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Scuba Diving the Galapagos Islands

As my diving skills advanced to the level where I could start to realistically consider one of those exotic far-away dive destinations that are always featured in the magazines, one thing had always bothered me.  For the planning, effort and expense involved in traveling thousands of miles to another hemisphere, I always thought that the trip would be a more valuable experience if, in addition to the diving, some time could be spent getting to know something of the local culture and history.

When I heard about the Aquatic Encounters expedition to the Galapagos that included three days in a first class hotel in Quito Ecuador, with city and country tours and day land trips in the Galapagos (the tour of the Darwin Institute was a highlight) in addition to the diving, I thought I had died and gone to heaven.  The trip, hosted by owner, Marc Bernardi, lived up to all of the advance billing.  The only time I touched luggage the entire trip was to move it from outside the door of my room to the inside (hotels and boat).  All of the tours happened as advertised and were on-time and interesting too.

The boat, the Reina Silva, had great food, and the staff really took care of the guests.  The divemaster, Maricio, was Knowledgeable about all things above and below water and made sure that everyone knew each dive site (his artwork was excellent) before getting in the water.  The diving beat even the wild stories I had heard about Galapagos diving before the trip.  One of only two boats operating in the Galapagos that go to the northernmost islands of Darwin and Wolf, it is well worth the extra travel effort (at night).  The hammerheads were ever-present in what seemed like a never ending parade.  Whale sharks were seen on virtually every dive at Darwin island along with other big stuff, mantas, turtles, together with all of the usual reef fish.  In fact, when it was suggested that we pull up and move to Wolf, the idea was squashed with the simple question, "What do you think we could see there that we aren't seeing here?"  At other sites we
saw sea lions, Galapagos penguins, sea horses, octopi, marine iguanas and on and on.  Visibility could have been better, but was mostly adequate in the 40 to 50 foot range.  Water temperatures (early June) were mid to high seventies.  The monster Galapagos Tortoises in the wild totally captivated everyone on the jungle tour the last day on the islands.

The boat needs a cascade system for filling tanks and even though each stateroom had its own bath, the bare fact is that both the staterooms and the baths are just simply too small.  But since very little time is actually spent in the rooms, and there are always only 15 or so divers on each trip, these shortcomings are not nearly as inconvenient as they might seem to be, especially considering how first class the trip is in every other aspect.