Galapagos Islands: Part 2

The Sea

The Galapagos Islands has alot to offer on the land, but in my mind the most fun is had wearing goggles and a snorkel.

Every day our cruise allotted us at least one snorkel session, and sometimes two. We learned quickly that to get the most out of the snorkelling, we needed to follow our guide, Washington, around in the water. He knew all the absolute best places to go and he showed us some cool animals.

The most graceful creatures in the water are the sea turtles. They swim very slowly, taking no heed to the 16 tourists swimming after him snapping photos. I probably saw half a dozen of them, and our guide told us that they can dive 600 metres under the water. My ears hurt after diving only 2 metres!

On our second day of snorkelling, I could hear some sort of commotion going on, so I lifted my head up from the water to see what it was about. A group of people were huddled around Washington near the rocky shore of an island. I swam over, and was informed that we were outside of a “shark cave”. 

I ducked my head under water in time to see our guide, Washington, holding his breath and swimming INTO the shark cave. I dared not go in as far as Washington, but I poked my head just in far enough to see a family of White-Tipped sharks chilling out in the underwater cave. At the time, it looked to me like there were maybe 5 sharks in the cave; but after watching some footage of the cave that our guide took with his under water camera, I could see that there were actually about 12! I tried to load the footage onto this blog, but there seems to be some sort of technical error. The footage is incredible, so ask me to show it to you if your in Calgary when I get back in December.

James scouting out a possible snorkeling location

Other animals we saw under the water were Sting Rays, Marine Iguanas, lots of colourful fish, Barracudas, a Galapagos Shark, Starfish, and Eels.

But the highlight of my Galapagos experience (and James and Jordan’s too) didn’t come from following Washington to his secret snorkeling spots. On the fourth day of the cruise we were dropped off on a beach to enjoy snorkelling for 2.5 hours while the boat was re-stocked with supplies. Unfortunately, the water was so cloudy it was practically opaque, and on the sea floor there was nothing to look at but sand. We were all a little peeved that we had to spend 2.5 hours on this beach with no activities to do and no snorkeling.

I threw on my snorkelling gear anyway and walked down the beach a little ways to see if the water would get any better. On the other side of some rocks I saw some black bodies lounging on the beach that looked like Sea Lions. Upon closer inspection, I verified my observation as true, and went to take a look. The Sea Lions were just sleeping, and didn’t seem to be going anywhere, so after a few minutes I hopped into the water and started swimming back. 

I took a look over my shoulder, and to my excitement, one of the Sea Lions had awoken and was waddling into the water. He started swimming towards me, and then all of a sudden he darted right past me. I swam after him, and then he started swimming around me, like he was playing. For the next hour I swam with the Sea Lion, trying to keep pace with his quirky antics. From then on, James, Jordan, and I made a point of seeking out Sea Lions every time we went snorkeling. We found the younger ones were a lot more playful than the older ones, but most of the Sea Lions seemed just as curious about us as we were about them.

A photo taken by our guide. The Sea Lions swam really close to us!

By the end of the cruise it seemed like we had seen almost every animal there was to see, except for whales and Dolphins. But on the last day, a crew member knocked on our door while we were napping and was hollering “whale, whale!” Sure enough, a mother whale and her baby were swimming nearby our boat. The mother’s robust back was gently cresting out of the cool Humboltd froth while the spunky baby whale gracefully danced through the warm Galapagos air with several Elvis Stoiko-like leaps. The crew said they were Humpback Whales. It was a great way to cap off our Galapagos Sightseeing Tour.

Tomorrow morning the Three Amigos head back to the mainland so that we can take a bus down to Lima, Peru. After a month, we’re finally leaving Ecuador behind us. I wasn’t incredibly excited for Peru before, but now that I’ve started reading a bit about the country I’m now really stoked. It sounds like we’re going to see lots of history in the country’s Incan ruins, and there should be an interesting variety of climates and topography.

To make this trip a little more interesting, we’ve started a survivor nfl football pool whereby the Three Amigos make a pick each week as to what team we think is going to win. There’s alot of pride on the line,  not to mention public humiliation in the form of a forced friar cut. Jordan and I both picked San Diego to win -- so root for the Chargers this week!