Galapagos Trip Report 2024

Galapagos Trip Report 2024 

Bluewater Travel's Underwater Photography Workshop APRIL 2024

By: Mark B Hatter

Bluewater Dive Travel just completed its annual journey to the Galapagos Islands and this year’s ten day adventure on the Galapagos Master was epic.  The harsh El Nino which had plagued the eastern Pacific for much of 2023 and early 2024 had finally given way to normal, neutral weather conditions for several weeks prior to our arrival in late April.  Where prior trips were apparently subject to disappointing conditions with considerable coral bleaching at Isla Wolf and Isla Darwin, and currents too warm for the major players (schooling hammerhead sharks, mola mola and more) to show, our conditions were ideal.  

The corals on Wolf and Darwin had recovered 100% of their colors and there was no evidence of any coral die off.  The sweeping cool, subsurface currents had returned in force, along with the showcase animals which make these two islands famous.   Over a four day stretch we enjoyed parades of schooling hammerhead sharks to the extent we were conflicted on which wide angle lenses to employ; fisheye to capture dozens at a time or rectilinear lenses to “reach out” and capture smaller groups of individuals with greater resolution.  Happily, we had plenty of dives to resolve our lens conflictions! 

In addition to the omnipresent sharks (including some very large Galapagos sharks) Isla Darwin gave us more than we had hoped for.  Upon arriving to the island early in the trip a pod of Orcas provided a “drive by sighting” causing quite a stir among the guests.  Dingy’s were launched and our guests were able to shoot surface images of the whales for the better part of 30 minutes.  Orcas are rare occurrences in the Galapagos Islands and our encounter was fortunate.  

But then, it got better!  After concluding an early morning dive on the second day we encountered the pod just after they’d completed a hunt, just off the northern end of Darwin’s arch.  Enteral remains (most likely of a shark) drew dozens of screaming gulls to fight over the leftovers while the pod meandered just off the reef.  We were able to put swimmers in the water on several attempts to shoot underwater images, but the pod moved too fast to allow image capture.  Never-the-less, it was an exceptional experience for our guests. 

To the south, off Roca de St. Vicente on Isla Isabela, the cold, nutrient rich green water had returned bringing mola mola.  One of our groups was particularly fortunate to have a moderately large mola mola approach to within arms length of the divers for several minutes, allowing for some incredible images and video!   

Between dives, a surface ride in the dingys to the cove just south of St. Vicentes gave our guests an opportunity to shoot images of Galapagos sea lions, marine iguanas entering and leaving the cold water and a Galapagos penguin.  Over the course of four dives at St Vicente and in addition to the mola mola, we had the opportunity to shoot green sea turtles, seahorses and frolicking sea lions as they played with the guests underwater.

 Interested in learning more about the Galapagos? Read a previous Galapagos Trip Report.

Our Bluewater trips would not be complete without a journey to Isla Fernandina to search for the unusual read-lipped batfish and to swim with the feeding marine iguanas.  Prior to this trip I had always “chickened-out” on the first dive below the thermal-cline to 60 feet at Fernandina to where the batfish are found, wanting to save precious core heat for the marine iguana dive later in the morning.  Little did I realize how much I had missed at this dive site on my previous trips!   

This time I had sufficient layering to brave the 64 degree waters to visit the unusual little batfish only seen at Fernandina.  It was the right decision!  Visibility exceeded 60 feet, several batfish were found by the dive guides and several unusual sharks, unknown to our dive guides, were photographed and videoed that proved later to be a species encountered only once in the last ten years in the Galapagos.  The images and video subsequently provided to scientists via our guides resulted in an impromptu expedition to the dive site by those scientists after our departure to further examine the rare shark!

The Galapagos is one of the best places in the world to Dive with Sharks.

After diving with the red-lipped batfish, we made the iconic dive in nearly smooth seas to the rocky shore where we encountered dozens upon dozens of feeding marine iguanas.  So perfect were the conditions that our dive guides set us up by pairs, evenly spaces along the rocky shore, to allow buddy teams to photograph and video the marine lizards without running into other buddy teams.

We competed two dives with the feeding marine iguanas and everyone achieved their photographic and video goals.

On the second to the last day we sailed to northern Isla Isabel to visit the iconic manta point.  The location is a precipitous rocky shoreline dropping deep just off the shore with small cleaning station pinnacles attracting oceanic mantas and other denizens.

Unbelievably, the visibility exceeded 80 feet, the water was a comfortable 72 degrees and the mantas presented photographic and video opportunities for all of the guests on all of the drops we completed on the site over the course of the day.  In addition to the mantas, we had cow-nose rays, mobula rays, eagle rays  and schooling snapper to round out our photographic subject list.

On the final day, we ventured upcountry on Isla Santa Cruz for a land tour to visit the wild tortoise refuge where the reptiles can achieve the size of a clown car!  This is a “must see” tour for anyone visiting the Galapagos because these amazing long-lived reptiles are found nowhere else on the planet.   

This trip was billed as a photo workshop and, somehow, between four dives a day, we managed to complete three formal instruction slideshow presentations on underwater photography, a live session on using Lightroom to process images, two photo-reviews and hold a photo/video contest for guests.   

Throughout the entire trip the weather was amazing with little wind, smooth seas and bright sunshine making this Bluewater  Travel adventure one of my most memorable.   

 Traveling to the Galapagos can be challenging. To learn more, read our Galapagos Travel Tips.