The Galapagos Islands were just ridiculous!

I travelled with an outfit called GalaKiwi for this one. An adventure active tour company set up by a couple of Kiwis four years ago, I highly recommend them. As far as I can tell they are the only ones offering a combined sea and land trip, managing to avoid the popular and busy tourist spots and who have created a focus around full on activity throughout the tour of 8 days. They use local accommodation, restaurants and guides only so unlike most, the money earned stays on the islands. Anyway, enough free advertising for them and on with the blog...Joining a group of 8 others, we flew out to Galapagos Islands to SanCristalIsland for our first day. Not mucking around within an hour of landing we were careering down a long hill on mountain bikes having been to a view point high up on the volcano, giving us panoramic views to the coast and beaches around. A lone statue of Charles Darwin could be seen below us, marking the bay in which the Beagle first anchored on these enchanted islands. As I said the Galapagos was just ridiculous...here is why.

Our very first afternoon on the island had us mountain biking, watching sea lions assert their territorial interests in the local town, being fascinated as Marine Iguanas drew heat from the rocks and finally spending the late afternoon on a remote beach surrounded by herons, pelicans and sea lions...and this was just in one afternoon - a real delight after being in Quito for the last 4 days.

That 1st night we sat at a local bar at the end of a beach, talked bulls*** and watched the sun set while sipping the local alcoholic concoction...not a bad way to spend the evening.Day two was an early start, although we soon learned that every day would be an early start (Galapagos temps were 35 degrees by 11.00am and winds build up as the day progresses, so early mornings are best for boats etc) and we set out in our boat to explore two snorkelling sites, off the coast from San Cristobal.

The 1st was an easy snorkel really designed to test everyone out, before we got to Kicker Rock. Still, it was a great snorkel, as we were soon surrounded by playful sea lions, who would dart out of nowhere directly in front of you, or would suddenly move like torpedoes directly toward to you only to veer left or right at the last minute. These creatures are naturally playful and the more that I dived under to swim with them, the more they wanted to play, rolling over to mimic my actions and me trying to mimic theirs. We saw a few sea turtles swimming by as well, as well as fish in these pristine waters we had to ourselves. Not bad for a 1st snorkel, but it was to get even better out at Kicker Rock!

Kicker Rock sits isolated some miles out to sea. Exploding out of the sea it is the remains of an underwater volcano, rising vertically 150 meters out of the sea. It is pretty damned impressive to see. The rock itself is split with a 10 meter gash forming a channel through which the swells of the sea surge, perhaps just 20 meters deep here. We stopped the boat 50 meters from the gash and dropped into the water. Slightly colder out here, but the water is crystal clear on this day. As a small group we made our way to the under sea cliffs of Kicker Rock that plummet into the deepest of deep blue (up to 300 meters down).

We can already see some pretty large fish, including Tuna, in the depths below. Our snorkel takes us directly through the gash that divides Kicker Rock. Soon we are swimming above Galapagos Sharks, that while harmless to people, still grow to a good size and at first cause some mild apprehension. A ray drifts by (Rainbow sting ray) and then we are into the 10 meters wide gash, being carried along by currents and swells. A fantastic snorkel so far. At the end of the gash, our boats awaits and most of the group return to the boat, ecstatic with the swim. Three of us decide to stay in the water, in the hope of seeing the larger Hammer Head sharks that dwell in these waters. We struggle against a strong current to get around the other side of Kicker Rock, but eventually we make it back to calmer waters and float on the sea.

Below us, we start to see one or two Hammer Head sharks, which is pretty exciting. A turtle drifts by as well as other fish, but no sea lions in this place. A few large Tuna move below us, as a presage of the sharks to come. Tim, our GalaKiwi guide soon starts pointing and signalling for us to swim further out to sea...and there they are!

At first they seem very deep and are difficult to make out, but as we swim on it is clear that there is a massive school of Hammer Head sharks just to our front. Soon we are snorkelling directly above them and they now seem oh so much closer. Perhaps just 30 feet away, immediately below us we have at least 50 sharks, of all sizes, circling and moving forward, seemingly oblivious of our presence above.

One of the larger sharks, perhaps 3 meters in length, does seem to notice us and as we dive down for a closer look, it suddenly turns toward us and is coming straight for us....a sudden feeling of vulnerability overwhelms me and I swim fast back to the surface, wondering what my white legs hanging below must look like to this creature. Hammer Heads are generally placid enough, however there have been attacks on humans before, but we are assured this has never happened in the Galapagos as food is so very abundant, i.e. easier pickings than humans! Reassuring that is. We were able to stay with this school of sharks for about 15 minutes, before they lost interest in us and moved on at a speed we could not follow, so it was a swim back to our boat to tell the others of what we saw.

We took the boat back to a beautiful beach by name of Puerto Grande for a flop on the sands. The beach is isolated and only reachable by boat or a bad arse walk which people would not do...so we had it to ourselves...well, barring pelicans, gulls, rays, blue footed boobies and all sorts of wildlife that is. Nice.- I will need to finish this blog another time....need to move on now - see part 2.