Profile
Blog
Photos
Videos
We were all up early again for our boat trip to San Cristobal. It was just over a 2 hour journey again and I did a very good job of sleeping most of the way. Once we arrived in port we were greeted by a splattering of sea lions that were littering the waterfront. We were soon ushered onto a bus and taken to the first location for snorkelling.
We had a 10 minute walk to get to the beach and passed large marine iguanas and sealions en route. When we arrived there was a turtle ashore trying to get back to sea next to a sea lion colony.
Before long we took to the water and we could see why the bay was famous for turtles. They were everywhere, i must have seen about 30 in total and all within a couple of square hundred meters. There was frequently times when 5 or 6 were in view at once. I ventured briefly into the deeper parts where some schools of fish lurked but decided hanging out with the turtles was cooler so found a really chilled one to spend some time with away from the other tourists.
All too quickly it was time for the next location, but I wasn´t complaining as it was Kicker Rock which is a famous dive site around the Galapagos. There are 2 giant rocks that protrude 160m vertically out of the water and in between the rocks is an 18m deep channel where sharks frequent.
We were not disappointed as almost as soon as we hit the water a school of eagle rays passed right past me. They were so close and there must have been about 12 of them. On venturing a little further through the passageway we saw our first Galapagos sharks too. There were several to start with and I must have seen between 8 and 12. They were only about 1m to 1.5m in length but still a very cool sight as they passed beneath me. I tried to snorkel down as much as possible and could get quite close but it turns out they are better swimmers than me, who would have thought it!
We did a lap of the rock and didn´t see much else on the other side, but we did get to come back via a huge crack in one of the rocks that had opened up another passageway. There was a lone Galapagos shark resting there but as it was shallow and clear it meant we could see a shark very clearly. After we had passed back through we headed back to the original passageway and were swarmed once more by eagle rays. There was about 15 - 18 this time and they came even closer than before, so much so that I had to be a bit weary of their tails - didn´t want a Steve Irwin incident after all.
I also saw a huge school of Galapgos sharks with a couple of black tip reef sharks pass underneath me. I reckon there was about 30 or 40 in total and they seemed to be suffering from indecision as they kept coming back and forth to our delight.
In the middle of the school there was also a small hammerhead shark who stole the show. I dived down as close as I could to him several times and he hung about for around 5 minutes which was awesome. By now though the boat, and everyone else was waiting for me so it was time to get back on board.
The final stop of the day was snorkelling by a sea lion colony. On the way there we passed a load of frigate birds though and even saw quite a few with the large red necks that were very impressive. However, the action once more was in the water.
I saw a couple of turtles, but by now I had almost lost interest in them instead it was playing with sea lions on the agenda. I had several staring contests, some I won and some I lost and performed lots of twists and spins to imitate the sea lions. It was great fun! Several times they would stare at you 30cm from your face and then lurch at you suddenly which made me jump the first few times, but after a while it was me getting my own back on them and I won a few contests myself. There was a baby sealion in the water for a little while too but a rather large and scary sea lion soon took her to one side and left us to play with others.
Finally, our time was up and it was time for some food. We tucked into rice and fish (of course) and headed for port. Again we were surrounded by sea lions and after a few more photographs climbed aboard to head back to Santa Cruz.
The evening was spent largely in an internet cafe before going out for dinner and returning to bed early ready for scuba diving the next day!
- comments