Diving the Galapagos

40 minutes into the dive and time for our scheduled safety stop of 3minutes at 5 metres. A couple of minutes go by and a school of thousands of jacks reduces the already poor visibility to not more than a couple of metres. A couple of seals who had followed us all along the dive chase the jacks around forming bubbles around them where the jacks tried to escape. A couple of turtles swim underneath us so I guide the remaining 3 divers, an American and 2 Ozzies close by. While going back to about 50 feet a couple of hammerheads appear out of the blue so close yet still invisible to the other divers. The hammers keep coming back a couple times more until they have danced in front of all of us as if to make sure we all know they are there. So with the 2 Ozzies already below 50 bar I signal to everyone to go back to the safe 5m and continue our safety stop. As soon as we hit 30 feet a shadow glides underneath us seeming like a Manta so all excited I signal and bolt again dow to reach the ray. It turned out to be a massive spotted Eagle ray who was gliding below us followed by another dozen rays to form a carpet underneath us, surrounding us were still the hammers and the turtles in the distance and the jacks on top of us. Guessing that the Ozzies will soon run out of air I finally and reluctantly looking at my 1000psi remaining give thumbs up and finally surface after the best safety stop I ever had by far.

That was what today`s dive was like at Gordon Rocks, Galapagos no pictures yet so you will have to use your imagination.

Diving in the Galapagos is very unreliable and depends heavily on currents and on your luck . Diving is quite cold and visibility of 15 m is considered great. Having siad that on an average dive your are bound to see turtles, reef sharks, sea lions and heaps of fish. If you are lucky you get to see hammerheads, manta rays, eagle rays, and if you are really really luck the whale shark will show up. unless you have a spare $ 3000 and sail to Darwin and Wolf, a couple of island 18 hrs sail from the main islands and whale sharks are almost guaranteed.

After a week of diving everyday I got used to the cold water with frequent thermoclines down to 15 degrees and the strong currents and got to see schools of more than 50 hammerheads, galapagos sharks, eagle rays and all the other stuff.


I will blog again with pictures later on and tell you how working on the Galapagos is going !!! hehehe