|
||||||||||
|
||||||||||
    
|
||||||||||
|
By
Jules
on
25-10-2007, 17:51
|
|
Trip report part 2
Our itinary included 5 days at Darwin and wolf but this was actually on alternate days so wolf then Darwin then wolf then Darwin then wolf. This meant about 2-3 hours sailing between , sometimes in fairly choppy waters. The site we mostly dived at wolf starts at a place called “The landslide” Always negative entry and straight down, unless your buddy has floaty issues in which case it’s negative entry, grab buddy’s ankle and descend a meter. At 10 meters you see some huge boulders and quiet on the surface does not mean there won’t be currents at depth. In the 8 dives we did at wolf we had everything from eerily calm to ripping currents that would take your mask off. The technique you adopt is to get down onto the ledge at 20m find your rock, befriend it and give it a cuddle and then hang on and watch into the blue for the show to start. Oh My God! What a show it is. It’s sensational diving. Totally mind blowing in fact! There you are in the water hanging onto your rock, the surge changes and you are flung off that one and onto another one but meanwhile a hundred hammerhead sharks breeze over the top of you,  and then a turtle mooches past.  You take a picture of that but then look up and notice a squadron of spotted eagle rays swimming overhead – Backwards! They are swimming forward but the current is so strong that they are actually gliding backwards relative to you and the little rock, that has become your new best friend. So you shoot off a few pictures of the rays, wishing that all the fish would get out of the way because they are spoiling the silhouette effect.  Then you realise that your buddy is screaming into her reg for you to turn around and when you do you squeak because you are being stalked by two silky sharks and they are less than a metre from you. You fight them off (metaphorically) by exhaling and blowing bubbles which go sideways towards them in the current, they turn and go sneak up on someone else. All the while you can hear the distinctive whistling of dolphins, and at least twice in the dive you get buzzed by pod or an individual just checking you out. At Darwin’s Arch to add to all of this, the frenetic rattling of the guide’s rattle indicates that he has spotted a whaleshark and it’s time to do the 100 metre dash out into the blue to take a look. When you do catch the sight of a whaleshark it’s just breath taking. They are huge. The size of a bus, but in the form of a gentle yet powerful creature, that gracefully, yet deceptively quickly, moves through the water. It’s an experience which leaves you struggling for vocabulary; AWESOME just doesn’t even come close. Everyone should get to see a whaleshark some time in their life! Even the baby we saw was colossal. Posting a video link here so I hope it works On every dive here at Darwin and Wolf we saw Galapagos sharks, Hammerheads, Silky Sharks, Turtles, Dolphins, Morays by the hundred (not poking out of holes but free swimming along the rocks). On many we have seen Mobula rays, Spotted eagle rays, Marble rays. You get some overwhelmed by the big stuff that you forget to look at the little stuff but when you do you realise there are so many different fish, and as for the dolphins?? By the truck load! They chase the Ribs back to deep blue and when you are moored up in the evening they are swimming past for hours at a time. The sheer profusion of sea life is simply incredible. I don’t have time to go through the Darwin and wolf experience dive by dive as to some extent it all merges into one big WOW. Some memorable moments were… On day one dive two at Wolf Super and I ended up way behind the crowd because there was the equivalent of the M25’s worth of hammerheads swimming over us and in front of us. We just stayed put in awe and wonder. When gas got low we swam out into the blue for our safety stop and eventually surfaced in a 4 meter swell. At this point we couldn’t see the boat or either of the pangas or anyone else’s SMBs. We were there a while and starting to consider the fact that the current would eventually take us to Australia. We sounded our air horns. 6 long squirts that resounded off the cliffs above us. Nothing. We decided to swim out further to get a look round the corner and at this point a panga came around the corner. Disappearing for 20 seconds and appearing for 2 in the swell. I held my SMB above my head and waved it. Relief isn’t the word for it! The rest of the group had travelled with a the current round the corner but we hadn’t. Jason had spotted my SMB and kept it in sight as it disappeared and reappeared in the swell. I love my SMB! On another dive at Darwin , exhausted from chasing about in the blue after whalesharks we had retreated to the rocks. On these dives when someone points you had better look where they are pointing. I followed Jason’s finger and nearly spat my reg as a huge whaleshark cruised over the top of us. And later on the our safety stop I looked between my fins to see another animal the size of bus cruise below me.  )At this point I ought to pay homage to the queen of the Whaleshark Chasers Jane. On every video clip of whale sharks there she is keeping up with them and being first there.  On our last dive at Wolf, Super and I again lagged behind the group due to be entranced by all the action around us. As usually we drifted out into the blue and deployed my SMB hanging at 6 m we were surrounded by a baitball of hundreds of swirling fish being circled by about 7 silkies. At this point my memory of being told not to ascend on your own because of the silkies was recalled but to be honest I wasn’t scared, enthralled, I think is the word. But so much adrenaline flowed through me that I didn’t even think to turn my camera on and record it. I just hung there soaking up the image of being circled by these powerful and beautiful animals. |
|
|
By
Jules
on
25-10-2007, 17:53
|
|
Trip report part 3
Out at Wolf and Darwin you can get complacent about the sheer volume of sharks you see and it’s possible to think that people are exaggerating. Believe me, they aren’t By the way these video clips are fairly low resolution as taken on my faithful Olympus 5050 camera. They do however give some impression of what we saw. In the five days we had so many superb shark encounters, it’s hard to do it justice in a short report. We had a long and very choppy journey back from our last dives at wolf to get to Cousins rock for the next day . A lot of people felt unwell and whilst I wasn’t sea sick I did find the long journey very tiring and I put my camera together whilst tired and not really with it. The next morning we were woken at 6 to dive at 6:20 at cousins rock. I wasn’t really with it at all. Forgot a few things and was generally what I would refer to as clusterf***. 3 minutes into the dive my camera stopped working as the housing gradually filled with water. Doing something stupid and drowning your camera is annoying, doing it twice in the same mode of failure is just plain daft so the fact that I had again trapped the little string across the o ring is still irritating me now. Oh how they laughed at me when I said I was bringing 4 cameras. How many did I end up using? All four! The first dive at Cousins rock then was a bit of a mooch in poorish viz. We were looking for sea horses and didn’t find any. We saw a very amusing sight of a group of divers arm in arm finning very quickly along. I can only think it was people doing a try dive as their behaviour was most bizarre.! Second dive we did see sea horses and Luis showed me a frog fish. The first one he has spotted in about 5 years here. After showers and lunch we had a land visit to Santiago looking at the lava formations was fascinating. We also saw Marine Iguanas and lava lizards.  Marine iguana  Lava lizard  Super with Curley Wurley  Jason looking like an elf The lava formations were just odd  After the land visit we went for a short Panga ride to try to see some penguins  This might have been the first day that any of us managed to stay up past the 9pm watershed. Right at the beginning Gary I think it was tried to instigate a rule that you had to stay up past nine but many of those that did were caught resting with their eyes shut . It was just so tiring getting up at 6 and doing all that diving. |
|
|
|
By
Jules
on
25-10-2007, 17:56
|
|
Tuesday 9th October
This was the first day that we got a lie in and we did land visits to north and south plaza with some snorkelling. The object of the snorkelling was to try to see Marine iguanas underwater. AS it turned out it was an overcast day and the iguanas were not all basked up and ready to go! At the first snorkelling site it was very swelly, and hard to keep your self from being smashed onto the rocks. We didn’t see much to be honest. So we returned to the panga and the driver dropped us at a different point. This was calmer and there were lots of sea lions on the rocks. We were warned to keep away from the three large males who would prefer you not to invade their territory. I took Phil’s Sea and Sea camera in as the video mode on it is quite good and we were rewarded with some excellent sea lion action. You can see how playful they are by how they are playing tag with this piece of lettuce. The snorkelling was followed by lunch and land visits. Seeing marine Iguanas and sea lions again but also seeing land iguana one of which decided to stalk Fiona   We also saw birds of various kinds (you can tell I am not a twitcher can’t you?)  Later we watched a young sea lions pup searching for it’s mother teat, we cheered when it found it and it gave you a strong sense of the similarity between creatures. On Tuesday afternoon the national park had allocated us Gorden’s rock as a dive site where we had planned two dives. It was really cold and the viz was crap (5m). The rock formations were interesting as it was lots of little bubbles in the rock but to be honest I was freezing and I couldn’t really concentrate on anything other than your teeth chattering. As we were about to call it a day we saw a ray and a sea lion but compared to the dives we had experienced earlier this felt a bit rubbish really. The group ha the option of a second dive or a second snorkel but the maojority voted for hot showers and kit rinsing. The diving part of our trip was over. To be further continued Wednesday 10/10/07 We went for a long walk on San Christobel in search of Giant Tortoises in the wild. I don’t know what I was expecting in terms of size. They were big though, and quite sleepy. One went for a little walk whilst a few of us watched it.  The terrain was interesting and we heard and Saw mocking birds too.  There’s a problem here in that Goats and other mammal introduced by man put pressure on the environment and thus may affect the long term survival of the tortoises. Many people will know that when the Galapagos islands were first discovered there were loads of tortoises and they were plundered by just about everyone as a good source of meat for long voyages. Basically the ships filled their holds with them and they stayed edible for many months with no water or food.  After the long walk we went to civilisation… the main town in San Christobel where we purchased t- shirts and drank beer in bar (obviously just to do our bit for the local economy) After retiring to Deep blue for dinner and watching the guides videos we returned to land by Rib to visit a local bar . And had the most bizarre game of pool ever. I should say at this point that firstly I am rubbish at Pool and secondly it makes it difficult when people are manhandling parts of your body. Gary nabbed the best seat in the place  and the rest of us had a few polite beers.  Pic shows Kev, Jamesy and Ricardo (Rick to his mates) We only went out for a couple but somehow that turned in many and some of us were a bit the worse for wear when we eventually returned to the boat.  Pic shows Lou, Kathy, Luis the dive guide, Kev, Jason, James, Rick |
|
|
|
By
Jules
on
25-10-2007, 17:58
|
|
Thursday was travel day and all our dive kit and luggage was ferried across to the jetty at Baltra where we had embarked 10 days previously. We had seen so muich wild life both above and below the water line and the only thing that the twitchers were short of was a opportunity to see blue footed boobies (featured on most Galapagos t shirts) So just as though planned there were a few of them sitting on the rocks as we arrived.  So they got snapped  We sat for a long time at Baltra airport waiting for our flight to Guyaquil (where Gary and Kathy were leaving us) and onto Quito. And then there were 14… The rest of us arrive back at our hotel in Quito later that day feeling like it had been a lot more than 10 days since we had left it, so much had happened. That evening we went out for another relaxing meal (Ribs) and beers this time since Quito was no longer dry. On Friday and Saturday I had booked trips with a local tour operator to Cotapaxi national park and Otavalo Market. A number of the group had elected to join me so on Friday morning a group of us were again up early and waiting for a bus… The scenary on the way to the national park was lovely and on arrival we set out on foot to do a short acclimatisation walk looking at the flora and fauna.   This was followed by a short bus trip to walk higher up the side of the volcano. Altitude is a funny thing and to be honest I didn’t react well to it. After about the half the required distance I felt decided unwell and had tunnel vision. The terrain was challenging, like soft sandy beach but at an angle and all the while the altitude means you can’t get a decent breath. I wasn’t the only one wishing for stage of 80%! Actually 32% would have been fine too!  Pic shows Jenny , john , 2X another, Jane After feeling decidedly odd I decided not to continue so Good effort to everyone who made it further than I did! Including John, who is a little more senior than myself! Whilst we were on the volcano there was some thunder and a brief shower of snow and hail. A few people wer more than a little tired after their volcano bashing and needed a wee snooze on the way home  Note Ken who got the prize for most original sleeping pose. Whilst we had been out Fiona had departed and was on her way to machu pichu. On Saturday we visited Otavalo Market which is the largest craft market in south America, according to the guide books. It was very colourful and lots of great things to buy if you didn’t already have waaaay too much stuff.   The otavalo people are very petite. When we were queuing for the ladies loo I noticed that I was the tallest one there!!! On the way back we stopped at the leather town (Can’t recall the name now.. I am sure someone will tell me) and the stuff was amazing quality and really cheap. I only had room for two handbags but could have shopped a lot more! On the Sunday the remaining group flew home via Bonaire where we left Jason, john, Jane and Ken. Who were going for some easy diving on the way home. We then flew onto Amsterdam, snatching a little snooze on the way. Jenny had the misfortune to be sat next to the two smelliest men in the world and managed to negotiate a seat swap. I left the others at 6am to get my flight to Manchester. On return to my home country the Customs and excise dogs seemed very interested in my dive bag (which had been packed and festering for over three days). After a short chap with the customs man he decided to believe me and not investigate it any further. My best mate met me at the airport and asked me if I had a good trip. I couldn’t even start to say… Jules |
|
|
|
By
TimIngmire
on
25-10-2007, 18:12
|
|
Fantastic Jules - and there I was happy with the Red Sea.
Given some of those shots, the Galapagos deffo seem to qualify for Digigreen - Cold Green water with poor viz. Tanks for the report, the photos and the great vids. Excellent. |
|
|
|
By
Gawennies
on
26-10-2007, 11:06
|
|
Jules
Very interesting, and love the photos. We did a very similar trip in August. Aberdeen - Amstredam - Quito then after two days exploring the old town on to Galapagos. We did a 5 day island tour on the mv Galapagos Explorer and then out to Wolf and Darwin on the mv Galapagos Aggressor 1. I am still learning how to use the Gallery and Photobucket - I will post our photos soon. Our experience of this marvellous place was similar to yours. |
|
|
|
By
robindotadams
on
26-10-2007, 12:17
|
|
Darn, a few of us were planning to go out next year, but with all the mess on permits, shark finning etc, have decided to postpone it - from the look of things, I might have to ensure I get out there eventually! Outstanding
|
|
|
 |
| Bookmarks |
| Article Tools | |
| Display Modes | |
|
|
Did we hell. Quito is already at altitude (3000m) and we were sleep deprived and light headed so we took a fleet of Taxis to the Teleferico
Linear Mode
