Ecuador December 2009

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Ecuador - Galápagos: A Dream Come True

When I was very young and first heard of the Galápagos and Charles Darwin, I was absolutely enthralled and never thought I would ever get the chance to actually see these enchanted islands. An extremely last minute booking, just-in-time DHL delivery of scuba equipment, 2 flights from Panama City and we were finally there.

Highlights

- Wandering past birds and animals that have no fear of humans - how many other places on earth can you find this?
- Playful sea lions sunbathing on fishing boats and following us underwater as we dive
- Schooling Hammerheads - one of the few places where you can observe them
- Delightful schools of dolphins that surround you underwater, making you forget you need to surface
- Blue-footed Booby birds with their funny mating rutuals
- Valerie's 100th dive (no, she did not go naked - much too cold in the Galápagos currents!)

Lowlights

- Steve almost losing a fin to a silky shark
- Dive masters asking for extortionate tips
- Finding out Lonesome George is the last of his kind. He's a Pinta Island Tortoise, a sub-species of the Galápagos Giant tortoise. There are ongoing efforts to mate him with other sub-species or to clone him, so far unsuccessfully. And at around 100 years of age, time may be running out!

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Photos

San Cristobal
Our liveaboard left from this litte seaside town. Sea lions curl up on the rocks and on fishing boats to sleep in the sun.

Diving Seals
Sea lions love to follow divers underwater to see what we're up to.

Diamond Stingray
This is a cleaning station. The stingray comes to these shallow sandy areas to be cleaned by little fish.

Red-lipped Batfish
Unusual looking fish which uses its pectoral fins to walk along the bottom. This one kept turning away from me when I tried to take its picture so you can't see the red lips.

Spotted Eagle Ray
Three Spotted Eagle Rays gliding past.

Bottlenose Dolphin
We saw lots of dolphins on our dives. On one memorable dive we were surrounded by a pod of up to 50. Magical - I didn't want to come up.

Darwin
We dived here two days. It's a hammerhead hang-out.

Hammerhead Shark
Here he is. This is what we came for.

Hammerhead Shark
The strange hammer shape of the head actually provides 360 degree vision and so helps when hunting quick-turning stingray and fast-moving squid.

Hammerhead Shark
Schooling Hammerheads, found on only a few places on earth.

Hammerhead Shark
Some came to within a meter of me. I could have taken closer pictures but I was always too slow. They didn't like the flash.

Schooling Hammerheads
School of hammerheads. We saw up to 50-60 at one time.

Massive Schools of Fish
On some of our dives there were hundreds of thousands of fish swirling around us. Sometimes we couldn't see each other.

Seahorse
Seahorse hiding his face.

Beach
The sun is very strong in the Galapagos Islands.

Climbing Aboard
We were picked up at the end of every dive by the tender. We had whistles to blow for when the current swept us away.

Sea Lions
Snorkeling with the curious sea lions.