Trip Report 2 Weeks in Galapagos in Dec - Land + Liveaboard

[jjmochi]

thanks jjmochi for your detailed report , and sorry for all the disappointing events .

I'll board the Master next April so ... I understand I have to lower my expectation .

I have just few questions :
- why is required to keep your wetsuit on in between dive 1&2 and 3&4 ? is there any specific reason ? how long is the surface interval ? .... let me say it is the first time I heard such a thing about a Liveaboard .
- why and when the crew keep the weight out from BCD pockets ? I have Halcyon Eclipse BCD and I like to put the weights in the weight pockets around the tank and do not move them anymore so it is very annoying to set every time again.
- what was the crew answer about the hot water shortage complain ?
- what was the crew answer about the termites complain ? is it a relative new problem or a long time one ?
- I had a look to your Flickr album ( some very nice photos indeed ! ) and I'd like to ask you if you had the feeling Tokina 10-17 mm FE on cropped sensor ( same I have ) was too wide for this trip . Usually for Galapagos it is suggested a linear 10-22 mm lens on cropped sensor , but I don't like this set up because a big dome is required so I'd like to understand how big is the penalty to shot with Tokina .

sorry for all these question and many thanks for your answers
all my best
Paolo

I hope your trip goes better! I did hear they alternate between 2 lead dive guides and the other one is a lot more fun (one guest on our boat did 2 back to back trips)

1. Surface interval is usually 1 hour or slightly over... they said to keep it on because it was a lot of work / takes a long time to take off and put back on. Most people took top half off, and kept bottom half on with boots etc. At least you will have much warmer waters in April!
2. For integrated weights, you're supposed to hand up the weight pockets before giving them your tank/BC so it's easier for them to lift. I normally use 3-4kg with a 3-5mm wetsuit, this trip I used 6kg at Wolf/Darwin with my 7mm and 7kg for the last 2 days with the 3mm+7mm. When I switched from 6 to 7kg perhaps there was a miscommunication with the boat crew and they thought I only added the extra kg for 1 day? The boat crew doesn't speak English so I'm not sure what the dive guides told them in Spanish, but I did request they keep it on after noticing it was gone after the second dive, which didn't carry over to the second day.
3. Something along the lines of "unfortunately we're in a very remote area, must be fast when showering, can't have the ladies spend forever washing their hair" (which I found a bit annoying because there were only 4 girls on the boat, most of the hot water was used up by people taking hot showers to warm up on the dive deck)
4. It was only in the upper decks and they said the AC does a good job of keeping them away (which was true, helped a lot. They started going in while we were in the dives to spray + turn our AC on halfway through the trip and we only noticed a few dead bodies afterwards)
5. The Tokina was definitely too wide, the hammerheads didn't come that close and they make sure you hold on to the reef and don't move to get closer (which might chase them away for the group). It was the only wide angle lens I had tho (its mini dome is also the only dome I have), I debated for a while about buying the 16-35mm with the 8.5" dome but ultimately decided it was too much money for one trip and I was already out of space / overweight. I also didn't bring my strobes because I was scared by the reports of how intense the current would be (plus weight limits), but it's actually manageable if you find a big rock and hug it tight with your arms/legs haha. Reef hook was totally useless tho as there is not much to grip on to, and half the time you do have to control the camera with only one hand. Looking back I wish I bought both the 16-35 and the strobes.

 

[Centrals]

Sorry to hear about the insect infestation on a LoB.
Look at the bright side that it was not bed bug and that would be unbearable!
Good luck to your request for "compensation" because you desert it.

 

[LimitedSlip7]

Dang I wish I would have read this trip report a few months ago when I booked with Master... probably would have picked something else instead. Good write up though! Guess I should drastically lower my standards for the trip here in a week...

 

[diveUAE]

Really helpful report! I've learned so much before booking our trip for April 2023

One question: on the first day you went to Concha y Perla for snorkeling - did you bring a suit for this? (And did you just put it on before going there?) How about booties/finns?

And how did you get everything on board the plane to Isabela? We're being told 20 lbs per person total - did you leave luggage at Baltra (where?) or was it possible to pay extra for the dive gear?

Thanks

 

[jjmochi]

Really helpful report! I've learned so much before booking our trip for April 2023

One question: on the first day you went to Concha y Perla for snorkeling - did you bring a suit for this? (And did you just put it on before going there?) How about booties/finns?

And how did you get everything on board the plane to Isabela? We're being told 20 lbs per person total - did you leave luggage at Baltra (where?) or was it possible to pay extra for the dive gear?

Thanks

I bought everything - water was cold! Dragged my 7mm + vest + booties/fins + camera along the 10-15min walk lol.

We prepaid the max add-able luggage allowance when we bought the ticket, then had to pay another $200-ish ($2/lb if I recall correctly) to top up when we got to the airport. We were surprised that they weighed everything including our backpacks, purses, etc.

 

[diveUAE]

I bought everything - water was cold! Dragged my 7mm + vest + booties/fins + camera along the 10-15min walk lol.

We prepaid the max add-able luggage allowance when we bought the ticket, then had to pay another $200-ish ($2/lb if I recall correctly) to top up when we got to the airport. We were surprised that they weighed everything including our backpacks, purses, etc.

Thanks!
Our travel agent will get someone to pick up our big luggage from Baltra, before we fly on to Isabela - but it may not be so “big”, if we have to bring suits/fins/booties
But I like to bring my own stuff, so it’s good to know we can pay for excess luggage.

How was the flight itself - scenic? Or were you crammed and couldn’t see anything? Do you get a seat number - or just find a seat?

After the trip, how do you feel about the day trips for diving? I’m being quoted 190-200 $ per person for 2 dives, so I’m thinking about just doing boat trips to see more wildlife on land (but we’re trying to book Espanola with 1 dive - thank you for the info!)

 

[jjmochi]

Thanks!
Our travel agent will get someone to pick up our big luggage from Baltra, before we fly on to Isabela - but it may not be so “big”, if we have to bring suits/fins/booties
But I like to bring my own stuff, so it’s good to know we can pay for excess luggage.

How was the flight itself - scenic? Or were you crammed and couldn’t see anything? Do you get a seat number - or just find a seat?

After the trip, how do you feel about the day trips for diving? I’m being quoted 190-200 $ per person for 2 dives, so I’m thinking about just doing boat trips to see more wildlife on land (but we’re trying to book Espanola with 1 dive - thank you for the info!)

Flight was really pretty and a cool way to see the islands from above. We chose to think of it as one of the tourist attractions to justify the price we ended up paying haha. It's super loud even with the earmuffs they give you, 2 people to a row (think 3 rows?) so everyone gets a window seat. First come first serve, no seats assigned. Just don't plan anything for right after as I think our flight was ~1h late to take off, everything is island time. The crew is just 2 people, the pilot and the person checking you in.

We actually really enjoyed the day trips for diving - saw more sea lions on them than the liveaboard. I would highly recommend the Punta Pitt and Espanola day trip w Wreck Bay - you get the best of both, diving in the morning and land tour in the afternoon, plus lunch. The Espanola boat we went with had the same dive master from Wreck Bay that we dove with for Punta Pitt and Kicker Rock. Between Kicker Rock and Punta Pitt I enjoyed Punta Pitt a lot more, land part was way better and even diving I recall was better. Kicker Rock gets overhyped I think because of the chance to see hammers but you'll see tons of them on the liveaboard anyway.

Have fun!

 

[rbuda]

Thank you for the detailed trip report @jjmochi ! My partner and I are planning a trip to the Galapagos this December. While we are very comfortable divers, neither of us are experienced enough to test our luck with Darwin / Wolf at this stage, nor will we have the time to commit. Your report on the land dives were super-clutch.

Two questions, if you get a chance: 1/ any recommendations or thoughts on hotels in San Cristobal? and 2/ Would you recommend the Wreck Bay? How would they compare to some of the other dive ops like Blue Evolution?

 

[RedFishBlueFish]

I waited a while to post this, to give my thoughts some time to settle. I wrote this during my 10 day hotel quarantine upon return when things were still fresh, and thought perhaps my feelings may change over time but sadly it did not. [Sorry it is LONG - blame quarantine]

My husband and I were in the Galapagos for 2.5 weeks in the last 2 weeks of Dec. This was our first time to Galapagos and our first vacation since COVID in >2 years. We spent ~16 full days in Galapagos excluding travel days. It took us 2 days each way to get there from Singapore - we flew through Tokyo to JFK to Miami to GYE on the way there, and through GYE to Madrid to Istanbul to Singapore on the way back. (This is definitely a trip that would have been much easier before I left NYC, oh well.)

Our schedule (w my rating from ‘meh’ to ‘ok’ to ‘good’ to ‘great’ to ‘amazing’):
Photo dump by day: Galapagos Dec 2021 (have not had time to clean up much)

• Day 0 - left SG ~10pm, arrived at GYE around 11pm [same day but really >24h due to time diff]
• Day 1 - morning flight to Baltra, 1pm interisland flight to Isabela, walked ~10min to Concha y Perla (good) and snorkeled
• Day 2 - morning kayaked & snorkeled Tintoretas (meh), rented bikes in afternoon to Tortoise Breeding Center (ok) and Wall of Tears (meh), passed by a few flamingo lagoons (ok)
• Day 3 - morning Tunnels tour (great - but boat broke down and we were ~2h delayed coming back), 3pm ferry to Santa Cruz, dinner at Los Kiosk
• Day 4 - full day Santa Fe tour (land visit + snorkel) on Sea Finch (good) - was supposed to be Santa Fe / Plazas tour on Windrose but they cancelled last minute
• Day 5 - morning ferry to San Cristobal, explored the pier and walked to Playa Mann (ok), Interpretation Center (meh), Tijeretas Hill (meh - didn’t see many birds), and Punta Carola beach (great)
• Day 6 - full day tour to Espanola on LP Valeria I (amazing)
• Day 7 - 2 dives at Kicker Rock (ok/good, but no hammerheads), beach visit on way back (ok)
• Day 8 - 2 dives at Punta Pitt (good), afternoon land visit to see the red footed boobies (great)
• Day 9 - morning taxi to La Galapaguera tortoise center (great) and El Junco lake (meh), picked up at noon for a 7 night diving liveaboard on Galapagos Master, check dive in afternoon (meh)
• Day 10 - morning land visit to North Seymour (great), second check dive at Baltra (meh), and long 12h navigation to Darwin
• Day 11 - 4 dives at Darwin (amazing, hammerheads galore)
• Day 12 - 4 dives at Darwin (amazing, even better than first day, whale sharks stole the show)
• Day 13 - 4 dives at Wolf (amazing, huge hammerheads schools)
• Day 14 - 2 dives at Fernandina, first ok (cold and dark muck dive to see the strange and bizarre), second shallow 5m dive to see the marine iguanas feeding (amazing), afternoon 1 dive at Punta Vincente Roca to see the mola mola (horrible - zero visibility, super cold green water, saw nothing) and short panga ride to see penguins & flightless cormorants (great - but not on normal schedule - exception due to how bad the prior dive was)
• Day 15 - 2 dives at Cousins’ Rock (meh/ok), afternoon visit to Charles Darwin Research Station (meh), disembarked early, new dive group friends invited us for dinner at Finch Bay
• Day 16 - full day Bartolome / Chinese Hat tour on Windrose (great)
• Day 17 - last day, visited Santa Cruz fish market in the morning (meh), originally planned to visit El Chato on the way to airport but skipped as we had seen so many already, left at 10am for our 1pm flight back to GYE

We saw everything we wanted to see (everything on the Galapagos big 15 list) in two weeks, had a good mix of land tours, self exploration time, and dive cruise. As a huge animal lover it was a good trip that I would rate 6-7/10. We enjoyed the trip but it was not spectacular to the point where we immediately want to come back. We were also ready to leave at the end. And it is expensive- really expensive. The quality of service did not reflect the premium (especially for the dive portion). Overall we didn’t feel like we got value for money (all in cost ~$25k USD) nor were we super comfortable during any portion of the trip.

Our trip was centered around the liveaboard which we booked pre-COVID. We chose the Galapagos Master because it was the only boat running 10 night trips (which we first booked), and have heard great things about it (some on this forum). I'm not sure if the quality deteriorated significantly due to COVID interruptions (dive guides mentioned they had to fish and catch cows to get by while borders were closed), or if our expectations were set too high. I will say, upon reflection, despite the liveaboard being the focus of our trip and the most expensive part of our trip, it was overall our least favorite part of the trip (there are bright spots of course, mainly the 3 days at Wolf/Darwin).

I'll split this up into diving / non-diving for folks who are interested.

On Diving

• Our trip dates was planned around warm waters and whale sharks. Whale shark season is the cold season which we can’t stomach, Dec is the very end of that season and the second half of Dec when we were there was supposed to be a transition time with 23-25C waters at the central islands and 18-20C at Isabela/Fernandina, so we chose to go at the busiest time of the year so as to have the best chance of warmer waters and still catch the tail end of whale shark season.
• Yet this year was El Nina and we had 16-20C at the central islands and 16C at Isabela, way too cold for us. I had 4 wetsuit layers on (16mm of neoprene on my core, 10mm on my limbs, 6mm on my head, and I was still cold on the 16C dives). So diving was not that enjoyable and a lot of people got sick towards the end including one of the guides. Only Wolf/Darwin had 25C and was enjoyable.
• Diving at Darwin and Wolf lived up to its heft reputation; we saw massive schools of hammerheads, huge galapagos sharks, and 1-3 whale sharks on every dive. Water was warm and currents not as bad as people make it out to be (no whirlwind or ‘rip your mask off’ currents for us). We had ~120 dives beforehand and didn’t have any issues, we’ve also had a few beginners with only 30 dives who did fine. It’s negative entry on all dives (I learned how to roll with my camera!) but we descended pretty slowly as we go to only 8m and wait for the group to catch up then crawled down together slowly. The 3 days at Darwin/Wolf was A++. Visibility was not great (5-10m) but there was an abundance of life. No shortage of dolphins, turtles, morays, eagle rays, mobula rays, sting rays, various colored puffers, yellowfin tuna, large schools of jacks, grunts, salema, in addition to the main draw of hammerheads/whale sharks. No mantas tho. And tons of boobies including a ton of red footed ones which came right to the boat / took over the bow.
• Diving at the other islands was a disappointment. First 2 days were check dives where we saw nothing. Not sure why we needed the second check dive on Baltra on day 2, we asked whether we could dive North Seymour where we were anchored and was told no. Fernandina/Isabela day originally had 4 dives planned, first was so so (dark, cold, very poor visibility) but we did see what we went to see (the stranger stuff including the sea robin and red lipped batfish which walks, torpedo ray, some saw a bull head shark). Second (marine iguana) dive was amazing. 3rd and 4th were supposed to be mola mola dives but we called off the 4th after the 3rd which was the worst dive ever. One of the UK divers said it was just like diving in an English lake - green water, no visibility (1-2m at best, several divers lost the group), cold (15-16C), absolutely nothing to see other than a single pacific seahorse which they took one diver at a time to see (we had 14 divers, plus it’s the same seahorse we saw at Tunnels). I thought Cousins would be decent but actually think Kicker Rock/Punta Pitt was better, and a few of us skipped the second Cousins dive after not seeing much on the first (only 1-2 eagle rays and no mantas).
• Bottom line - if there was a cruise that only went to Wolf and Darwin, I would rebook. But for this price ($6.5k for a 7n trip) and pretty disappointing dives on literally half the trip, for me it’s not worth it.
• The local dives on San Cristobal were actually quite good. Still pricey ($200 for a two tank trip) but easy diving, and LOTS of sea lions.

Overall I still think it's an amazing dive destination for the sheer variety of stuff you can see (whale sharks! hammerheads! sea lions! dolphins! penguins! etc etc) but we did not enjoy it outside of Wolf/Darwin because of 1) the cold, 2) the repetitiveness of it all (a lot of it is hang on to rocks and watch hammerheads) 3) not much color / not much visibility. I don't regret going but probably won't go back. 50% of the dives (Darwin/Wolf) were great, but the other 50% sucked.

Thank you for such a detailed trip report! Which dive operator did you use in Santa Cruz?