November 2006 Galapagos, Ecuador Aggressor Albatross Trip Report As a child my wife was always captivated by the Galapagos Islands: the giant tortoises, the blue-footed boobies, and the different paths of evolution. Over the years she frequently mentioned her dream of one day visiting these islands. Fast forward to the early months of 2006 and we have both become avid divers, with our experience limited to the warm waters of the Caribbean. Looking to branch out a little bit, I did some research on Scubaboard.com (a great message board for scuba divers) about a dive trip to the Galapagos Island. The diving sounded fantastic so I take the next step with a bit of a Google search looking for any open spots around Thanksgiving 2006 (many of the live aboard trips fill up quickly). I was able to find 2 open spots held by Buckeye diving out of Cleveland. One phone call and a painful deposit later, the trip was reserved. The reminder of the summer was spent brushing up on our diving skills as the trip reports indicated the Galapagos would present advanced conditions. The summer passed by quickly and November came before we knew it. We used frequent flyer miles to board Delta’s new direct flight from the States to Quito and then on to the Ecuadorian port city of Guayaquil (about 7 hrs flying time). Guayaquil Guayaquil is the largest and the most populous city in Ecuador, as well as the main seaport. We had a day to kill in Guayaquil; it’s probably not the most exciting place in the world to visit. We walked along the newish $80 million waterfront park and watched the locals enjoying the sunset in the Iguana Park across from our hotel (Hotel Unipark located at Clemente Ballén 406 y Chimborazo, a good hotel geared towards business travelers with a nice central location in the city). I’d read about some concerns about crime in this city but we felt fine walking around in the daylight and noticed a very strong police force in the city. We had a fine lunch at La Trattoria da Enrico (although overpriced) in the Urdesa neighborhood (about a $4 cab ride from downtown). This place has an aquarium in the ceiling, fancy! In the afternoon we checked our hotel desk to see if the Aggressor had left us a message regarding our flight to San Cristabol and the woman said she didn’t handle the messages but that the woman who did would be there later that day. We thought it was odd that the hotel only had one person who did the messages! When we returned from lunch we had a note in our room stating that the woman who would “give us a massage” was ready. Whoops, bit of a mistranslation issue! We finally emailed the Aggressor and they said they would meet us at the Guayaquil airport the following morning at 9am. After puzzling over what a humita was in the airport café (it is a Native American dish from pre-Hispanic times consisting of masa harina and corn) we boarded the Aerogal flight to San Cristobal. There was no mention of our luggage being overweight even though Delta had socked us with a $25 overweight charge from Atlanta to QUITO. We landed at the very tiny San Cristobal airport and meet the rest of the passengers for our dive trip: 2 Americans from Cleveland and 9 feisty members of a diving club from Spain The dive group @ Darwin's Arch, Galapagos (this photo by Giancarlo) A tractor pulled everyone’s luggage into the open-air concourse, unceremoniously dumped it all on the ground, and then let everyone in at once to grab his or her bags in a luggage free-for-all. Two members of the Aggressor staff, Giancarlo and Richard, meet us after we retrieved our bags & piled us into a small tour bus whilst the dive bags were loaded into two pickup trucks. We went to the harbor dock and were greeted by a large male sea lion surrounded by a harem of females. He barked a warning us as we snapped some pictures: "Stay away from my women!" San Cristobal alpha male, Galapagos As we headed to the Aggressor Albatross in two pangas we noticed that most of the boats had sea lions sunning themselves on the decks. The dive masters laughed at the amount of photos that were being taken by our group as the real trip hadn’t even begun! Lounging in the sun, San Cristobal, Galapagos Approaching the Aggressor via panga, San Cristobal, Galapagos We gathered in the nice lounge/dining room once aboard and were briefed on the layout of the Aggressor and the schedule for diving. The lounge featured a stereo, TV, DVD player, comfortable couches, and lots of books/magazines. All of the dives other than the checkout dive would be done in small inflatable pangas. We would be issued collapsible flags (leave your safety sausages at home), dive alert horns, and as a final resort EPIRB radio transmitters. Thankfully our group needed none of these safety devices during the trip as the panga operators were always quick to find us once we surfaced. Checkout Dive The Aggressor pulled up for our checkout dive to Isla Lobos. As we had only dove in Caribbean waters previously we really had to pile on the weight (25 plus pounds) before satisfactory buoyancy was achieved in our rented thick 7mil suits. I would recommend bringing some 2 or 3 lb soft weights to fine tune your weight as the Aggressor quickly ran out of these. The checkout dive was in about 20 feet of low visibility water. The highlight was the many groups of sea lions that showed off their aquatic skills for us. They would charge us with teeth bared and then turn away at the last second. I even felt one nip my fin. The dive master warned that it was sea lion mating season and we should swim away if a large bull enters the water as they can bite intruders (including humans). As soon as we saw a huge dark shape enter the water above us we quickly swam away! Friendly Galapagos Seal Lion waiting for divers to enter the water Once the 1hr long checkout dive was complete, we retired to our cabin downstairs. It contained two small beds, ample storage space, a private bathroom with freshwater shower/toilet/sink and tv/vcr. As our past live aboard experience was with “Camping at Sea” Blackbeards in the Bahamas, this was pure luxury. The crew gathered on deck somewhat awkwardly in their dress whites that evening and presented the passengers with a champagne toast. Dinner was served alfresco on the deck upstairs under the stars. One of the crew’s daughters taught us the Spanish word for “hammerhead” after dinner. I took a stroll on the deck as we head out to sea and checked out the panoroma of stars overhead. A night-fishing seabird, the swallowtail gull, follows our boat out to sea looking for any squid or fish that come to the surface. I will see one most nights we are out at sea. They are pretty crafty as when they are fishing their rivals, the Magnificent Frigatebirds, are sleeping and pose no threat. Spanish lesson at San Cristabol aboard the Aggressor Cabin # 4, Aggressor Albatross Frigate Bird flock above the top deck of the Aggressor Albatross The Real Diving: North Seymour Island: The following morning it was time for our first “real” Galapagos dive and everyone pays close attention to the dive briefing held by dive master Giancarlo on the middle deck. The basic rules are: never dive alone, watch the currents, stay away from the breaking waves on the rocks when surfacing, and come up with 500 psi of air in your tank. Giancarlo gives a dive briefing aboard the Aggressor Albatross Everyone suited up on the spacious rear dive deck and jumped into one of two pangas (the drivers would yell “Vamanos!” to motivate us to get ready) to head to the dive site. On the count of 3 we backrolled as a group into the water together, meeting the dive masters (wearing bright yellow tanks, hard to miss) on the bottom. We would do two dives here and the current was fairly mild for the Galapagos. Lots of sights to see on the bottom including swarms of white tipped sharks, an octopus, a ray, a Moorish idol, a stone scorpion fish, several free-swimming eels, a few bumphead parrotfish, guienafowl puffer, and dozens of starfish. Climbing back into a rocking panga proves to be a bit tricky but we get better as the week progresses. The key seems to be to kick with your fins at the last minute to lift yourself back aboard. 1, 2, kick! This is hard work! Getting back in can be tricky! Back on the Aggressor we are greeted with hot towels and various snacks (little pizza breads were my favorite). After the end of the diving everyone showered and changed to get back in the pangas for a land visit to North Seymour Island. Here there are marine iguanas, sea lions, frigate birds, and other interesting creatures, all with little fear of being approached by man (the rules are you cannot touch or use flash photography). Several of the sea lions had just given birth that day and the bloody afterbirth are still visible on the sand. The pups would look up at us with curious eyes as their mothers dozed nearby. Marine Iguana at North Seymour, Galapagos Swallowtailed Gull pair at North Seymour, Galapagos Baby Sealion at North Seymour, Galapagos Young Magnificent Frigate Bird at North Seymour, Galapagos After dinner we tuckered in for the long boat ride to the outer islands, Wolf and Darwin. Wolf Island: The night’s passage was pretty rough; I was tossed around in my bed a few times by the Pacific swells. That morning a few of the other divers get pretty seasick in the pangas after diving as the water at Wolf is quite choppy. The diving is fantastic though, on the bottom the rocks are crawling with spotted eels. A school of spotted eagle rays goes by followed by a school of hammerheads. A curious dolphin glides over our heads and then plunges into the depths. A group of Galapagos sharks cruise by so closely I can clearly see their cat-like eyes. Wolf Island is quite popular with the seabirds. I enjoyed getting up at 5:30 am and sitting on the upper deck watching them go out to sea by the thousands (including the blue-footed booby). We would do 4 dives at Wolf and each one was stellar. On one dive a group of hammerheads got worked up over something and zipped around our dive group with amazing speed. No way a human could out swim one of these creatures but thankfully they show little interest in us. The waters here were a balmy 81F, but l stuck to my 7mil and hood and felt fine. School of Spotted Eagle Rays at Wolf Island, Galapagos Fine Spotted Eel at Wolf Island, Galapagos Scalloped Hammerhead at Wolf Island, Galapagos Waiting for divers at Wolf Island, Galapagos Darwin’s Arch As we approached Darwin’s Arch a pod of bottlenose dolphins joined the ship for about an hour. Most of us watched them from the bow before the lunch bell rang. Pod of dolphins near Darwin's Arch, Galapagos I was very excited to be at Darwin’s Arch after reading so much about this place during my research for the trip. The arch is truly one of the natural wonders of the world and doesn’t appear to well known outside the diving community. Darwin’s Arch, Galapagos Everyone took the Darwin's Arch dive briefing very seriously as the dive master warned us if anything went wrong here we could either (A) end up drifting in the open ocean 800 miles from shore or (B) sucked into area of the arch known as the “washing machine”. Hmm, neither option sounds very pleasant to me, I think I'll keep a close eye on those yellow tanks! At the conclusion of the briefing he also mentioned we might see some whale sharks but I didn’t get my hopes up as I knew December is the end of the whale shark season. On the first dive everyone descended to the bottom and looked for an eel-free lava rock to hold onto in the moderate current. Imagine my surprise when after only a few minutes I hear the dive master bang his tank (they only bang it for one fish here at Darwin). I look ahead and see two whale sharks the size of school buses glide by us. I can’t believe my eyes! Laugh as I see the Spanish divers all making the “huge” motion with their arms underwater next to me. Photos really don’t do justice what it is like to see a sight like this. We try to swim along with them but they quickly outpace us. We will see them again on several other dives at Darwin’s Arch. Other highlights of the area are free-swiming flounder, curious Mexican hogfish, green sea turtles (some getting cleaned), bottlenose dolphins, sea lion, wahoo and huge schools of scalloped hammerheads. The diving is unbelievably good. Above water time is spent watching the red-footed boobies dodge the frigate birds who are trying to steal their hard earned fish catches (a behavior known as kleptoparasitism). One frigate bird even started dive-bombing a group of Spanish divers waiting to get picked up by the panga much to our amusement. Little wonder they are known as the "Pirates of the Sea." Dolphins become a common sight here, I even see them leaping out of the water when glancing out our bathroom porthole. Whale Shark, Darwin’s Arch, Galapagos (this photo by Richard Vera) Attempting to keep up, Darwin’s Arch, Galapagos At Darwin’s Arch, Galapagos (this photo by Richard Vera) Mexican Hogfish getting friendly with my fin, Darwin’s Arch, Galapagos Dolphin passing by, Darwin’s Arch, Galapagos (this photo by Richard Vera) Cousin’s Rock The 14 hr ride back from Wolf was very bumpy (some passengers were seasick again) and it throws the trip’s schedule off but somehow the Aggressor still managed to squeeze in all of the day’s planned activities. Today there will be no time to rest! Descending into the water at Cousin’s Rocks, the water appears to be quite murky until it is apparent we have landed in the middle of a giant bait ball of black-striped salemas. The ball twists and turns and reluctantly allows divers to swim through and be encircled. Creepy! After all of the pelagics viewed at Darwin and Wolf it was time to look for the small stuff. Along the beautiful ledges the dive master points out several large Pacific Seahorses and the cleverly hidden bloody frogfish. A golden phase guinea fowl, panamic fanged blenny, bravo clinid, spotted eagle ray schools, & green sea turtles are also seen. At the surface the blue-footed booby looks down at us from the rocky crannies of Cousins. Green Sea Turtle, Cousins Rocks, Galapagos Bloody Frog Fish, Cousins Rocks, Galapagos Pacific SeaHorse, Cousins Rocks, Galapagos Bait Ball, Cousins Rocks, Galapagos Bravo Clinid Blenny, Cousins Rocks, Galapagos Bartolome Island (land visit) Following the Cousins dives, the group remains in wetsuits and then jumped back in the pangas to attempt to snorkel with the penguins of Bartolome Island. We approach two sunning themselves on a boulder; one jumps into the water and quickly swam past me. I’m not really big on snorkeling but this place has lots of activity as we saw parrotfish, rays, and even a white-tipped shark (I imagine seeing that would freak out most non-divers!) We also do a quick hike up to the top of Bartolome for a great panoramic view of the harbor below as the sun sets, bring your camera for this visit. Snorkeling at Bartolome, Galapagos Bartolome Cactus Bartolome Overlook Bartolome Sunset South Plaza (land visit) Just as our guide book (A Traveler's Guide to the Galapagos Islands by Barry Boyce) noted, there is a resident Sea lion guarding the landing steps to South Plaza Island. Our DM claps his hands and it gracefully dips back into the water, allowing us to pass. Our guide points out how much more lush South Plaza is then the other islands we have visited. There are lots of tall cactus plants; on the other islands they were much shorter. March up a short hill to the cliffs and watch the seabird soaring on the air currents below us. The Dive master has us be quiet and listen for the “sound of the Galapagos”, i.e. the crashing of the waves and the calls of the birds. Arresting! On the trail back to the panga, two male sea lion clash in the bushes over a territorial dispute. The victor catches his breath on the trail for a few minutes before awkwardly descending through the rocks to the harbor below. It is interesting to note that male sea lions are usually only are dominant for about a month before the work involved in guarding their females and young exhausts them and another male takes their place. Land Iguana, South Plaza Island, Galapagos Sea lion, South Plaza Island, Galapagos Sally Lightfoot Crab, South Plaza Island, Galapagos Cactus, South Plaza Island, Galapagos South Plaza (diving) The dive master warns us that last week that the South Plaza dive was called due to stiff currents, but today they are only moderate. We are diving in the crater of an extinct volcano. The water is pretty chilly here, around 71F. Along the crater floor, the divemaster points out the remains of a WWII bomb used during Navy target practices. I try in vain to get a photo of a sea lion whizzing by us but it is too fast. A huge hammerhead silently glides under my legs. This is the last dive of the trip (sniff). At the end of the day, the Aggressor takes charge of our dive gear and rinses it off in preparation for our trip home. Magnificent Frigate Bird glides by the Aggressor on our last day of diving Santa Cruz (land visit) The interesting Charles Darwin Research Center is visited and we view some giant tortoises up close and learn about the center's conservation efforts. The video showing the finning of sharks for Asian markets is disturbing. The center is attempting to educate the local populous on the value of protecting sharks from indiscriminate fishing. The rest of the day we are free to putter around the sleepy town of Puerto Ayora for a bit. See a Spotted Eagle Ray feeding in the shallow waters and laugh at the childish “I Love Boobies” shirts sold in all of the shops. Pelicans hungrily watch the local fishermen clean their daily catch. We split a beer from a somewhat sullen old woman vendor working the kioskos in the town plaza and sit at a harbor side table, watching a blue footed booby dive bomb into the water as the sun sets and our trip comes to a close. Our dive master leads the group for a farewell dinner at Garrapata (good Italian food in an open-air setting), where the Spanish divers chat rapidly about their trip to Palau next year. Back on the boat, we check out and are given a cd of photos taken by the divemasters (using a Nikon D100 SLR, I used a few of their photos in this webpage, see photo credits) and have the option to purchase a trip DVD at the steep price of $65.(most divers bought one). Galapagos Giant Tortoise @ the Charles Darwin Research Center Quito After a long day wasted traveling back to Quito from San Cristobal, we check into the charming Los Alpes (very old-school European hotel, address is Tamayo 233 y Jorge Washington near the U.S. embassy). Despite the posh neighborhood location, there is a rooster next door that crows every morning at 5AM! We take an interesting day trip to the Bellavista Cloud Forest Reserve out in the Ecuadorian countryside with Francisco “Pancho” Enriquez and spot the elusive Mountain Plate-billed Toucan (similar to the bird on the Fruit Loops box) as well as hundreds of hummingbirds. In the old town of Quito we tour the fascinating Museum of Maria Augusta Urrutia (of interest to anyone that is into architecture from the 19th century) lead by a sheepish teenage guide slightly embarrassed of his English speaking skills. Rain in the afternoon forces us to camp out in the hotel lobby for the rest of the day before departing for the airport and back to reality. Be warned that fog and weather often caused flight delays out of Quito; our 11:20pm Delta flight back to the States was delayed until 8am the following day! Fawn-breasted Brilliant hummingbird at the Bellavista Cloud Forest Reserve Mountain Plate-billed Toucan at the Bellavista Cloud Forest Reserve Golden Crowned Flycatcher at the Bellavista Cloud Forest Reserve What to bring For a diving trip to Galapagos, I found the following items handy: Pair of cheap gardening gloves (I picked mine up at Lowes for $4) for grabbing on the volcanic rock whilst diving. These held up fine during the trip, no need for Kevlar gloves in my opinion. Sunscreen (a must in the Equator!) Reef Fish Identification: Galapagos: by Paul Humann (useful for identifying odd fish you just saw) A Traveler's Guide to the Galapagos Islands by Barry Boyce (although geared toward a non-diving trip, this book contains some interesting tidbits on for your land trips) Two bathing costumes (hang one up to dry between dives) Eardrops (to prevent swimmers ear) Seasickness meds (for the 14 hr trip to the outer islands, I didn't need them but others found them indespenible) A few soft weights (annoyingly, the Aggressor hard weights are not numbered, so you had to guess based on thickness, it was difficult to fine-tune) DVDs with Spanish subtitles (while I preferred to sit outside on one of the decks when not diving, many of the crew and other passengers enjoyed watching movies together. I think the crew always liked seeing something new). Laptop for photo transfers. (Most divers brought one. You will take a ton of pictures. On one 45 min land visit I took 400 pictures. Of course only about 6 or 7 of these will be keepers. It was nice to have a laptop to edit the photos and free up the SD card in the camera. Plus our hotels in Quito and Guayaquil had free WIFI.) What not to bring: Don’t bring too many books to read as you really don’t have much free time on the Aggressor. I got through 1 book during the week. Your cabin will have a selection of pulpy paperbacks to browse on a shelf. Flip-flops (pretty much everyone went barefoot on the boat and wore trainers on land) Divers at the Galapagos will face some chilly water and strong currents. We had about 55 dives before our visit and had no issues. I found Cozumel to be good practice for the diving conditions here. You'll need to be able to quickly descend to the bottom from a panga with the group and grab onto a rock in the current (i.e. no ear-clearing issues). Be prepared to do a safety stop in open blue water with no visible references and make sure you are not intimated by sharks as you will be surrounded by them! We used nitrox ($100 extra per person) and dove 16 of the 16 offered dives. Being warm-water divers, we quickly learned that changing back into a damp 7mil suit and hood is no fun! If you have any questions or comments send them to: Trip Report Index