Galapagos 03

I don’t know what I’m doing here but I’m definitely not very happy. As soon as I get back on dry land I’m going to sell this gear and never try anything like this again. Those were my thoughts as I flapped around in about 10 metres of water in Doolin over 12 years ago. I had just started at the diving game and wasn’t doing too well. And now a few hundred dives later as I was awe struck to take in the myriad of sea life that surrounded me as I dived under Darwin’s Arch, the furthest outpost of the Galapagos chain of islands, boy was I glad that I had decided to have another go.

At the end of October this year 4 members of the CSAC headed off to Ecuador with our sights set on diving in the Galapagos Islands. The islands are about 1000 kilometres out in to the Pacific from Ecuador. The islands considered mere children in evolutionary terms at 5 million years old have been a source of great interest for nature lovers ever since Darwin spent some time here in the 1800`s. We have long since been hearing stories of giant tortoises, sea iguanas, frigate birds and blue and red footed boobies. But in recent times explorers have also been able to uncover the vast underwater riches of the Galapagos.

There is no other way to put this. This is diving at whole other level than I have experienced before. Okay the visibility could be better, the water can be cold, there are strong currents in some places, there is not the same colour that can be found in other dive destinations around the world but the sheer number of what is there overwhelms you.
When you become indifferent about seeing turtles on a dive you know something is not right. We each did about 17 dives over six days and saw turtles on most dives, Rhona counted at least eight at a one cleaning station while snorkelling. Andrew spotted similar numbers on a night dive as they slept on a ledge only for him to be distracted by a similar number of marble rays asleep in the cave below.

If you are coming this far and spending the money required you want to maximise the number of dives. To do this with a degree more safety it’s best to dive Nitrox. We all did for the week at little extra cost.
The diving can be considered in two distinct location groups, the central islands and the northern islands (Darwin and Wolf). The water around the central islands is cooler due the prevailing ocean currents. The diving in this area is very varied but generally the fish life is smaller and more colourful. Unique sightings included a mola mola (Pacific sunfish) and a number of sea horses. This was along with a lot of shoaling jack fish, grunts, surgeonfish, rays, sea lions and turtles. By the way we also got indifferent about seeing free-swimming morays after the first dozen or so.
Up north the water was warmer by about 5 degrees! 20 to 25 in a couple of hundred miles. The net effect you could dive in a 3m suit up there whereas a 5 to 7 would be required in the south. The visibility was better and there was also more current to be had. The dive plans were different in that you were diving more in open water as here the expectation was for bigger things. i.e. hammerhead sharks and dolphins. A lot of time was spent waiting in the blue so it was no place to be practicing your buoyancy. There were sharks on every dive (10 dives up there) and on the last dive there were possibly 50 or more but we couldn’t see clearly out into the blue where there were a lot more.
There were schools of dolphins always on the surface racing the boats but we only saw a few on the dives.
The dive of dives was where we went down in the blue and at about 20 metres a shoal of grunts came around us and encompassed us so that we were almost part of the shoal as they fed in the nutrient rich water. We could hear the fish movement and watched the other shoals of jacks preying on them and also watched dolphins torpedo through and disperse the shoal but the shoal always drifted back together. We probably spent about a half an hour drifting with them. As we left the shoal the hammerheads were cruising by and on the surface the dolphins were doing their acrobatics. Nothing quite like it. And as with any great dive you just can’t talk it, you had to be there.

We were on a live aboard called the Sky Dancer and were very well looked after. This was a well equipped specialist dive boat run by Ecoventura and the Peter Hughes Dive Group. The dive leaders were very experienced and knew the area very well. The boat crew were also very customer oriented and were always on hand to assist. The standard of accommodation was top class in that all rooms are en suite and the food was plentiful and great quality. Hot drinks and snacks were waiting for you after each dive. Life will never be the same again on Inishbofin.
As the customer base is predominantly American they have come to expect a US tipping culture also, in other words the customer pays the staff wages, but use your own judgement and tip as you feel was deserved if you go there.

Either side of the diving we spent some time in Ecuador and this is very well worth doing. Quito is a big sprawl of a city but is interesting and is not as dangerous as many guide books will tell you just be careful if you intend to be out really late. We stayed in the Dann Carlton Hotel 4* for €100 BB per room per night for a top class standard.
Places worth the visit are the old city which is a UNESCO heritage site and also go to Otavalo a town about 100 ks to the north with great scenery on the way. This town has a wonderful tribal market on Saturdays, one of the most colourful sites you will ever experience, however, we never did get to sample the roast guinea pigs.

We travelled to Quito with KLM, Dublin via Amsterdam and they were very good but go caught for a strictly applied baggage weight limit of 20k per person on the return leg, so be careful. It’s hard to limit baggage to this with any amount of dive gear. Alternative is not to bring suits, stabs or torches as these can be rented at a good rate in the Galapagos, but give advance notice to the dive operator on suits to ensure correct sizes.

Ok that’s the condensed version I’m sure I’ll bore you all to tears before long with the detailed low down. Bottom-line… definitely one of the top dive destinations in the world even if we were late for the whale sharks.
Anybody wanting a detailed breakdown on costs and planning give me a call.

M O Loughlin

PS. Oh yeah, we did land trips also and saw the giant tortoises, iguanas, frigate birds etc but I won’t go on………

Diving on your behalf were…
Rhona Mannion
Andrew Fitzsimons
Brian Kinsella
Michael O Loughlin