Category: Ecuador

Day 325: Isabela Island – Day 1

Our day began with yet another harrowing, 2hr. “ferry” ride, from Santa Cruz to Isla Isabela. The boarding process at the pier was marginally better – since there are twice as many ferries heading toward both San Cristóbal and Isabela at the same time, better organization was a must. This time, each passenger was given a color-coded necklace corresponding to their boat, allowing each operator to find their group more quickly. But we still didn’t leave on time.

Once we reached Isabela, we walked a short 10min along the road to our hotel – Casa de Marita. It was a beautiful white stucco building, framed by tropical plants with a prime, oceanfront location. Lindsay was impressed Igor had found such an awesome hotel for such a cheap price of USD $80/night! We checked in and got our key to our room…which was in the annex…across the street. Well that’s a buzzkill. Don’t get me wrong, the room was fine: quiet, clean, good AC & shower. But no Wifi and no beach.

Whatever – it’s not like we planned to spend much time in our room anyways. Isabela had a lot of attractions to see, so we dropped off our stuff and headed into town to start exploring. We visited a few tour agencies to book day trips for the next few days, then picked up a couple of rental bikes for the afternoon. One of the most popular activities on the island was to visit El Muro de las Lagrimas, or “The Wall of Tears,” – a dark vestige of Ecuadorian history when the island hosted a brutal penitentiary. While the history may be ugly, the trail itself was beautiful and gave us a good work-out and entertainment for the afternoon.

 

Enjoying the neighborhood and beach in Puerto Villamil on Isabela Island

 

Marine iguanas crawl all over the sand and rocks on the beach

 

Igor and Lindsay rent some bikes for the afternoon and venture out of town

 

Riding 5km to visit the infamous “Wall of Tears”

 

The Wall of Tears was built by convicts back in the 1950s when Isabela Island was being used as a penal colony by the Ecuadorian government. The purpose of building the wall was simply to give the inmates punishing work to do. It’s no surprise that in the harsh environment, many perished during the hard labor – thus the name of the wall

 

Hmm…as far as walls go…we’ve seen bigger…

 

Lindsay huffing and puffing her way up to the viewpoint. From here you can see that the rest of Isabela is nearly uninhabited – nothing but trees as far as the eye can see

View of the coastline of Isabela Island, with Puerto Villamil far away in the distance

 

A Giant Tortoise slowly walks across our bike path as we head back to town, passing through a “poison apple” grove and some tall Prickly Pear Catrus Trees

 

The bike trail has many scenic spots to turn off: tranquil lagoons and a beachfront cemetary

 

Pelicans hide in the branches of mangrove trees growing along the beach

Candelabra Cactus frame a peaceful lagoon during the Golden Hour

 

So many marine iguanas! These guys are lying all over the trail and sneeze salty loogies at our feet as we walk by

Sunset over the lagoon on Isabela Island

 

Taking a moment to enjoy the sunset

In consideration of our fellow tourists, we returned to our annex hotel room to shower and change before dinner. We were a little apprehensive about the cost of food – up until now we’ve tried to cook all of our meals to save money (Galápagos is insanely expensive!), but we finally found ourselves in a hotel with no self-service kitchen option. The street fair from the night before was surprisingly well-priced, so we hoped we could keep to the same budget.

Guys, I don’t know why, but Isabela has really cheap dinner options! Almost every restaurant along the main street in town offered a 3-course dinner for USD $7pp! Granted, “dessert” was usually a small bowl of fruit or Jell-O, but at least we weren’t hungry!

 

Restaurant after restaurant offer the same exact menu – even though there isn’t much variety, a 3-course meal for USD $7 is a deal!

 

We are shocked when the waitress refuses to sell Igor a beer with his dinner – apparently all restaurants are required to go dry the weekend before the elections! We notice a few of the pricer places around town breaking this rule, but we decide to stick to juice for the time being

 

Walking by the church after dinner – looks like your average Catholic church at first glance…

 

…however, the inside of the Puerto Villamil Church has a very tropical personality!

Day 324: Santa Cruz in Transit

We had one full week left in the Galápagos Islands at this point, and we weren’t quite sure what we wanted to do with our time. We decided to catch the ferry to Puerto Ayora on Santa Cruz Island. With a population of 12,000 people it is by far and away the biggest town in the archipelago. And, with its strategic location in the center of all the island, it is the jumping off point for most tours. We figured we could spend the afternoon walking around tourist agencies, and see if anything struck our fancy. Igor had read that it was possible to get rock-bottom priced deals on multi-day cruises – maybe we’d find another boat trip!

We had purchased tickets for the ferry the night before for USD $30pp, although we soon found out that by “ferry” they mean one of half a dozen speedboats that shuttle people from one island to the other. When we arrived at the pier 30min before our departure time, we found an absolute shit-show of confusion as ALL THE BOATS tried to load their passengers at once. Their brilliant method of organization was to simply call out passenger names from a list and hope that people were paying attention/could hear their name being called from the end of the pier. Then they had to squeeze through the throng of people waiting on the dock with their luggage to finishing loading each boat one at a time before the next boat could start. Needless to say, we did NOT leave on time. The boats themselves were almost identical to the little boat we took for our Española tour the day before, however we now had to share the tiny space with 24 people, rather than 10. The seats were narrow and horribly uncomfortable, and only the seats inside the boat had shade (but no air circulation).

FYI, there are small 9-seater propeller planes that fly between San Cristóbal and Isabela. At USD $120pp they are much more expensive than the ferry, but we would have gladly paid the upcharge for a more comfortable ride. Unfortunately, the Thursday flight was sold out so our only choice was a hot, bumpy 2hr. boat ride from hell. When we finally arrived in Puerto Ayora around 10AM, we stumbled over to our hostel and hid in our room for a few hours to recover from the ordeal.

We get an awesome room at Captain Max’s Hostel in Puerto Ayora – spacious with AC, strong Wifi and a hammock! We’ll hide out from the heat in here for a few hours

Once we felt human again, we starting walking down towards the main street, stopping in various tour agencies along the way to inquire about the “LAST MINUTE CRUISES!” they all had advertised outside their windows. True, the prices were about half what they would have been if we had booked online (about USD $150pp/day). Since they include all meals, hotel, transport and activities (walking & snorkeling) for 4-5 days, it was technically cheaper than island-hopping on our own, however we would have had to give up the flexibility of choosing our own itinerary. Sadly, none of the remaining cruises looked that interesting (most would revisit sites we already hit during our dive trip & day trips from San Cristóbal), so we eventually decided to pass, and just continue to wing it. We bought some tickets for the ferry to Isabela the next morning through our hostel (he assured us it was one of the “better” boats), and spent the of the afternoon and evening wandering around town.

 

Sadly, the fish market is closed for the day by the time we emerge from our hostel hideaway, but a handful of birds are lingering by the fishy-smelling tables

 

This stubborn pelican won’t give up his spot (guess he wants to get the best fish pieces tomorrow!) and barely blinks an eye when Igor gets in his face for a picture

 

It’s election time! Ecuador will hold its presidential elections on Sunday, and everyone is out campaigning

OK, *what* is with the caterpillar train? Normally this cartoonish bus takes tourists on a ride through Puerto Ayora, but tonight it was been commandeered by the political rally. And we thought the US election was bizarre…

 

The evening street fair is steps away from our hostel. Most restaurants have an identical menu – a grilled fish for 2 costs USD $22

 

Fresh fish, ready for the grill!

 

Nice variety available – corn on the cob, ceviche, and grilled meats

 

We opt for to share a fish for 2 – buen provecho!

Day 323: Isla Española

We booked a day-trip to Española Island, the southernmost island in the archipelago which is only a 3hr boat ride from San Cristóbal. The island is particularly famous for being the near-exclusive breeding site for the Waved Albatross – the only tropical breed of albatross. Every year, over 34,000 pairs of albatross return to Española to mate and lay one egg. Albatross also mate for life, so when they return, they must find their spouse (although a “widowed” bird will “remarry”).

This all sounded pretty cool to us – we were really excited to see the only type of bird we had missed so far during our exploration of the islands. However, there was one piece of information the booking agencies didn’t think to mention before we signed up for the tour: the albatross don’t return to mate until April, and the last of the baby chicks reached maturity and left the island in December. From January – March there is not a single albatross on the island. BOO!

 

Driving away from a cloud-covered San Cristóbal as we head to the southernmost island in the Galápagos – Española

Our tour started with an hour-long snorkel in Gardner Bay. Even though the water wasn’t terribly cold, the tour agency gave us shorty wetsuits to help keep the chill off while we were in the water. Unfortunately, the fins they gave Igor aggrevated his feet so badly that he stopped kicking altogether and only swam with his arms. We got yelled at by our guide for not keeping up with the group, who seemed to think speed is an asset in snorkeling. He claimed that we just missed a school of 50+ rays and a Hammerhead Shark because we were so far behind. Sure.

 

We jump into the water near a rock pinnacle for our snorkel – sadly, we’ve been spoiled by our diving and are not very impressed

 

We’ve seen hunderds of White-tip Reef Sharks at this point, but they are still so pretty and graceful!

Lunch was awesome, though. Best ceviche we had in Ecuador! And a pretty big portion, too. Sure, it was a bit early (only 11:30AM) when they served us – but I guess they didn’t want us to hike on an empty stomach. When our hosts asked if we wanted anything to drink with lunch, we started to decline as they had just served us juice with our post-snorkel snack, but they kept offering, “Water? Coke? Juice? Wine?”

Wine? Really? We looked at each other, “OK, I’ll have some wine!” Lindsay replied. Our host seemed a little surprised tha someone would actually take him up on his offer. He went inside the galley of the boat to get the wine. Up until now, all our our drinks (water & juice) have been served in normal plastic cups. When the guy returned with the (boxed) wine, he handed Lindsay a teeny tiny tasting cup and filled with with about a shot’s worth of wine. She didn’t ask for more.

 

An early lunch of ceviche, plantain chips and the smallest glass of wine ever!

After lunch, we changed into dry clothes and rode the panga over to the beach at Punta Suárez for our 1.5hr walking tour of the island. It was INSANELY hot. Española is one of the flattest and driest islands in the Galápagos and there is no shade anywhere along the trail. Luckily, the wildlife eventually distracted us from how uncomfortable we were, and the heat started to break about halfway through the walk. Even though we missed out on the albatross, the iguanas of Española were gorgeous and kinda made up for it.

 

Function over fashion! Lindsay opts for comfort even if Igor thinks she looks like a fool (whateva, I be stylin’)

 

Huge waves pound the rocky cliffs of Española

 

More boobies! The Masked Booby is the third and final booby we see in the Galápagos

 

Booby eggs! Masked Boobies typically lay 2 eggs at a time, so both of these birds proably have another one on the way in a day or so

 

Booby chicks! These guys may look sweet and innocent, but notice how there is only ONE chick – didn’t just say that boobies lay TWO eggs at a time? That’s because the stronger chick will kill the weaker sibling after it hatches in order to get all the food from its parents

 

You guys are murderers.

 

Wow – that is an ugly teenager! This juvenile booby is in the final staging of molting its baby down feathers. It can’t learn to fly until all the adult feathers have grown in – this poor guy looks so ready to grow-up

 

The marine iguanas of Española are by far and away the most colorful we have seen in the Galápagos (on most islands, they are plain black)

 

Notice how the iguana’s face is light-colored? Apparently that is due to salt residue that the iguana constantly sneezes out of its nose – the spray accumulates on the skin and, well, it’s not like these guys have a bathroom sink to wipe off their face…

 

The iguanas of Española are known for having red skin year-round, but they also turn bright blue along the ridges of their backs during the mating season in order to attract a mate (Hey! It worked for the Blue-footed Boobies, right?)

 

A blow-hole shoots up a huge plume of spray every minute or so

Española Island – in addition to being one of the oldest islands in the archipelago, it’s also one of the flattest. Since there is not much landmass to trap passing clouds, it gets the smallest amount of rain per year

 

Swallow-tailed Gulls

 

Lindsay and Igor taking in the harsh, rocky landscape of Española

 

A colorful little Lava Lizard perches on the tail of a marine iguana

 

Heading back to our speed boat for the LOOOOOOONG 3hr ride back to San Cristóbal

Days 321 – 322: San Cristóbal

After a final breakfast buffet, we get kicked off the Humboldt Explorer by 10AM. Boo – now we have to feed ourselves and plan our own itineraries again.

We were pretty lazy our first day back in town. We returned to Casa de Jeimy without a reservation, luckily they had one room left. Even luckier, it was a nicer *matrimonial* room (during our first stay we had two twin beds) – we could sleep like a married couple in the double bed…or use the extra twin bed and remain apart. I’ll let y’all guess which option we chose.

Once the afternoon siesta was over, we walked through town, checking out the various tour agencies for a day-trip to Española Island. We’re suspecting that there is some price-fixing going on in the Galápagos as every single agency offered identical itineraries for USD$180pp. The only difference was which day of the week the tours were scheduled for – each agency seemed to take a different day of the week. We decided to go with the one that ran its tour on Thursday, since we wanted to catch a ferry to Santa Cruz on Friday morning, giving us one more free day in San Cristóbal to visit all the beaches we missed before the dive trip.

 

Saying hello to our favorite lobos at the Puerto Baquerizo Moreno pier

 

Taking care of chores – booking a tour to Española Island for Thursday and doing some much needed laundry

 

We get a much better room when we return to Jeimy’s hostel! Lindsay kicks back with her Kindle while Igor cooks up something tasty

The next morning, we headed out right after breakfast to start hitting all the beaches. We rented a snorkel from our hostel for USD $3 and walked over to the Playa Lobería – a good 30min walk from town, behind the San Cristóbal airport. Judging by the name, we expected the beach to be covered with sea lions, just like the beach in town. HUGE disappointment: there was literally only *one* lobo on the whole friggin’ beach. The beach itself was incredibly rocky, making it difficult for us to get into the water, plus the surf was really strong (we noticed a couple of surfers nearby – looks like this is more of a surfing beach than a swimming/snorkeling beach).

 

Early morning walk to the lobería beach – even though it’s 8AM we are already sweating bullets

 

Igor stalks the one lone sea lion on the whole beach – at least he was receptive to photos

By the time we returned to the road we were ridiculously sweaty. The next beach on our list was all the way across town – we were dreading the long walk! As if in answer to our prayers, a taxi pulled up, dropping off a group of tourists – we quickly grabbed the empty car and gladly paid the $2 fare to Playa Mann. We had passed Playa Mann last week when we visited the Galápagoes Visitor Center – just outside the entrance to the park and is the only beach we found on the island that has a lot of shade. We laid down our blanket beneath a tree and Lindsay settled in with her Kindle while Igor tried to go for a swim.

Just as he tried to get into the water, a large sea lion swam up and started barking. At first, Igor was delighted, and he took ourt the GoPro to film the interaction. However, when he started walking into the water, the lobo started to charge him! For some reason, this guy was being very territorial and wouldn’t let Igor or anyone else into the water. Even after all the people backed off, the lobo wold swim back and forth along the beach. So much for swimming.

 

A very territorial sea lion won’t let anyone get into the water at Playa Mann

We packed up and walked once again, this time into the national park. We returned to the snorkeling cove that we had missed the first time we were in town. Even though there was no beach – just a stairwell down to a rocky shore – a dozen napping sea lions nearby and biting damsel fish near the shore, we were determined to get into the water this time! Lindsay took an exploratory swim with the snorkel, but didn’t see much worth getting excited about. After about 20min, she climbed out and gave Igor a turn.

As soon as Igor got into the water, a group of about 20-odd tourists showed up and started getting into the water, kinda ruining the serenity of the place (there were only 3 other swimmers up to this point). Igor swam to the far side of the cove to get away from them…and that’s when he found the sea lions. Unlike the lobo at Playa Mann, these guys were friendly, and one in particular decided to have some fun with Igor! He swam circles around Igor, blew bubbles in his face and kept coming back for more! It was a truly magical moment. (LINDSAY WAS SO JEALOUS.)

 

Snorkeling in Tijeretas Cove

 

Lindsay sees practically nothing during her snorkel – just a bunch of Blue-eyed Damsal fish

 

Igor has all the luck! He finds a trio of sea lions and one starts to play with him!

 

This playful lobo keeps circling ’round and ’round Igor, and even blows bubbles in his face…twice!

 

Igor chases down a marine iguana as it swims by the shore

In order to leave no stone unturned, we still had one last attraction to visit before we could call it a day: the viewpoint at Tijeretas Hill. It was quite a climb, but we got a beautiful view of the cove from the top. We also discovered yet another trail leading to a supposedly secluded beach. It was long – the sign warned that it was 1.5hr (Igor insisted that was the roundtrip time – it was actually *each way*) but we made it there and back. By the time we returned to our room, we were confident that there was *nothing* left to do or see on this island – we were DONE.

 

When the crowds and the clouds roll in, we leave the cove and take a hike up Tijeretas Hill and then follow a long overgrown trail to a secluded beach

 

There’s no one at the beach, but unfortunately the shore is very rocky, so it’s difficult to swim. The only spot in the shade is swarming with mosquitos, so we turn back after only 30min

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