Diving Darwin and Wolf

April 10, 2021

It all started when we went to Leon Dormido, a very famous diving site in San Cristobal. Our first experience, diving with Hammerhead Sharks. Have a look at the video below… but be aware, for sharks!!

We did another couple of dives in San Cristobal at “Roca Ballena” which means Rock Whale, but don’t worry there were no whales, the name comes from the shape of the rock in which the dive site is located. Visibility in Galapagos is not the same as the Caribbean in the best days it could still be a bit blurry. Still, it was a nice dive, watch the video.

In all dives, and around the islands, people kept getting back to the same subject: Darwin and Wolf. These are two islands on the north of the archipelago very famous for their unique fauna. Not only underwater but also above water. It is one of the places in the world with the highest concentration of sharks. For us it looked like an impossible mission to go there. With the permit we had for Galapagos we were not authorised to go with Happy Days. Getting a new permit on the spot would cost time, lots of money, plus getting a guide on board, etc. The only way to go was on a cruise. There are only a handful of boats registered to go to those islands, the National Park has quite restrictive rules and in normal times the tours are fully booked a year or two in advance. Not to mention the cost that can go up to 15K per person in high season. With all those conditions, we decided we were not going. We had done 4 amazing  dives in San Cristobal and we could do another couple of dives in Santa Cruz and that would be it for Galapagos.

However, one day on our snorkelling trip, we met Amy. She is a world traveller and she had done one of those diving cruises, she liked it so much that she wanted to go again, so she was negotiating a lower rate. Also, because of COVID the boats were not fully booked so they were offering 50% discounts. Anyway, I told Amy that they would have to reduce a lot more the prices for us to be able to go. Surprisingly enough she managed to get a even a bigger discount for us 3.

After we got the confirmation, the main concern was: where is Happy Days going to stay? Is it safe to leave the boat for a week? There are no marinas and the two anchorages where we had been Puerto Moreno Baquerizo and Puerto Ayora were less than ideal. Cedric found a perfect place on the map in the north of Santa Cruz island in the Baltra Channel close to the airport. The problem was that we had no permission to go there. I talked to our agent and explain our situation, we needed to leave the boat in a safe place for a week. At that time everybody was making their best effort to keep tourism moving, so that played in our favour. We got authorisation to anchor Happy Days in Aeolian Bay, a super protected bay just in front of the capitaneria.

Two days before the cruise we sailed there to make sure we had time to check the place and ensure everything was ok. We got in touch with the Port Capitain, he was very friendly except that he didn’t let us get on land. There were a few houses on the bay but he told us they are accommodation for people that works on the port. It is such a secluded place that the animals just move freely around. On a paddle board tour I saw 15 turtles, sea lions, blue footed bobbies, 2 sting rays and many fishes. So we spent 2 days preparing the boat and getting ready for the cruise. Also getting our NITROX certification for diving.

The tricky part then was, how were we going to get to “Calipso” (the cruising boat). We couldn’t get on land, may be with a permission we could get to the airport. From what I understood it was 3km. But what about the bags? We couldn’t leave the dinghy at the port for a week. It all seemed very complex. So we got hold of Paul the Capitan of Calipso. From Capitan to Capitan the conversation was very simple. He said he would send a “panga”(dinghy)  to pick us up as he was dropping some passengers at the airport.

We couldn’t be more lucky, we got picked up and dropped off from Happy Days. And Happy Days was safe at anchor for the 7 days of our cruise.

Calipso

So let me tell you about Calipso. It is a cruise boat with 10 crew that can take up to 16 passengers. During the week we did 20 dives, some days 4 dives in one day. The experience was extraordinaire. The crew was fantastic, we had 3 big meals a day, snack after every dive, hot towel waiting for you after each dive, a spa pool on the to deck to relax, two guides ready to help and explain all about Galapagos wildlife, clean perfect rooms, even the towels were folded on the room with related motives and to close it all off, we a group of divers coming from different places in the world sharing the passion and love of sealife.

On the first day, everybody got set up with the dive equipment, cabins, dive buddies and so on. The guides gave us the briefing for the week, the itinerary, do’s and dont’s. We even did a short dive so everybody could get familiar with the equipment and be more comfortable with the dives. In fact, normally this cruise only takes passengers with more than 100 dives as Darwin and Wolf are technical dives with lots of current and could be very challenging. One of the things that was new to me was the negative descend. It is critical that all divers jump backwards at the same time, so everybody gets down all coordinated otherwise the current can push you away and the group gets split. Another interesting trick on these dives was that they were stationary, at least most of them. So you go down pick a rock, hold on to it and see the show.

In some of the dives, the show was a full 365 degrees coverage. Cedric would see something and started pointing and I was doing the same. We saw couple hundreds Hammerheads during the week. In one of the briefings the guide told us, try to hold your air, don’t make bubbles and wait. This is definitely not a recommendation for good diving practices, it is the contrary of everything you learned when diving, but the trick worked as a charm. We split a bit from the group and started to hold our breath when the hammerheads were passing by the result was that at some point we had one of the hammerheads approaching to us as close as an arm length. He passed on top of us and was so impressive that I really lost my breath, it was an amazing experience.

We also had what I called a dolphin day. We did 4 dives in “Darwin” as planned on that day and we saw dolphins on every immersion, plus we saw them at the surface and they came swimming with as along the “panga”. And when we were inside the boat having our meals they were outside jumping and making a show.

Darwin and Wolf were simply stunning, the amount of sea life is impressive, there is basically not enough time in the water to see everything so we were concentrating on the big hammerhead sharks, Galapagos sharks, Black tip sharks, white tip sharks, sea lions, turtles, modula rays (a full school of them), dolphins and to top it all off we saw whale sharks, yes in plural because it was more than one. Unbelievable!!.

The season for Whale Sharks is in August when they come to Galapagos for their feeding tour, the water is a lot colder then. An adult Whale Shark is 14m long and a baby 7m. Our dive guides told us that because we were not in season, it would be exceptional if we could see one. Well, miracles do happened and on that morning we had our normal dive at 6am with sharks, turtles, lots of fish and we were very happy, it couldn’t be better, we thought. Then at 9am on the second dive of the day, we were in the water just for a few minutes when the guide started swimming super fast out to the blue, when normally we stayed on the rocks. We all followed and suddenly there it was, a huge mass, I couldn’t believe it, we were warned it was almost impossible. It was still far away so we swam to get closer but it went away. We saw the silhouette moving and it was impressive. We keep diving and few minutes later we saw another one. But this time it was a lot closer. They have spots that are like their finger prints, so our guide told us it was another one. We could clearly see it moving slowly and passing by. Someone from the group got really good shoots and shared them with us. Have a look

Out of the water the diversity is also outstanding. We had no permit to visit the islands of Darwin and Wolf, so no way to go for a walk on land. However, we did a couple of “panga ride” (a tour with the dinghy) around the islands. Frigate birds, blue footed boobies, red footed bobbies and many more species live there in such a nice environment. Here are some pictures taken during the week, enjoy

After the full week on the cruising boat, we were know as the “sailors”, at some point or another everyone had asked something about our own cruise. So as it turned out everyone had a chance to see Happy Days. Calipso had to fuel up exactly in the same bay were Happy Days was anchored. So everyone had to disembark in Aeolian Bay.

Later on, after everyone was gone and they had fuel up, we had the pleasure of welcoming “Calipso’s” crew.

After all this we are now off to Isabela island, to see some penguins, climb a volcano, do some more snorkeling and prepare for the big crossing!

But before I close for today I’d like to share the video that one of our dive guides did for us. Sit back, relax and enjoy. 7 full days in only 20min of highlights!!!