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American Spirit II - Day 56; Diving with White-Tipped Sharks & Eagle Rays; Friday, February 28, 2014



The day started early for me as Russ and Laurie from Nexus had invited me to go scuba diving with them. We met on the dock at 7:00 AM, and on the way to Iguana Scuba we walked by the fish market, where pelicans and two sea lions were gathered around a fisherman filleting fish, looking for scraps. It was actually pretty amazing. One sea lion in particular was favored by this fisherman as he kept flipping him scraps of fish. He was at the feet of the fisherman and looked like a dog would if seated under the dinner table looking for scraps.

After meeting at the dive shop, we boarded 3 taxi's for the trip to Baltra and our dive boat. Ten persons were diving. Of the 10 divers, 7 were from the USA, 1 from Sweden, 1 from Canada and 1 from somewhere in Europe. We had 3 dive guides.

We were delayed an hour or so because the 'authorities' decided to inspect the dive boat and ordered the boat to add a licensed national park guide to our group. Once one was found, we departed. We were lucky that one was found, as the dive would have been canceled without the guide. One of the Iguana Scuba personnel told us in 13 years they had never been forced to have a guide on board before. During our trip, most of the time all this national park guide did was sit or sleep in the V-Berth. No lecture to us. Nothing. This apparently is the 'new' Galapagos.

Before leaving the dock, we were given a safety lecture, whereby the lead guide/instructor went over both dive locations and the many hand signals that are used under water, such as: half tank of air left; out of air; different hand signs for different types of shark; Eagle Rays;Eels; etc.

Our first dive was to Mosquera Island, where Russ, Laurie, Janet and I had gone snorkeling a week before as part of our first snorkel while on board the 'cruise' ship Fragata. However, we dove the deeper areas around this island this time, down to 60 feet. On our first dive we saw a large Hammerhead Shark, which kept circling us just out of good camera range, throughout the entire dive. He was 10 or 11 feet and very hefty. Larger than any Hammerhead Shark we had seen at Kicker Rock a couple weeks ago. We also saw a couple of 'flights' of Eagle Rays swimming by; sting rays; many star fish; and lots of fish amongst the rocks, coral and out in the open sea. I'd rate this dive as a good one.

The second dive was spectacular. We ended up amongst a couple dozen or more White-Tipped Sharks which were swimming back and forth in front of us. Five footers. We even found a number of them laying on the sandy bottom and were able to get to within 18 inches in front of them before they swam away from us. At no time did we feel threatened. As in the first dive, we saw a few flights of Eagle Rays, and a really large one with a juvenile in tow. Biggest Eagle Ray I'd seen in the Galapagos. First time I'd seen them from below looking up, also. The sandy bottom was littered with some sort of appendage type animal that was 1 inch in diameter, a foot long and stuck its body up out of the sand and curved at the top. When we approached, it would retreat into the sand and disappear, poking its head back up once we passed. Our guide also found a large Moray Eel in the rocks. And we encountered sting rays again.

During this dive a really cold stream of water hit us. Probably 10 - 15 degrees colder than the 79 degree water we were in. It actually was a current of cold water that acted like a prism when you looked thru it, bending the light rays and what you saw beyond this current. I'd never experienced anything like this before. It wasn't a thermocline. It was a moving, really cold current.

This second dive ended up being a 'drift dive,' meaning we ended up just drifting at one or two knots with the current, watching the sea life, rocks and the bottom go by as we drifted. A current dive is a higher degree of difficulty dive than a normal dive without a current; and it not recommended for beginners. It is more dangerous than a non-current dive. Like the first dive, we had a decompression stop at 15 feet before surfacing. Not that we needed to do so, but as a safety precaution. For the first dive we were under water for 41 minutes; and for the second dive, 52 minutes. Maximum depth on both was about 20 meters, or 60 feet.

We arrived back at the dive shop at 3:00 PM; purchased and filled out Dive Log Books; and watched part of a video that our guide had shot. The camera the guide used was quite good, so the pictures and video was very good. We purchased copies of this video, for pick up later.

I then proceed to a chandelier where I purchased 8 fishing lures for our next leg of the Rally. We had lost our best lure to a sail fish on the way from the Las Perlas Islands to Galapagos. Joel and Mike had purchased some groceries and picked up the propane tank, which wasn't filled due to a valve problem. Fortunately, we have a second tank of the boat.

The Skipper's Meeting for Leg 3 from Galapagos to French Polynesia was held at 5:00 PM. One of the questions each boat had to submit an answer to the number of fish the fleet would catch during the leg. We picked 240, or 6 per boat. One reason we didn't pick a higher number is because the fish you catch in the middle of an ocean can be quite big; and once your refrigerator is filled with filet's, you're not going to fish again until you eat all the fish you have.

Happy Hour followed at The Rock. We then ate dinner, and had our best meal in the Galapagos at a restaurant with a floor of loose, pebble sized lava rock or basalt. Different.

Once back at the boat we had Wifi. Joel and Mike had gotten drinks at a restaurant earlier in the day that had Wifi; was only 60 yards from us; and had gotten the password. Using our boat's 'hot spot' hook up, they 'grabbed' this Wifi signal so now we can Wifi (send and receive email) from our anchorage instead of having to go to an internet cafe. Way to go Joel and Mike!

Brian Fox

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