Monday, February 20, 2006

The Galapagos Islands - Part I

Puerto Ayora, Isla Santa Cruz, Galapagos Islands, Ecuador
For those who aren't sure the Galapagos Islands are located in the Pacific Ocean, about 600 miles off the coast of Ecuador. Despite many attempts by other countries such as the US, Spain and the UK to gain ownership of the islands they remain part of Ecuador. The only way to get here (other than spending quite a while on a cargo boat) is by an expensive flight with a local airline from either Guayaquil or Quito.

We arrived in Puerto Ayora, Santa Cruz the main town on the islands after a short flight, a bus journey a boat ride and another bus journey. Puerto Ayora is where a lot of the boats cruising the islands depart from and where the travel agencies are based. As we were hoping to get ourselves a last minute deal we spent most of our first day going from agency to agency to see what was available. NOT A LOT! It turned out that it wasn't really low season and that there weren't a lot of lastminute deals around. Well we did get offered a couple, but by the time we had had a think about it, checked the boat out on the internet and gone back to book they were gone! We ended our day with very little on the table and just a little frustrated and worried. We could think of nothing worse than coming all this way and not being able to get on a boat, or having to pay 1000's of dollars to sit on a massive cruise liner with 88 elderly Americans. Anyways, as it was Valentines Day we treated ourselves to fantastic sushi overlooking the Pacific Ocean, on the Galapagos, not sure we will be able to beat that one anytime soon.

The following day having finally found a not too expensive (comparatively speaking, we still can't eat for the next 2 months!) tourist superior class boat we headed to the Darwin Research Centre, a very interesting place with some MASSIVE, and very old, tortoises being protected as they are now an endangered species. Many of the islands endemic species have come under threat as the inhabitants brought over introduced species (whether on purpose or not) such as goats and rats which in turn have damaged the environment. The rats would eat the tortoise eggs for example.

The most wonderful thing about the islands is just how close you get to the animals. They don't run away as soon as you get close and they are everywhere. Just on a walk from our hotel to the restaurant we saw pelicans, a sealion, crabs, lizards, and iguanas (those prehistoric looking reptiles). It became our evening routine to grab a beer from the supermarket and sit at the end of the pier to watch the sealions play, the pelicans feed, the crabs do what they do. We even saw rays and a sea snake. Amazing. And we hadn't even left the dock yet!

We decided to check out the local beach so headed to Tortuga (Turtle) Bay. It was a 45 min walk in the blistering sunshine and as we struggled along at 10.30am we realised that all the locals were coming back already. Yep only mad dogs and Englishmen! Still it meant we had the beach practically to ourselves, and what a stunner. It was totally unspoilt, not a café, shop or lilo in sight, just many marine iguanas (Galapagos is the only place you get iguanas that can swim), pelicans and little finches which would sit right on your hand.

Whilst I sat sunning myself Mik went off with his mask and snorkel. After 1 1/2 hours and no sign of him I did start to get a bit concerned especially as we had been advised that there were strong currents and I knew Mik would have gone out as far as possible if there was the chance of seeing sharks. Luckily it wasn't much longer before he returned so I didn't have to run up and down the beach like a nutter in a panic. Mik's excitement about what he had seen soon calmed me. He'd swum out for about 40mins to reach the end of the rock spit and his efforts had been rewarded. He saw his some white tip reef sharks, one apparently big enough to make him back off a bit (I was glad I hadn't been there!). He also saw a big turtle, a moray eel and a ray so was fairly chuffed. Until that is he realised that having swum the return 40 mins on his back meant he had burnt his nose, oh and his hands and the back of his calves whist chasing the sharks. Ho hum. As I wasn't quite ready to face sharks alone, and already had the start so some serious sunburn myself, I gave it a miss this time.

We left the beach around 2.30pm just as all the sensible people were returning, sniggering at our very obvious burnt bits! Protection factor 30 obviously wasn't going to cut it.

Then we went diving. We were both really excited about this as we were really hoping to see sharks, me for the first time. And boy did we see sharks. We did 2 dives that day and probably saw around 50 sharks, not that you can count them very easily! They were amazing. I had fully expected to freak out at the sight of one and was surprised just how calm they were and how totally not interested in us. We saw a lot of white tip reef sharks up to 7 feet long and loads of other cool stuff. The site called Gordon Rocks is famous for being home to a pack of hammerheads and we hoped we would get lucky and see some. A few minutes into the dive the guide gestured that we should all hold onto the side of a big pinacle to stop ourselves being dragged away by the strong currents. We did so, with much banging of tanks and fins, and sat and waited. Soon we heard the guide ring his underwater bell (something he liked to do a lot whenever he spotted anything interesting), and give us the international dive sign for hammerhead shark, which is to place a fist either side of your head. Sure enough there they were. About 10 of them sweeping past right in front of us. My first sighting of these bizarre looking sharks. They came quite close and were much bigger, around 9 to 10 feet long and much stockier in the body. But still they were just checking us out. We also saw turtles and big sealions, which despite looking so cumbersome on land, are so agile and flexible underwater and could turn on a penny. All in all an amazing day despite me spending all my time on the boat hanging off the back green with seasickness, a first for me, and not the best news for someone who was about to spend 8 days on a boat tour! In my daze of seasickness all thoughts of sunscreen had gone out of the window. Thus rather a lot of aftersun was needed on a very burnt back. You'd think I would know better hey!

After a day of rest (staying out of the sun!) we decided to dive the same sites again, on our way there the captain spotted a whale and we watched it for a while. Luckily I had taken a seasickness tablet this time and faired much better. The second days diving was also superb, we saw a massive marble ray sitting on the bottom and loads of free swimming spotted eagle and golden rays, the way they move is amazing to watch. We also saw lots more sharks, the hammerheads came even closer this time and kept coming back for another look. The last 20 minutes of our final dive were spent sitting watching about 60 whitetip reef sharks hovering in the current just an arms length away from us. I just managed to stop myself reaching out, they were sharks after all. It was like being in something you'd see on the Discovery Channel. Very lucky, even the dive guides were whooping with glee when we surfaced from that dive. Cheers Luis (dive guide extraordinaire at Sub Aqua). Whilst sharks are great to watch, at a safe distance, and add an air of excitement to a dive, I would have to say that turtles are still my favourite. I guess that's 'cos I'm a girl!


We stopped at 4 dives as it is not the cheapest place to dive and to be quite honest we didn't think it could get any better. We finished on a high, and went for a beer to celebrate!We had a last beer on the pier that evening and watched the sunset over Puerto Ayora and place we had really enjoyed. The next day we would start our cruise around the other islands. Life really doesn't get much better.

Cara

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