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Smile!!!!!
You can't but do anything else even with a mouth full of regulator Blog on Santa Cruz - our Galapagos extension.
The extension was easy enough... Think they are glad to have people stay on....extra revenue and all, at Galapagos prices!!! We only had to pay $10 to change that was all and it would have been free but we changed our destination to Guayaquil instead of Quito. So the six of us (Lisa, Andeas, Hanita and Archna) headed back into town (bus-boat- bus... About an hour and a bargain at only about $3) and began our search for a hostel.... After looking at almost all of them, including 'The Red Footed Booby', which at $80 per night there was no way in the world we could ever afford, but we tried our luck for a deal nevertheless, we plumped on 2 triples at 'Hotel Gardner', which had a great roof top terrace with hammocks and loungers, oh and the all important 'desayuno inclusivo'- breakfast included...We initially booked for just 2 nights as we were going to head out to San Cristabol, another island, so Jon could do some surfing at their top Surf spot but on the first afternoon thanks to the recommendation of Alberto we did the 2 km walk to Tortuga
Amazing!!!!!
Check out the size of this Bad Boy, scarier on the picture than under the water swimming with him! Bay and found our own local surf spot and certainly 'The' most beautiful beach we've found on our travels so far.... Hence our quick extension to 5 days on Santa Cruz...Surfing sorted... Just had to decide where I was doing my diving and after checking out almost every dive shop in town I plumped for 'Eagle Ray' as they were going to Gordon Rocks the next day, which is where all the hammerheads hang out, and let's face it, that's what diving the Galapagos is all about.... Sharks!!!! I'd also chatted with Alvero the owner, about doing my dive masters with him when we were in town to pick up the second group for our cruise, so it made sense to see how I'd like diving with them.... No Central America prices here though..... $145 for a 2 tank dive!!! Ouch!!! And these three things really set up our activities for the next four days, diving, surfing and walking the 2km to Tortuga Bay during the days and plenty of great company, bebidas and comidas during the nights!!! Managed to get out on four dives in total and they all lived up to their hype.... You can understand to a degree why they charge so much, Alvero has to pay $6000 per month to lease a boat, which has a permit to go to the dive sites as they are located within the national park and only so many boats are allowed access at one time in order to preserve the wildlife. Add onto that the fact it's a 45 minute taxi ride to where all the boats leave from, which is quite a trek, not like carrying your tank from the boat hut to the dock, like we did in Belize!! Also these are tough dives, no nice still, clear, current free Caribbean with visibility of 30 meters plus... We were going down into 2 meter visibility and grabbing rocks to help us battle the current, certainly felt like you'd done a work out afterwards.... Not to mention.... Stone Fish, Rock Fish, Sea Anenemies and SHARKS EVERYWHERE!!!!!! We even had a special briefing on the sign for 'danger'...... We dived Gordon's the first day both dives and Daphne and North Seymour the next.... We saw everything from schools of 6 Eagle Rays, Marble and Sting Rays, Turtles, White Tip Sharks in their Schools, Huge Galapagos Sharks, Back Tips, An amazing ginormous schools of Barracuda, loads of schools of other types of fish, Sealions and of course... HAMMERHEADS..... The best dive- Daphne.... Where we saw the school of Hammerheads and counted at least 10 and got the all important shot of the silhouette of a huge one directly above us..... Very very special and I feel so lucky to have been able to dive here.... And after doing it can understand it when they say if you do your divemaster training here you can cope with anything, as the dives really are challenging from all angles.... And worth every penny!!!!! Most afternoons we wandered up to Tortuga Bay, played in the waves and on the last day watched Jon get better and better at surfing.....Andreas became our new roomy when we said good bye to the girls.... Bless them they left us all their posh shampoo, conditioner, shower gels, sun cream.... We loved the little luxury!!!! Lisa got over her fish phobia and took her open water course and has joined the family of divers and through that we met Matt and his Mum Jackie, who has to be the coolest 60 year old mum ever... Flying over to do a fortnights backpacking with her eldest son....These 5 days really iced our Galapagos cake and we've enjoyed devouring every bite...Great food, company and cocktails- A fitting end to our time on the Galapagos
Sorry for the lack of pictures this time round they are all on our external hard drive which has now decided to stop working, hopefully they are not lost for good. You can try the link below to see if the video is working.
https://fbcdn-video-a.akamaihd.net/cfs-ak-ash4/v/453630/295/225776527538624_63518.mp4?oh=776a786502161cfb5fbd81fbf4932b6d&oe=4FC44420&__gda__=1338262560_c994374ff20232b53ddfe38e28276b50
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