Galapagos Islands 2005
Days 3 & 4
With no trip last month, here are more tales from my Galapagos trip of last year.
Day 3 dawned fine and warm but overcast as usual, with our wake up call at 5.40am and first dive at Cousins Island entering the water at 6.45am! We returned to the boat to a breakfast fit for Kings and after a rest entered the water for our 2nd dive at Cousins Island. These dives were wall dives with ledges and caves to explore, all with plenty of marine life, golden rays, eagle rays, sting rays, puffer fish, pipe fish, sharks, snake eel, sea lions & fur seals, barracuda creole fish etc, schooling fish everywhere, soft green corals and also black coral. Following this we sailed to Bartholomews Island were some took in some sun while a few of us snorkelled with the penguins. This was highly entertaining as they were in a feeding frenzy and herding up balls of bait fish before dive bombing them, very funny and fascinating to watch.
After lunch we landed on Bartholomews Island and climbed an old volcano to an amazing view of what one can only imagine is similar to a lunar landscape, with lava rocks everywhere and very little in the way of vegetation apart from the odd cactus and one strange flower, with the only other life a few lava lizards and sea birds. A few also ventured across a small peninsular to the only sand on the island to Turtle beach, a small area where turtles often swim in the shallows very close to shore.
The boat left at 10.00pm for Roca Redonda (roughly translated as Red Rock) and what turned out to be a very rough sailing and very sleepless night. We crossed the equator for the first of many times on this trip. 1st dive was at 6.45am in what was the only disappointing dive on the trip due to poor visibility. There was plenty of marine life about; turtles, angel fish, grouper and a few schooling hammerhead sharks but generally they were murky shapes in the distance. Interesting was the numerous plumes of bubbles coming from the seabed, possibly volcanic activity. Following breakfast we sailed to Punta Vicenta Roca, crossing back into the southern hemisphere again. What an amazing place, the first bay we entered had 12 Giant Sunfish (Mola Mola), numerous turtles and penguins playing on the surface. We quickly entered the water and had an amazing dive first along a wall and then over a sandy bay onto a large reef. The whole area was teaming with life and colour. Huge stingrays, bonito, puffer fish, bass, frogfish, both green & carnivorous nudibranchs (quite topical these ay Stu!!), slippery lobsters, big seahorses schools of angel fish in a frenzy, golden rays, schools of mackerel etc. To top it off we had a very close encounter with 7 sunfish on our safety stop. This was such a good place we dived the site again after lunch. We then explored along the coastline from the pandas (rubber inflatables), amazing seabirds abound, blue footed boobies, red footed boobies, masked boobies, big boobies - whoops got carried away there!, pelicans, plus large marine iguanas and then came a real highlight. As we headed out across the equator into the open sea in 2 metre swells there were 3 Orca busy hunting seals. They were slapping their tails on the sea to communicate with other orca and let them know food was there for the taking. It was awesome. They chased the seals up under our boats, swam all around and under us, turned over, stuck their heads out of the water and checked us out as much as we were them. It was a huge buzz for all. As they were in hunting mood that we decided not to leap over the side to swim with them!! I will certainly treasure that 45 minutes, only Day 4 - and it's not over, phew....can it get any better, watch this space - John
