Month: February 2017

Day 320: Cousin’s Rock & Santa Cruz

Our boat sailed through the night to return us to the main islands of the Galápagos archipelago by morning. The final full day of our liveaboard trip included two dives at a site off Santa Cruz island, called Cousin’s Rock, followed by a land tour on Santa Cruz Island. Cousin’s Rock ending up being a great dive site! The visibility was one of the clearest we’d had in the Galápagos, giving us the feeling we were scuba diving in an aquarium. We saw a handful of sharks and some disinterested sea lions, but the coolest thing about this site was the sheer number of rays we saw: stingrays, Eagle Rays and Manta Rays. Like most of the wildlife around here, they were completely unafraid of us and allowed us to get quite close for pictures.

Early morning arrival at our last dive site: Cousin’s Rock

 

Surrounded by huge schools of fish – this location was like diving in an aquarium!

 

Apparently Russian divers are subject to a stereotype: they like to touch *everything.* Igor shows his roots during our dive trip – while he resists the urge to touch the sea lions and never gets close enough to a shark, just about everything else within reach falls prey to a little poke from his finger. Each time Lindsay catches him on camera, he turns and gives her an innocent look as if to say, “I didn’t do it!”

 

White-tip Reef Sharks resting below a rock. Look carefully at the gills of this shark – see the bite marks? A few seconds after this shot, the male shark attacked the female in order to have *amorous relations*

 

Igor swims up to a school of Barracuda

 

A starfish and a school of Yellow-tailed Surgeonfish (gray-colored Dorys) on the ocean floor

 

We find a sea lion hiding under a rock – she’s not interested in playing with us, she just wants to quietly roll around on the floor. We must have interrupted her Zen, as she eventually swims off to the surface

 

Lots of stingrays swimming on the ocean floor

 

We see one large Manta Ray in the distance, and a pair of Eagle Rays slowly flapping against the current

 

Lindsay climbs up the rock pinnacle to get a close-up of the Eagle Ray – check out that huge nose and mouth!

 

So many rays! Igor catches up to several Eagle Rays

 

We see the Humboldt Explorer in the distance as the panga picks us out of the water for the last time – very pleased to end our dive trip on a high note!

After lunch, we re-boarded the pangas (in dry clothes for once!) and rode over to the ferry landing at the Itabaca Channel on the northern tip of the island. We took a bus up into the Santa Cruz Highlands to see more Giant Tortoises, before continuing across the island to the town of Puerto Ayora – the most populous city in the Galápagos. While in town, we had a few hours free to walk around (giving the other guests time to do souvenir shopping), before meeting up with everyone for a farewell dinner at a restaurant in town (the only meal & beverages NOT included in our tour package).

 

Group shot of the Humboldt’s guests before our land excursion on Santa Cruz Island

 

We catch a bus at the Itabaca Channel and drive up into the Santa Cruz Highlands

 

Chillin’ out at the Rancho El Manzanillo Giant Tortoise Reserve

 

Igor has to sneak up behind this Giant Tortoise – even though they are GIGANTIC they get rather shy when we approach them, ducking their heads into the shell with a hiss

 

Giant Tortoises crawling slooooowly though the vegetation, munching on leaves

 

An artificial freshwater pond provides the tortoises with drinking (and bathing) water

The first thing we did upon reaching town was to head over to the bank ATM – we were low on cash after paying the balance of our bill to the boat (equipment rental, fuel surcharge and tips). We were mystified when the first ATM we tried told us we had already reached our withdrawal limit for the day. Weird – we’ve been on a boat in the middle of nowhere with no reception for 5 days, how could we have taken any money out? We assumed the ATM was on the fritz, and waited for a different one to open up. Again, the same message. We started to get a bad feeling – we logged into our bank account from Igor’s phone…

…for the past 5 days, someone in *Malaga, Spain* had been taking out the maximum USD $600 per day! WTF!!! We didn’t have a travel notice for Spain!!! We were furious, and immediately called up our bank to report the fraud. Turns out, the bank’s fraud department did flag the withdrawals as suspicious and actually denied the final 2 transactions, and they agreed to refund our lost funds. In the meantime, however, we now had to burn yet another card! Since we would be out of the country for another month, there was no way for us to get a replacement card. Luckily, we still had *one* last card left so we could still get cash, but we are going to have to be borderline paranoid about this one – if yet another card gets compromised, we are screwed!

We are still at a loss as to how this card got hacked. We suspected that it must have happened in either the airport in Guayaquil or the only ATM in San Cristóbal (the fact that the fraud charges just happened to occur as soon as we were at sea seemed like too big of a coincidence). The really disturbing thing is that the withdrawals were taken from an *ATM* in Spain, meaning someone had not only copied the magnetic strip of our card, they had also gotten ahold of our PIN! Man, we thought Indonesia was shady – Ecuador is fucking devious.

Once the bank issue was taken care of, we only had an hour left to explore the town. Luckily, we’d be returning to Puerto Ayora in a few days, so we had plenty of opportunity to visit all the sights we missed. We got a quick lay of the land before meeting up with the crew for our final dinner.

 

Strolling down the main street of Puerto Ayora

 

Group dinner at a restaurant in town – Lindsay and Igor would have preferred to have our final dinner on the boat, but Lindsay suspects the operator doesn’t want the guests to overindulge at the open bar on their last night with no morning dive to encourage moderation

 

Igor sits on a park bench behind a sleeping lobo

 

We spot a baby shark swimming in the lighted water off the pier

Days 316 – 319: Darwin & Wolf

The majority of our dive trip was spent at Wolf Island and Darwin Islands. These small, uninhabited islands are located about 150-200KM northwest of the main part of the Galápagos archipelago – since it takes 16hrs of navigation to reach them, only liveaboard tours get to visit them. There are only a handful of liveaboard dive boats operating in the Galápagos, and since we were here in the low season, even fewer were operating tours this week – as a result, the Humboldt Explorer was the *only* boat at these locations the entire week! Talk about exclusive!

Wolf & Darwin Islands are the last landmass before hitting open water, and they are located at the convergence of several currents (the biggest danger here is the currents – the animals are mostly harmless). The currents bring nutrient-rich waters and that is what attracts so much wildlife – especially BIG wildlife. Wolf and Darwin are particularly famous for schools of Hammerhead Sharks, Whale Sharks, Orcas, dolphins, sea lions and Green Turtles. Other than the Whale Sharks and Orcas (which are only there in the “winter” season from June – November) we saw EVERYTHING!

We spent 4 days diving in the northern islands of Wolf and Darwin. Our first two days were intense, with four dives per day at 8AM, 10AM, 2PM and 4PM. Our dives were limited to 55min each (we were usually low on air and coming up to do our safety stop at that point anyways, so the time limit didn’t bother us) and a max depth of 30M (again – didn’t bother us as we are only certified to 30M anyways). We were divided into 2 groups of 8, and we switched between the two dive masters each day, so everyone got equal time with the “senior” guide.

Surprisingly, of all the sites we visited, Darwin’s Arch ended up being a disappointment – we actually had one dive where no one saw a single shark! Some of the guests on the boat actually skipped our morning dive at Darwin being they, “knew it would be shit.” They were right. The currents were incredibly mild this week, so that might account for the lack of activity. The dive masters took a vote among the guests and we all agreed to forfeit 1 dive at Darwin in order to return to Wolf Island where conditions were better (every single underwater photo below was from Wolf!).

When we weren’t diving, we had a very relaxing stay on the Humboldt Explorer. There was no Wifi and no TV (at least, not in our room – even if there were, there was no cable!), so we had a lot of down time for naps, writing, editing photos and pleasure reading. Once we were out of the water after our last dive of the day, we could help ourselves to unlimited beers, and as many glasses of wine we desired at dinner. Of course, we were always aware of the fact that we had a 6AM wake-up call and an early dive in the morning, so our boozing was pretty moderate (well…by our standards at least).

 

Every diver is given an emergency radio and a Dive Alert whistle in case we get caught in a current and surface out of sight of the pangas

 

We get a briefing for each new dive site, going over a rough map and route, depth and current direction, and what kind of wildlife we can expect to see. Afterwards, we go out to the deck to get suited up – Lindsay tries to work in a few stretches in the morning

 

Getting suited up for our 3-4 daily dives in Wolf & Darwin

 

Back-rolling off the panga and into the water – Igor give the OK sign and continues his rapid descent

 

After each dive the panga driver for our group (Green!) picks us up – we hand over our camera, weights, BCD + tank, and fins (in that order) before climbing onboard the boat

 

Even though snacks and hot drinks are plentiful after every dive, we are always ravenous by lunchtime!

 

There is so much to see underwater, sometimes we don’t know where to look without missing something else!

 

Galapagos Sharks! These were the scariest sharks we saw during our dives – they were much more interested in us than the Hammerheads, and would swim closer to us, checking us out

 

The real star of the show: Hammerhead Sharks!

  

THIS is why we came to the Galápagos! Schools of dozens of Hammerheads slowly pass overhead – AMAZING!

 

Lindsay is in awe from all the sea life surrounding us

 

Sharks aren’t the only schools we see – a pod of around 50 dolphins keeps porpoising around our boat. Some divers from the Blue group get lucky when a handful of dolphins swim right into their shark video. Lindsay was so jelly, but she just needed to be patient: the next morning she kept an eye out when we heard the squeaking of dolphins underwater, and she caught a half dozen dolphins on camera!

 

Just as everyone was getting into the panga at the end of a dive, our dive master tells Lindsay a pod of dolphins is swimming on the other side of the boat! She is the only diver still in the water – even though she already took her tank off, she swims as fast as possible with her mask and fins and finally catches up to them! Swear to God, I saw 4 wild dolphins swim 3 feet from my face – INCREDIBLE!

 

We asked our dive master if we could find a dive location with sea lions, so he instructs the panga driver to bring us to a spot near the shore where a couple dozen lobos were sitting on the rocks and swimming in the water – we actually had to check behind us before back rolling into the water to make sure we didn’t land on a sea lion!

 

The sea lions went into an excited little frenzy to see they had company! They made multiple passes toward us, checking us out – everyone got a chance to play with the lobos! Lindsay tried rolling around underwater – mimicking the way they play – that got her some attention! After a few minutes of playing, we all started to realize the surge near the shore was quite strong and we were getting very close to being dashed on the rocks, so we reluctantly backed off and found some sturdy boulders to hide behind as we watched the sea lions swim around some more

 

A Needle Fish photobombs Igor’s shark video – guess he wants the other fish to get a little attention!

 

The Galápagos is all about BIG things – even if the fish are small, their schools are HUGE!

 

So many fish in the sea!

 

Gotta be careful – not all the fish are harmless! Igor is so distracted by a passing shark, he nearly puts his hand on a well-disguised rockfish! Looks like this guy has venomous spines on his back – VERY DANGEROUS!

 

Whether or not the rockfish was poisonous, this Scorpionfish looks really nasty! Thanks for hiding in plain sight you deadly fish! Why not find a safe little crevice like this considerate little lobster?

 

What a difference some light makes! We don’t have underwater flashlights which is a shame as the photos our fellow divers are taking are phenomenal! We just happened to be next to someone with a light when we come upon a purple lobster and a seahorse

 

So many turtles, dude! We find so many Green Turtles munching on sea grass

 

We are able to get so close to the turtles – they really don’t care if we are there! In fact, one scares the beejeezes out of Lindsay when it swims up from directly below her and cuts her off while she was filming! Watch where you’re going, buddy!

 

Our final dive in the northern islands is at the caves – we still don’t have flashlights, so we try to stay close to other divers so we can see where we are going. Not much wildlife in the caves – just some lobsters and eels.

 

Back on the boat after a long day of diving – Igor looks at pictures from fellow divers (who have WAY better camera equipment) while Lindsay catches up on her Kindle

 

Igor sips a bruskie and admires the Golden Hour at Wolf Island

Wolf Island, Galápagos

 

The sheer rock face of Wolf Island – park regulations forbid tourists from making landfall…but how would anyone be able to get up there anyways?

 

A seabird flies by the deck just before sunset

 

Darwin’s Arch – just off the coast of Darwin Island. Too bad it was more impressive above the surface than below

 

We had a full moon during our cruise to the northern islands – AROOOOOO!

 

Creative (and tasty!) creations by our chef, including a “Darwin’s Arch Cake” for dessert

Day 315: Punta Carrion & Seymour Island

Our day started EARLY: breakfast at 6:30AM sharp, briefing on the dive site at 7:15AM and geared up and in the water by 8AM. Today was a gentle easing-in for our epic dive trip – only 2 dives today (child’s play!) at Punta Carrion: a location off the northern coast of Santa Cruz Island. Other than White-tip Reef Sharks, we didn’t see much here, but it was a nice, easy dive to get our confidence up. Tomorrow, we face the real shit at Wolf Island – eeek!

 

Lindsay gets over her fear of sharks really fast when we find a school of White-tipped Reef Sharks sitting on the ocean floor. While the Galápagos is FULL of sharks (particularly famous for Hammerhead and Whale Sharks), none of them pose a danger to humans. *Very rarely* someone will spot a Tiger Shark or Bull Shark (yes – those ARE dangerous) but even then, scuba divers are so odd-looking and totally outside their food chain, that aggressive behavior is not common

 

Seriously – if you don’t like sharks, don’t come to the Galápagos

After lunch, we had a chance to get off the boat and go ashore for a guided walk on Seymour Island – a small, uninhabited island off the north coast of Santa Cruz. This island is home to huge colonies of Frigatebirds and Blue-Footed Boobies, in addition to Balta Land Iguanas (which were introduced onto the island in the 1920s – ironically, the iguanas are extinct on Balta thanks to the ecologically irresponsible behavior of the US Army when they were stationed there during WWII). We were only supposed to spend an hour ashore – since we had a whopping 16hr navigation to get to Wolf Island by tomorrow! – but it was such a good tour, our group lingered far longer than we were supposed to. Our poor guide finally had to beg us to keep walking when another boat with G-Adventures turned up, waiting for their turn on the island.

 

A park ranger leads us around Seymour Island, but had no problem when the boys ignore the “STOP” signs to get a close-up of a male Frigatebird

 

A female Frigatebird – unlike most of the other birds on the island, these guys can’t land on water (no flipper feet) so they get their food by attacking other birds forcing them to either drop their prey or throw it up. The Frigatebirds then dive after the dropped food and make off with their stolen meal #gansta

 

A trio of eggs hiding in a cactus, and a male Frigatebird babysits his fluffy white chick

 

The male Frigatebird has a large red neck sack that he inflates to attract a mate. This poor guy seems to have given up on love L

 

Swallow-Tailed Gulls – these red-eyed birds have night-vision and are the only birds in the Galápagos that exclusively hunt fish at night

 

The ridiculous, yet beautiful, Blue-Footed Booby! It’s very hard to tell the males and females apart, but females have larger pupils – we’re guessing this one is a girl

 

So colorful! The bright blue feet are due to the bird’s diet on fish and are a sign of how healthy the bird is. Since the ladies only want to mate with healthy boys, the bright blue feet are also a sexually selected trait (i.e. natural selection – thanks, Darwin!)

 

Huge, orange land iguanas roam all over Seymour – each island within the Galápagos has a slightly different type of land iguana (like the Giant Tortoises, natural selecion caused these geographically isolated animals to evolve slightly different characteristics suited to their environment)

 

The smaller, plain black marine iguana – these guys look pretty much the same on all the islands

 

It’s not unheard of for land iguanas and marine iguanas to interbreed (despite the difference in size!) – looks like the land iguana in this picture has his eyes on a marine-cutie!

 

A stunning view of the waves crashing on the shore

 

LOBOS! You’d think we’d be sick of these guys after San Cristóbal, but we can’t resist these adorable faces!

 

Look at those purple, puppy-dog eyes!

 

We have a million shots, but when a baby sea lion flops over to Lindsay, she figures we could use a few more

 

A sea lion plays around in the shallow water while a host of Sally Lightfoot Crabs crawl around the rocks

Sunset over Seymour Island

Days 314: Puerto Baquerizo Moreno & All Aboard

We had to check out of our room by 9AM the next morning, but we were able to leave our bags at the front desk while we ran some last minute errands before going down to the dock to meet our boat. While we had prepaid the cruise itself, we still had to pay for our equipment rental, a fuel surcharge, and gratuities in cash (or pay a 20% credit card fee) – we hit up the ATM one last time before shopping for some diving gloves (the *one* piece of equipment the boat wouldn’t provide for some odd reason). Since most people who come to the Galápagos are serious divers and have their own gear, there was not a lot of selection for either rentals or gear for purchase. We found one pair of gloves for a whopping USD $70 – rather than get a pair for each of us, we got one nice pair of gloves, then hit up the local hardware store for a pair of garden gloves. They were a bit ghetto and a big fit, but as long as they prevented our hands from getting ripped up on the rocks and coral, looks be damned!

Afterwards, we walked across town and headed over to the Galápagos National Park Interpretation Center and walking trail. Within this section of the park there was supposedly a nice beach, so we hoped to beat the crowds by heading over first thing after breakfast. There were far fewer people, and a lot more lobos (including a group of three adorable babies snoozing in the middle of the beach). Unfortunately, there also wasn’t any shade. The equatorial sun is strong and it gets hot out here really fast, so we were only able to last about an hour before we moved on to explore the rest of the walking trail.

The official visitor’s center of the Galápagos National Park is located in San Cristóbal

 

Paying homage to Darwin as we lay our bare feet in the sand and play with baby lobos

 

Igor takes an early morning swim to beat the crowds and the heat

 

The storm clouds are in the wrong part of the sky and offer no protection from the punishing sun as we walk through the park path

Tijeretas Cove – a popular snorkeling location that we will visit post-boat trip

We returned to the hostel, picked up our bags and walked back down to the pier at noon, where a pair of pangas met us (and everyone else who just arrived from the airport) and ferried us over to the Humboldt Explorer. The Humboldt is a 106ft yacht, which can accommodate 16 divers and 11 crew. Apparently it’s not the most luxurious of the many dive boats that visit Darwin & Wolf (our cabin bathroom was infested with non-biting bugs each night we were need the inhabited islands of the Galápagos, but mysteriously disappeared once we hit open water), but once we heard that all booze was included we couldn’t care less how fancy the digs were.

Before we could get liquored up, however, we had to try on our rental gear and jump into the water for a short 10min check dive to make sure everything felt comfortable. We were a little apprehensive – as I said above, most people who come to dive in the Galápagos bring their own gear. The rental equipment we used during our practice dives with Las Mantas was absolute shit (holes in the 5mm thick wetsuits, uncomfortable fins, and dive computers that neither we nor the staff at the dive shop could figure out how to use) – we were worried that we would get stuck with more crappy gear. Luckily, the Humboldt came through for us: the 7mm wetsuits were in very good condition, the fins were tolerable (Igor started wearing *socks* with his for extra protection against blisters, but otherwise his feet were OK) and the BCDs had actual bottom dump valves which would theoretically help us descend headfirst during a negative entry (although truth be told, neither of us have the coordination to pull that off yet). And the computers were perfect! Hardly a scratch on them and super easy to pull up our dive history. We were only disappointed that our check dive was so boring – we basically jumped into the water just outside the marina, so there was no interesting wildlife.

 

Our tanks and BCDs have been put away after our short check dive and we are free to enjoy the sunset

Once we got out of the water, we put our gear away in our assigned station. Igor got an extra-large 15L tank so that he could last longer underwater – like most men, he goes through air faster than his female counterparts (bigger lungs!) so the extra 3L of air would give him more or less another 10-15min underwater so he and Lindsay would finish their dives at the same time. After a nice hot shower, we returned to the deck to admire the view and get to know some of our boat mates. Even though we were advised against it, we spilled the beans about our small number of dives immediately (although we did round up to “25-ish” dives – it sounded a lot better than 21!). A few people were surprised, but more because they thought we were spoiling ourselves too early in our dive career – where in the world could we dive next that would beat this? No one seemed annoyed that we would be slow or hold anyone back – more the opposite: so many of the guests were dive masters themselves back home and seemed to enjoy the idea of introducing people to diving so much that they were eager to answer our questions, give us tips, and help us out.

The food was decent – every dinner started with a bowl of soup (mostly veggies – we liked them ’cause we were getting our GREENS), followed by a self-serve buffet (it was a tiny dining area, so it unfortunately could get quite crowded) usually consisting of salad, cooked veggies, fish and meat. Bread was just sliced white or wheat bread. The desserts were not bad – usually some type of cake or flan with fruit on the side. Wine was all you could drink, but limited to Viña Maipo Cab Sauv or Sauv Blanc (owned by Concha y Toro – similar in price & quality to Frontera) which was just fine by us! The pair of French guys on board got a little snobby about the wine selection (Lindsay just rolled her eyes as they complained), but they still downed several glasses per night anyways.

Our room was an ice box by the time we headed to bed. For some reason, the remote for AC unit was missing, so we just turned it off when we went to bed. The boat was gently rocking and lulled us quickly to sleep. We were scheduled to leave San Crisóbal around midnight – we would wake up in a new part of the archipelago: Baltra Island.

 

Freshly showered and enjoying our first night on the boat

 

Welcome drinks and introductions to the crew and guests of the Humboldt Explorer

Day 313: San Cristóbal Highlands

Today we decided to explore the land of San Cristóbal Island. We hired a taxi driver (our hostess’ father) for the morning for USD $50 to drive us up through the highlands to the beach at Puerto Chino on the other side of the island – a common tour for visitors. Along the way, there were several sight-seeing stops:

1. El Ceibo Treehouse: (admission USD $1.50 pp) a cute little tourist trap in the small village of El Progreso, about a 10min drive outside Puerto Baquerizo Moreno, where a local family built a little house atop a HUGE Ceibo tree. Originally used as a vacation home for the family, and then a playhouse for the kids, the family eventually added a restaurant and turned it into a mini theme park for tourists. It’s a bit corny, but climbing around and inside of it sure made us feel like kids again!

 

El Ceibo Treehouse – an 40M tall Ceibo tree that has a treehouse hostel in its branches, a rappel wall along its trunk, and a secret hideaway within its roots

 

Igor descends into the natural hollow in the middle of the tree to discover a whimsical room underneath

 

Lindsay pops her head out from the inside of the tree

 

Recycled bottles decorate the restaurant area of the El Ceibo Treehouse

 

As if this place isn’t cool enough – the owner has an affectionate brown & blue-eyed husky and a flock of ducks

2. El Junco Lagoon: actually a crater lake, it is the only source of fresh water in the entire archipelago. All the other islands must rely on desalinization, raincatchers or shipments from the mainland of Ecuador. As it is the only source of freshwater for animals as well, it’s supposed to be a good place for bird watching, although we didn’t see much while we were there. We did get a view of the island’s first wind farm on a neighboring hill. It currently supplies 30% of the island’s electricity needs, reducing their usage of diesel for generators by 2.3 million gallons and helping to reduce the risk of oil spills. (An accident in 2001 dumped over 150,000 gallons of diesel off the coast, threatening the unique wildlife that is so precious to their lucrative tourist industry – not to mention the heritage of the world!)

El Junco Lagoon – a freshwater lake inside an extinct volcano

 

Wading through dense vegetation on our walk around the lagoon, where we get a view of the islands wind turbines

3. The Giant Tortoise Breeding Center: (Free Admission) In an effort to help rebuild the San Cristóbal Giant Tortoise population (which declined sharply when introduced goats went feral and over-grazed on the island’s sparse vegetation), this center relocated a few of the remaining wild tortoises from the northern part of the island into a protected park where they can do it, lay eggs and mature in peace and safety. There are several such breeding centers throughout the Galápagos Islands, as each island has a unique sub-specie of tortoise.

 

The David Rodriguez Giant Tortoise Breeding Center

 

Baby tortoises have numbers painted on their shells. Once they are 5 years old they are released into the fenced-in forest where they live in the semi-wild

 

Don’t these guys just look prehistoric?

 

Awkward, wrinkly, and adorable Giant Tortoises

4. Puerto Chino Beach: Our final destination was a beautiful sandy beach, with gentle surf where we could swim with turtles and sea lions. Well, Lindsay got to anyways! After we picked one of the few shady spots on the edge of the sand, Igor let Lindsay take the first swim while he watched our stuff and she got to play with the animals before the crowds of people arrived. Unfortunately, the visibility under the water was not that great (all the nutrients in the water are great for attracting wildlife, but not so good for photographing it) so none of the pictures came out. When Igor took a dip the water was empty, so either all the splashing kiddies scared them away or Lindsay was lying about seeing them in the first place.

 

End of the road at Puerto Chino – a short walk through the brush takes us to the beach

 

We have the beach practically to ourselves for about 30min before the crowds of tourists come rolling in

 

Igor climbs the nearby rocks and gets his first glimpse of the Blue-Footed Booby!

We returned to Puerto Baquerizo Moreno in the early afternoon and decided to take a mid-day siesta and chill in our room (hey – if all the locals are shutting down businesses from noon – 3PM every day, they must have a reason!). Once the afternoon heat broke, we ventured back out to the pier to pay our nightly visit to the barking sea lions and other local wildlife.

 

Igor gets acquainted with a Brown Pelican during our sunset stroll along the pier in Puerto Baquerizo Moreno

Day 312: Practice Dive in San Cristóbal

AKA, Lindsay’s Dive of Shame. So, Lindsay got REALLY psyched out over the supposed dangers of diving in the Galápagos, and her confidence was pretty shot as we headed out for our 3 practice dives this morning. It didn’t help that we had a shitty night’s sleep thanks to a power outage that turned off our AC around 2AM and gave her anxiety that we would sleep through our 5:30AM wake-up call.

Even though our dive masters were a bit late (chock it up to “island-time”), we were geared up, on the boat, and ready to plunge into our first dive site by 7AM – right on schedule. Our first site – Five Fingers Rock – would be our deepest (30M-32M) and most difficult site, with strong currents similar to what we could expect at Darwin & Wolf. Lindsay was scared shitless, but was pretending to be cool. We sat on the edge of the boat to do a back-roll into the water (yet *another* thing we had never done before) and a practice negative entry (entering with an empty BCD and descending immediately upon hitting the water rather than going in with an inflated BCD, signaling “OK” and then descending slowly).

 

6AM sharp and no one is at the dive shop! A good 15min later our instructors show up and we head out to our first dive site: Five Fingers Rock

We successfully flipped backwards into the water and after only a few moments of disorientation, we sank below the waves pretty rapidly. Luckily, equalizing the pressure in our ears was not a problem, and we were able to go straight down to 30M within a few minutes. It was the coldest water we’ve ever been in (around 22⁰C – we were both wearing 5mm thick wetsuits), and since there was a cloud over the sun as we jumped in, it was pretty dark at the bottom. As we slowly started to swim forward, Lindsay was very cognizant of the heavy pressure of the water around us. The pressure felt so strong, she started to imagine that she was having trouble breathing. All of a sudden, she started to freak out: what if the pressure was too much? What if she lost her regulator? What if it stopped working? What if she fainted? People faint all the time when they are scared, WHAT IF SHE FAINTED AND THE REGULATOR FELL OUT OF HER MOUTH? She was 100 feet below the surface of the water – no one would be able to rescue her in time! SHE WOULD DROWN!!!

Here’s a diving term for you all – nitrogen narcosis: an alteration in consciousness that occurs while diving at depth (25M+). The sensation produces impaired judgement similar to being drunk, but can also cause vertigo, paranoia and an inability to focus. Nitrogen narcosis is caused by the anesthetic effect of nitrogen at high pressures (like underwater) – it is easily reversible within a few minutes by simply ascending into shallower water.

Lindsay tried to shake the paranoid thoughts out of her head, but she was having trouble focusing. She tried to keep swimming for another minute, telling herself to just power through it, but she kept thinking, ‘what if it’s too late when I finally say something?’ She soon turned around and signaled to Jennifer that she was having trouble breathing and she wanted to surface. Jennifer tried to give Lindsay the signal to calm down and breath (which she didn’t know), but Lindsay just shook her head and gave the signal to surface again. Jennifer took her securely by the arm and slowly started to head up. As soon as we reached 15M, Lindsay’s fear subsided and breathing was easier again. By the time we surfaced, Lindsay saw that she had only completed 15min of the dive. Pathetic. Incredibly disappointed with herself (and more than a little embarrassed), she climbed back into the boat to wait for Igor.

 

Igor successfully completes the dive and surfaces with Daniel on the other side of the rock. He gives Lindsay a disgusted look of disbelief when he hears why she abandoned the dive. #areyoufuckingkiddingme #moneydownthedrain

Igor, on the other hand, had zero problems during the dive, and lasted a good 35min before running low on air. He tried not to rub it in too much, but he couldn’t hide the glee in his voice as he informed her that a sea lion had come out to play with him just a few minutes after she left! Sea lions are known for being extremely playful with divers and they are not at all aggressive underwater – this one kept swimming around and around Igor’s head for a good 2min before darting off. The good news is, he caught it all on camera! The bad news is, we soon discovered that the red filter we bought in Thailand for USD $5 is a piece of shit. Unless you are literally at 30M, it turns everything in the frame bright red! And even when we were at the proper depth for the filter to work, without a flashlight, the filter made the image too dark.

Note: the underwater photos below are HORRIBLE. Don’t worry – we didn’t use the red filter again for the rest of the trip. As a matter of fact, the stupid thing actually broke the next time we tried to use it, so the photos in the upcoming posts will be MUCH BETTER. I promise. J

 

Igor was all smiles after his dive – he saw so many animals and told Lindsay about everything she missed

 

A sea lion swims circles around Igor and Daniel, and a huge sea turtle with barnacles on its shell floats by

After she calmed down, Lindsay was able to complete the next two dives without panicking. Our second dive was our first cave dive – a very narrow and kinda scary L-shaped passage that was only big enough for one person to go down at a time. At a round 20M we each dropped feet-first into a dark hole (we were both given flashlights) which took us back down to 30M. The exit of the cave was via a 2M wide x 1M tall tunnel. Unfortunately, it had a sandy bottom and Lindsay kicked up a lot of sand in Igor’s face (called finning), so the pictures and video didn’t really out.

On the way up, Jennifer demonstrated how to deploy a safety sausage underwater and instructed Lindsay to give it a try. She tried to blow bubbles into the sausage using her emergency regular, but they didn’t seem to go in. She finally jammed the whole fucking reg inside the tube and blasted plenty of bubbles inside. As the sausage started to fly up toward the surface, all of a sudden Lindsay felt a strong upwards tug: the coil of rope in her and was completely jammed, preventing the sausage from going up to the surface! We were still pretty deep (10M) and hadn’t done our safety stop yet, so we couldn’t just go up after it! Lindsay tried to pull the damn thing down to try and turn it upside down and release the air, but it was too full and she couldn’t pull it down. After a good 2min of struggling to stay under, she finally lost her grip on the line, and the sausage disappeared toward the surface. Poor Jennifer went swimming after the lost gear. Seriously – today was not my day.

Our last dive was around an old shipwreck called the Karawa. Other than a Blue-eyed Damsel fish and a striped sea snake, we didn’t see much there (Lindsay and Igor agree that we’re just not that into wrecks). Finally, Lindsay had a dive where she didn’t freak out, and didn’t lose any equipment – she tried deploying the safety sausage again, this time with success. While today may have been Lindsay’s worst dive performance ever, she was grateful that at least all of her newbie fuck-ups happened in the relative privacy of a practice dive rather than in front of the entire dive boat.

 

Lindsay gives the OK for our next dive, which sadly didn’t have any animal more interesting than an OCD Blue-eyed Damsel Fish which will physically move a sea urchin if you place it too close to its nest

After returning to land, we had lunch with our dive masters to debrief and chat about the upcoming trip. Igor asked Jennifer, “So how screwed do you think we are?” She squirmed and said a bit unconvincingly that we would be fine. (Clearly she still thought we had no business being on a liveaboard, but since we couldn’t get a refund at this point, she wasn’t going to say so.) She did, however, advise us not to tell any of the fellow divers how many dives we had.

We went back to our hostel to rest for a few hours, then ventured back outside in the late afternoon to stroll around town and enjoy the sea lions some more.

 

Huge iguanas are all over the place! They have no fear of humans and remain still even when you come quite close – we have to be careful not to step on them by accident

 

A prickly pear cactus with one yellow flower still in bloom

 

San Cristóbal – the #1 destination for sea lions!

 

No zoom lens needed – you can get right up in their face (safely behind a fence) and they LOVE to pose for pictures!

 

Fisherman leave their boats unattended at their own risk! Don’t be surprised if you find a sea lion (or two, or three!) asleep inside when you get back

 

Lobos here, lobos there, lobos EVERYWHERE

 

A baby lobo naps next to the beach as the sun sets on the horizon

Days 310 & 311: Travel to Galápagos

Getting from Argentina to the Galápagos Islands, located in the Pacific Ocean 1,000KM off the coast of Ecuador, was a LOOOOONG trip, that required an overnight stay in Guayaquil, Ecuador along the way. We left Buenos Aires just before noon and flew to Santiago (yay, Chile!) for a 2hr layover. Luckily, we did not have to go through customs again, so we had plenty of time for a late lunch/early dinner with sparkling wine before our flight to Ecuador.

 

Getting ready for 3 flights and 2 days of travel with a strong shot of espresso in the EZE lounge

 

Even a short layover in Chile is delightful – I love this country!

As we arrived in Guayaquil late in the evening and had an early flight out the next day, there was no time for any sightseeing. Igor found an Air B&B-type apartment rental near the airport, which included pick-up and drop-off, which was perfect! We actually found ourselves wishing we were staying longer, as the apartment was really comfortable.

 

Staying in an apartment near the airport in Guayaquil

We arrived in the airport an hour and a half before our flight on the advice of our host, which was calling it a little too close for our comfort, especially since there was a huge line to pay a USD $20pp government tax before they would let us board a flight to the Galápagos (curious why the government couldn’t just add this fee to the ticket?) and get our luggage scanned for bio-security. While Igor waited in line, Lindsay ran to the airport ATM and took out as much cash as possible – many of the islands are either cash-only or charge ridiculous 20% fees for credit card transactions, so we needed a lot on hand. Unfortunately, her card stopped working after one withdrawal, so we frantically called the bank – it seems our travel notice for Ecuador was missing (good to know their fraud department would shut down the card pretty quickly). We added the new notice and were soon on our way.

Surprisingly, our flight to San Cristóbal was almost half empty. Technically we were visiting the Galápagos during their “off season” – January through June is the warm but “wet” season (ironically, it’s also the “sunny” season, as there is lots of sunshine in between rainstorms), which means we would not see any whale sharks or orcas (they only come to the Galápagos during the cold season, from June – November). But on the plus side, the water would be warm enough to dive with a wet suit (you have to get separate certification to dive with a dry suit, as the air in the suit could potentially rush to your feet and flip you upside down in the water!).

When we arrived in San Cristóbal, a light rainstorm was just passing through. By the time we got clearance from the bio-security guards to take our bags, it was getting sunny. We grabbed a USD $2 taxi to our hostel – Casa de Jeimy – dropped off our stuff and started to explore the town. Igor had scheduled 3 full days on San Cristóbal before our liveaboard dive trip, so we wanted to do some practice dives and see what kind of tours were available.

 

Dogs sniffing luggage at the San Cristobal Airport – looking for fruits and veggies (surprisingly he didn’t alert at our bags, which had doggie biscuits in it!)

As we were walking into town, however, we were immediately distracted from our tour-seeking mission by DOZENS of sea lions we found blanketing the beach in the middle of town. Close to a hundred of these smelly, sluggish but adorable animals were napping on the sand, constantly wiggling around trying to find a comfortable spot while sandwiched between two of their fellow lobos (the Spanish name for them). And the noise was cacophonous: sure, you had the typical eru-eru-eru barking (like a seal in a circus), but that was typically the big dominant bulls. The rest of the juveniles and especially the hungry babies would call out a loud, grating ERAUGHHHH bay of complaint. It sounded like the special effects room of The Walking Dead or something. We spent a good hour standing at the fence around the beach, watching the animal mayhem. When we finally turned to walk away, we were even more amused to find that several sea lions had hobbled around the barrier and hoisted themselves onto the park benches around town as well! So cute.

 

Lobos Marinos (the Spanish call them “sea wolf” instead of sea lion) are EVERYWHERE.

 

Seriously – you can’t sit on the park benches because the hobos…I mean lobos…are napping on them!

After a while, we finally returned to the task at hand and started visiting dive shops. Our hostess had recommended one in particular – Las Mantas – and said we could expect a small discount if we said we were her guests. We started chatting with Jennifer, a Quebecois ex-pat who was one of the dive masters, and told her we were planning to do a liveaboard trip in a few days. “How many dives do you have?” she asked. Even though the website for our boat strongly recommended 100+ dives, we had emailed them before booking asking if we would be OK with only 20 dives. Sure, it’s a pitifully small number, but we did them all this year as well as both our PADI Open Water and SSI Advanced courses, so everything was incredibly fresh in our heads.

“Not *that* many,” we replied evasively.

“What, like, 80?” Jennifer asked. We looked at each other.

“More like 20.” Jennifer balked. We reassured her that the dive boat was aware of our (lack of) experience and said it was fine.

“Yeah, they probably just want to make money.” She then proceeded to freak Lindsay out with frightening descriptions of the strong currents at Wolf Island and Darwin’s Arch (the 2 main sites where our boat would be going), and claimed that people die *every year* from diving accidents. “Have you guys ever done negative entry?” Lindsay looked at her blankly (gotta be honest, I had no idea what that term meant) while Igor shook his head. Jennifer sighed. She then proceeded to sell us a custom, 3-dive itinerary with 2 dive masters to help prepare us for the most advanced dives sites we’ve ever been to. Igor was sure the scare tactics with just part of the sale, but Lindsay was so convinced we were going to drift away and die in open water that he caved and forked over USD $250pp (that’s with our hostel discount!) for our Galápagoes crash-course. “Be here at 6AM sharp tomorrow morning,” Jennifer said after we picked out our rental gear. “And NO alcohol tonight!” BOO.

We headed back to the hostel and stopped at a grocery store along the way for a sober, home-cooked meal of black bean & corn burritos. When we went up to the rooftop kitchen, we were surprised to find we had the place to ourselves! This was by far and away the quietest hostel we’ve ever stayed in. No partying hippies – in fact, most of the other guests seemed to be Latin American tourists. As we ate our dinner, we looked over our view of the town’s small church and enjoyed a salsa serenade that drifted up from a nearby discotech. Starting to love Ecuador!

 

Taking advantage of our hostel kitchen to save a little money on food