Best Scuba Diving in Galapagos Islands
I think that it is best to start a review of the Galapagos Islands in Quito. The new airport is almost an hour away from the city, but it is worthwhile to spend at least one day there and maybe two or three. The old quarter of the city is a UN World Heritage Site and it beautiful to see.
One arrives into the Galapagos Islands on the small island of Baltra and are taken by ferry to the core island of Santa Cruz. Santa Cruz is by far the most populated of the islands and also contains quite a bit of agriculture. Some of the local farms represent the best spot to see the giant tortoises of Santa Cruz. Each island has its own tortoise species (Isabella has 4 I believe--one for each volcano). Puerto Aroyo is a town of about 25K inhabitants and is he commercial hub of the islands. Many local dive tours and island tours leave from here including ferries to other islands. The Darwin Research Center is also here and is a great chance to see many tortoises and species such as the land iguanas. Don't miss it--it is within a long walk of the city center.
We took a ferry to Isabella which was kind of a rough 2 hour ride to the very much smaller city of Puerto Villami on the SE corner of the island. Isabella is large and has incredible variety. We walked to the top of southernmost volcano. We went snorkeling near the town and saw white tips with sea lions harassing them. We saw thousands of marine iguanas and of course, blue boobies. The highlight of our stay was a long boat ride to the site of Los Tunneles which looks like some scene from another planet. Along the way, we saw dozen of mantas on the surface. We had a great chance to snorkel with them, eagle rays, and turtles everyway. This side tour is a bit expensive, but worth the price in every way. We got to see several of the Isabella tortoise species along one of our hikes. Diving is very good here as well, but not up to the standards of the outer islands.
Espanola is another island that is worth a visit if you have a chance. It is one of the oldest of the islands and is quite small. In July, we saw albatrosses mating which was quite interesting. Blue boobies were everywhere and several other species of birds that are not seen on the other islands. This is an island that is not frequented by divers because of its location, but if you have a chance to get here with a couple day extension, make the investment.
We did most of our diving from a liveaboard and most of them now take a very standard 7 day trip through the islands. We started in the Bartholomew area which is famous for its views featured in the Master and Commander movie. The diving in the area ifs very good, but not spectacular. Lots of snappers and lots of turtles.
After a long 1 day cruise, the boat arrives at Wolf and the fun starts. We did 5 dives there including a night dive which was very good with turtles sleeping and eels in abundance. The conditions were quite harsh here with lots of surge and rough surface conditions. We saw a half dozen eagle rays and too many hammerheads to count. It was a tough place to have a big camera though and it was easy to get bruised up on the rocks.
The next 1.5 days we spent at Darwin which is definitely world class. Dolphins on the surface. Orcas by the boat. Silky sharks circling at the "unsafety stop" and sharks pretty much everywhere. We saw two whale sharks, one of which bumped my son in the head with its tail. He didn't even see it coming but I got it on video.
We spent the last days of the trip off the coast of Fernandina where the water was cold, but full of marine iguanas. We also had orcas cruise by when we were diving. We also saw them on the surface. Never a dull moment. We finished at the NW corner of Isabella where the water was incredibly cold. We saw mola mola, giant seahorses, and the infamous red lipped batfish.
On the way back to port, we stopped for a couple of dives at Cousins Rock which is also a very nice site. We saw a half dozen eagle rays as well as a lot of turtles.
This destination is pretty incredible. A week of liveaboard is the only way to see the diving. An extra week is also worth the time spent to see a small sample of what is not underwater.
