen TV and DVD selection but I found I couldn’t manage to stay awake for a full film after dinner and the diving during the day. The night sky was also fantastic travelling as we were for most of the time near deserted islands or in the open sea. The glimpses of luminous fish and plankton in the wash of the boat were fascinating.
The first day’s voyage introduced us to the wandering Frigate birds who trailed the boat effortlessly, swooping in wide circles around the yacht and landing on it to have photos taken. One unfortunate flew into one of the windmills and was stock still for a few minutes on the net decking at the rear of the yacht before making a lucky full recovery and flying off.
Meals were brilliant and the free bar was made of use of but I could definitely see that facility being withdrawn if a crowd from UCC Subaqua club turned up for a week of diving. At one point on the voyage (the following week I think, I saw the beer ship making a delivery 😊 A whole ship of beer! It had drink beer sensibly written across the bridge with the beer label on either side. The pirates in Somalia are cruising the wrong waters😊 .
Highlights from the following days of diving and land expeditions included being buzzed by enormous manta rays, holding on to rocks for dear life while an innumerable number of hammerheads swam by, some coming within 10 feet, following massive sea turtles , who move surprisingly fast when they want to and thanking my lucky stars that I managed not to see the small pod of three killer whales before I got in for one of my final dives as I would have sucked my tank dry in seconds because I look too much like a seal underwater. Fortunately they found a real seal and all that was left of it were bits of intestines which the frigate birds contested to lift from the water and fly to the cliffs- it was probably at least their body weight and changed beaks several time while we were watching the competition.
And then there was the time I got lost underwater near Darwins Arch. I heard the signal that means both ‘look at this’ from the dive leader and also ‘come on we are moving on’ and as a beautiful blue flounder had just turned up I thought that was what was meant and tore off videoing it. When I got back to where everyone had been… they were gone so I followed in the direction they were supposed to have gone for a bit but they were nowhere to be seen so I checked the opposite direction. No luck there either. At this point I decided I would continue hanging around in the same area until I had about twice my reserve before surfacing as it seemed a shame to abort a Galapagos dive, so I got some good footage of a sea turtle and got the willies when I was the only snack for the hammerheads when they arrived 😊 On surfacing I could see the yacht but not the Zodiac and also the waves crashing on Darwins arch so I had to fin continuously to stop drifting towards them . Fortunately I was equipped with a radio beacon and a sausage so I was spotted within a short while, more thanks to the two divers who were on deck I think than the technology! The wait for the Zodiac took a while as one of the other divers had to do an unplanned deco stop. I think I was more scared about getting the top of my head burnt off than anything else while I was bobbing around the place but I reckon that would have been a totally different story if I hadn´t been able to see the yacht!
Another interesting occurrence took place while we were moored overnight off one of the islands with a powerful light shining off the back off the yacht. The light attracted swarms of little fish, bigger fish seals and sharks (the jury was out as to whether they were Galapagos sharks but they were bigger than reef sharks). Every now and again the larger fish would get a bit jumpy and fin at amazing speeds upright over the surface of the water to avoid a perceived threat. They´d be a bit knackered after it and be motionless for a second or two which was when the seals would jump in, which in turn would get the sharks churning up the water. All very exciting and we were watching this for at least an hour when a tiny sea turtle who had probably just come out of an egg swam into the pool of light behind the boat. There was a conflict of interest then between wanting to see it and not wanting the predators to see it so there were people trying to protect it with their shadows and others trying to get it lit up 😊 It made its way past the boat anyway so it may have made it to safety - unlikely though!
Diving on the Galapagos is definitely taxing. Until I managed to get hold of a pair of gloves I was ripping the hands off myself trying to hold on to rocks in currents I would not dream of diving in at home. The chances of been swept off your hold and battered into nearby rocks seemed to be an almost ever present fear, and the visibility wasn´t that good that you could track your buddies if you mislaid them. I was fortunate enough to be lent an underwater camera with two strobes but at times this seemed less of a boon as you only had one hand to hold on to the rocks.
Further highlights included seeing flightless cormorants flying by in the water at the same time as sharks and seals were floating about. At times there was just too much going on- while videoing a turtle the largest Manta Ray I´d seen passed within a few feet of my head from behind and proceeded to buzz the rest of the divers who were also not looking until it had passed. The land expeditions were also interesting, a Galapagos hawk flew over us and settled on a perch about 8 feet from us for its photo shoot and at one point a yellow warbler landed on the brim of my cap while I was wearing it. The place was alive with sand lizards and sea iguanas and at times sand lizards using the heads of sea iguanas as vantage points.
All in all it was an amazing voyage😱
Due to technical difficulties more underwater pistures will have to wait til I get home 😞

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Comments

[Els]

Penguins in a hurry....
....laugh...I almost wet the seat! Absolutely brill. I have to go as everyone in library wondering why I'm giggling in the corner. x