In mid-November, we were 16 eager travelers who left a windy and rainy Sweden. We flew to Ecuador for a diving trip to the Galapagos. We were there for a total of 12 days; five land-based days followed by a week of live board on the Galapagos Master liveaboard. For the vast majority of us, the Galapagos was a dream destination that we had long hoped to experience someday. Well in place on San Cristobal Island we immediately went out to a local beach called Playa Loberia. It felt almost like a fairy tale as we immediately found sea lions, marine iguanas, beautiful red crabs and various fearless birds. The days continued in a similar fashion. In addition to beach life, many of us also took the opportunity to experience Galapagos large adult land turtles.
After a couple of days of snorkeling, some of us felt that we wanted to go below the surface properly. So we therefore booked scuba diving at Kicker Rock just outside of San Cristobal. We were surprised by how chilly the water was. But we quickly forgot the cold as we saw plenty of Galapagos sharks and sea turtles. Some of us were even lucky enough to see lumpfish.
On board the Liveaboard
After these days on land, it was finally time to set out the Galapagos Master liveaboard. We headed straight north towards Darwin and Wolf Islands. Up at Darwin we had some great dives. Hammerhead and Galapagos sharks were plentiful. Visibility was unfortunately not the best and the whale sharks were unfortunately absent. We therefore decided to leave Darwin earlier than planned and instead went down to Wolf Island. There we were welcomed by large groups of dolphins that we saw from the surface. Down in the water we had hammerhead sharks, silky sharks and galapagos sharks. After Wolf it was off back south, down towards the biggest Island; Isabella.
On the northwest side of the island is Punta Vicente Roca. Here some of us had the absolute best dive of the whole trip: four large lumpfish at the same time! They were completely fearless and the visibility was really good. The lumpfish gather at this place to be cleaned by preening wrasses. This day started out absolutely fantastic and it continued in the same andaThe next dive was at Douglas Cape on Fernandina Island. Here everyone had the opportunity to experience marine iguanas grazing on algae underwater. They were completely fearless and you can push the camera right up in their face without them caring in the slightest.
