Crusing the Galapagos

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Las Bachas - Santa Cruz
Bartolome - San Salvador
This morning was one of the few opportunities to go scuba diving, I opted to do this instead of swimming on Las Bachas beach. One of the local dive companies came out to meet the boat, there were 5 passengers diving today. It was quite expensive at $120 for a two-tank dive. The water in the Galapagos is also surprisingly cold for it being on the equator, 50 to 60 degrees is normal! They provided full 5mil suits with hood and gloves. We would be diving off of Daphne islet, a wall dive with an opportunity to see hammerheads. I had never used a hood before, and had problems with my mask leaking once underwater, so my first dive was spent mainly clearing my mask! The second dive was much better, saw plenty of parrot fish, sea urchins, starfish, etc. but we never saw any sharks or whales. That afternoon, we sailed the short distance to Bartolome at San Salvador Island; this is where the classic Galapagos photo shot of Pinnacle Rock is taken. This was also the most active part of the trip, there were several hundred wooden steps over the volcanic cinders to the peak. The 360 degree view here is just incredible, but it was late afternoon and a bad sun angle, morning would be much better for photos. After the climb, I went down to the beach where there were several Galapagos penguins (yes, penguins!) sitting on the rocks. They are tiny, no more than 8-10 inches tall. That night at dinner we were invited to sit at the Captains table. He spoke very good English and had been a sailor for over 20 years.

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