Galapagos Part 2

Trip Start May 15, 2006

145

Trip End Nov 2007

Loading Map

Map your own trip!

Map Options

Show trip route

Hide lines

Flag of Ecuador Galapagos Islands, Ecuador
Sunday, June 11, 2006

We had an excellent time on the boat. The tour agency we booked with has a bit of a dodgy reputation so we were worried it would all go wrong but the guides met us at the airport as planned and took us to the boat. we couln�t belive how nice it was. The first day was a bit average we just went to a nice beach and went snorkelling, it was more to practise for the days when u had to snorkel in rough water. The next 3 days were excellent tho, we saw lots of sealions, land iguanas, albatrosses, masked boobies and lots of other birds. we also did some really good snorkelling. It was really good to chill out on the boat. On the last day it was really sunny and we spent most of the afternoon sailing back to the main harbour in Santa cruz so I was just sunbathing on deck which was a nice finish to the cruise. The other people on the boat were ok, no one really nice but no one terrible either. There was an old chinese-american couple who were hilarious, he took about 100 photos of EVERYTHING and every animal we saw she asked the guide"is that a male or a female?" In the end we got so fed up with getting stuck behind him taking photos of things like rocks and iguana droppings (no I�m not joking!) that we made sure we went with another group

Albatrosses

.

So we were really sad to leave the boat but we had a great time and saw loads, I think 5 days was enough, especially since we saved nearly 300 dollars by not doing the full 8 days. A lot of the guys on the boat had really raved about the diving in the Galapagos so although it was really expensive I decided to do it. I thoght i�d rather do it and think it was not worth the money than look back later and regret not doing it. I haven�t dived for over a year and have only done 9 dives so I am a bit of a novice and diving in the Galapagos is quite challenging. We had one day left when we finished the cruise which was dean�s birthday so I was heartless and left him alone to watch the football all morning. The night before I went to book the dive but the boat to the easy dive site was full so I ended up going to Gordon Rocks which is the best site but the most difficult there r strong currents and the local nickname for it is the washing machine!
The other people on the dive were all really good, 2 marine biologists and a PADI instructorwe all had 2 write how many dives we had done when we gave our details, everyone else wrote 300 and 700etc and there was my lonely little 9!!

After a sleepless night, dreaming of being swept out 2 sea and eaten by sharks I wnet to meet the otheres, I felt sick with fear the whole way out on the boat and when it stopped I felt even worse cos it was time to jump in

Galapagos Penguins

! The journey was made worse by me asking one of the marine biologists what they did and I then had a 1 hour lecture on the decreasing sardine population in Chile!!

I was fine in the end tho and really enjoyed myself, the divemaster was really good and made me feel safe, he told me I was "a strong girl"! One of the best bits was during the recovery time between the 2 dives we snorkelled with some sealions, I think that the Galapagos is the only place in the world where u can do that between dives! We saw so many sharks and turtles that it will be a bit of an anti climax next time I dive to just see fish and coral! Still I will be happy not to see any sharks in Australia!