Galapagos Islands August 2005
The final journey - Days 7 - 10
Again no club trip last month, so bear with me as I write more from my Galapagos diary...still at the famous Darwin Island, we had 3 dives prior to lunch and once again were presented with hundreds of hammerhead sharks, moray eels, dolphins, turtles, barracuda and thousands of ref fish. The place teems with life. The 2nd dive was the most exciting, firstly I had an extremely close encounter with a large Galapagos shark which circled me & my Russian buddy before swimming past me only a foot away and I managed to touch its belly. It then turned and came straight for me, mouth agape and was not veering at all......hmmm plan of attack...and quickly!!!...so I swam straight at it and delivered a short right jab to the snout and it took off!!! I turned to see my buddy punching the water and giving the big OK sign and signaling that he had caught it all on video...can't wait to get it but have been unable to contact him since. Shortly after, the O-ring on my tank burst so we spent the rest of the dive in the shallows in a shark and manta cleaning station watching these fish being attended to. 3rd dive was at a slightly different site and we swam into the deep blue and into thousands of amberjacks, supple jacks, hammerheads and albacore tuna. As we ascended, we were all being circled by silky sharks which we were later told are quite aggressive. The next day saw two more dives at Darwin, our last providing some different species with; Blackjack, Big eye Jack, Blue spotted Jack, rainbow runners, rainbow chub, turtles, blue lobsters and yellow-tailed goatfish. With no sign of the targeted whale shark, all the punters were a bit restless and we persuaded the skipper to leave the site early and we headed back to Wolf Island for an awesome dive in much warmer water (of course relative to NZ it was all very tepid). With one dive-master suspected of being bent and on oxygen, we sailed overnight to Isabella Island for our final dive site of the trip at Cape Marshall. 3 dives at this site and what a magic place to finish! Huge giant manta rays everywhere and man were they playful. They'd swim over us, let us touch their bellies, they swam in formation with little ones, and some were even surfing as we completed our safety stops. We then sailed overnight to Santa Cruz Island, visited the Highlands where we looked at Giant Tortoises, including "Lonesome George" who is the last of his species, and two males who have saved their species by fathering over 1400 offspring!!! We visited the Charles Darwin centre, checked out more marine iguanas and the amazing bird life of this place. It was then time for a few drinks after checking out Puerto Ayerto's shops, on board for our final meal, and a few more drinks as we sailed back to San Cristobal for departure the next day. All I can say "If you get the chance just do it" It's an amazing and unique place.
John H
