Galapagos - The Destination
"The Galápagos Islands were born from volcanoes erupting violently out of the sea, located about 1000km off the west coast of Ecuador in the Pacific Ocean. Its isolated terrain shelters a diversity of plant and animal species, many found nowhere else and It's considered one of the world's foremost destinations for wildlife-viewing.
The Galápagos Islands is the world´s 2nd largest Marine Reserve with good diving all year, however, during August to Novermber, the diving suppose to be even more exceptional: large Whale Sharks, huge schools of Hammerheads, rays, sea-lions and other big stuff come out to play. Divers also can have the chance to swim with lizards and penguins... No wonder why people call Galápagos Islands one of the Seven Underwater Wonders of the World...
Important Galápagos Information
The Galápagos Islands is considered one of the best dive destinations in the world for many dive experts. And some of our Dive and Cruise team members finally get the chance to experience this amazing place in real!
In June 2014, with only returning Dive and Cruise guests and some of our team mebers, we organized a trip on board the MV Penguino Explorer, which has just started its operation with an experienced crew and dive guides in 2013.
Flights to Galapagos Islands
All flights to the Galapagos Islands start from the from mainland Ecuador (Quito or Guayaquil). Currently, there are no direct international flights to Galapagos. There are several international airlines fly daily into Quito/Guayaquil from North America. And we also found KLM airlines fly into Quito/Guayaquil from Amsterdam few times a week. An overnight hotel stay is usually required and we recommend staying in Guayaquil prior to the trip. It takes about half an hour to get from Quito to Guayaquil and roughly one and a half hours from Guayaquil to the islands.
Ingala Transfer Card / Transit Control Card
Ingala has instituted the TCT to help keep track of who is coming and going to the Galápagos islands. All visitors must go to a booth in the Quito or Guayaquil airport with their plane tickets to get the card, which costs 20 USD per person (cash only). Some of the liveaboards can help guests pre-paid this TCT card, otherwise you can also get the TCT card by yourself at the airport, but be sure to plan on a little extra time in the airport.
Galapagos National Park fee
This is payable on arrival at San Cristobal Airport or Baltra Airport (depends on where your boat will departs), some of the liveaboards also can help guests take care of it with a pre-paid option. It costs 100 USD per person (cash only).
Galapagos Hyperbaric Chamber Fee
The Hyperbaric Facility in Ecuador’s Galapagos archipielago is operated by Proteccion Subacuatica del Ecuador, SA (Protesub), and is located in the town of Puerto Ayora on the island of Santa Cruz. And all liveaboards in the Galapagos Islands will charge an extra $35 per diver to help keep this important service and its staff operational in the islands. This fee is payable onboard.
Our Trip - Before the Cruise
Before the cruise, from 14th until 17th June 2014, we've spent 3 days in Santa Cruz island with some day-trip adventures to the neighboring islands (2h/2h30 by speedboat...) of Isabella, San Cristobal and Floreana. Each of these places were just amazing with an amount of wolf life out of our thoughts. Birds species, lizards, turtles were abundant, and everywhere was full of green, wild feelings! I can't find a word to describe how beautiful Galápagos Islands was, i think you have to go there and see it with your own eyes ;-)
So during 14th - 17th June 2014, we stayed at hotel espana in Santa Cruz, hotel espana was an easy going / chill place to stay with small budget, but rooms were clean and in a good size, the hotel staff were nice. You can find different restaurants within walking distance with really good meals and all kind of food can be prepared...
Our Trip - Onboard !
On June 17th 2014, with all our big diving bags packed and 16 divers ready to finally go onboard MV Penguino Explorer, we headed to the jetty on the north of Santa Cruz where we jumped into the chasing boats.
We had the luck to have Mr. Macaron as the boat leader and dive guide, and this was a guarantee of perfect diving as he was born in the Galápagos Islands and knows everything on this amazing archipelago, and he's been diving in the region for all his life, no one can knwo the islands better than he does.
After boarding and the warm welcome drinks, we had a detailed trip & safety briefing by Mr. Macaron. And then we had a chance to make an equipment check dive just few hundreds meter away of Baltra airport to verify our needed weight (everybody was wearing a long wetsuit from 5mm to 7mm) and be sure no equipment have been damage during the different flights. Finally, everything went fine and we had a visit by a friendly sea lion during the check, it was the first time for all of us having a friendly & playful sea lion so close and we could already feel how big animals were all around from that moment, exciting !
On the 2nd day of the cruise, we headed to Bartolomé Island et Cousin Rock to make our first day diving. During the first morning dive, there were already plenty of hammerhead sharks around, big school of eagle rays (around 40) just behind the sharks, this was so intense! We also saw a big group of groupers, some white tipped sharks, a small group of barracudas on the following dives.
After the first day, we started to understand the beauty of the place and we couldn't wait to see what we would encounter the next day, as on the 3rd day we will arrive Wolf then on 4th day we will arrive Darwin, then back to Wolf again (In total, we plan to spend 3 full days in Wolf and Darwin), these 2 islands are the highlights of Galapagos but all the archipelago is full of life and surprise can be found on any dive site here.
On the 3rd day of the crusie, we arrived the famous Wolf Island. Wolf Island is located in the extreme northern part of the archipelago, there are few dive sites around this island: El Derrumbe, La Ventana, La Banana, Shark Point, La Cueva. Like what people says "Serious divers will find some serious diving here!", the day was bustling with the big stuff and lots of it : School of scalloped hammerheads, silky sharks and Galapagos sharks meet up with tuna and moray eels, we also encounterd 3 freindly dolphins and some sea lions!! Even the sea was quite rough, currents were a bit strong and the visibility was limited. Still a impressive day!
On the 4th day, we reached Darwin, the unique island is every one's dream, and is recognized as one of the best dive sites in the world! Here has 2 dive sites in total : "El Arco" and "El Arenal", the current were strong, but the action was breathtaking. The Darwin´s Arch is an impressive 15 m lava arch. All the diving were start with a fast descent in current, where we then grab onto the rocks below and basically be a spectator to the stuff blowing past: hammerheads, giant schools of yellow fin tuna and jacks, rays, silky sharks and octopi, dolphins, schools of eagle rays (more than 20!!)... Wonderful!
On the 5th day, we already moved back to Isabela Island - The archipelago’s largest island, it was formed by the joining of five young volcanoes. While these volcanic regions contain extensive lava fields and little vegetation, the southern highlands and various other regions are covered by dense vegetation including the unique red mangrove. Isabela Island is also home to many native Galapageños living in the Island’s largest town, Puerto Villamil. In the early morning, we did a dive at the Punta Vicente Roca, there was an enormous amount of the “small stuff”, at the sandy bottom by the corals, we found large sea horses, catfish, red lip bat fish, frogfish, many many nudibranchs and the highlight of that day - the sunfish/mola mola!! The water was really cold there, only 19 C, so do remeber to bring your warm wetsuit with you!
After the exciting dive in the morning, we did a panga ride to the shoreline to observe the penguins, flightless cormorants and marine iguanas. It was indeed a cool morning! After that, we cruised into Cape Marshall (Marshall Corp), it was another few hours ride, but everyone was talking about the morning dive with mola mola and share the photo of the speacial red lip batfish. Finally we arrived Cape Marshall, it's a near-vertical wall of volcanic rock that plummets to the bottom of the sea. Here we encountered the "big stuff" again : oceanic manta rays, hammerheads, several small fish in large shcools, marbled rays, and sea lions were swam along with us... amazing!
On the 7th day, we moved into Pinzon Island - a small island located in the center of the archipelago, west of Santa Cruz Island. we did our last 2 dives here : few red-lipped bat fish, seahorses, horn sharks, as well as some white-tipped reef sharks....etc
On the last day of our tirp, we visited the Highlands with the tortoises in thier natural enviroment, several types of finches and the twin craters. It was very lovely! After that, the crew of MV Penguino Explorer dropped us to the Baltra Airport, and our amazing trips has came to a beautiful end.
If you would like to know a little bit more about diving in Galapagos Islands, please feel free to cntact any of our agent or wirte us an email to know more information.
Happy Diving!
Dive and Cruise Team
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