Advice about Galapagos in August!

[Callasrn]

Ok everyone, I am open to any suggestions, tips and advice! Here is the scenario; 13 months from now I will go on a bucket list liveaboard trip to the Galapagos with Dirty Dozen open circuit and Jill Heinerth. While I am super stoked to go to the Galapagos, meet Jill Heinerth and dive with her there are some things, that let’s just say raise the stakes and my concern that I may not be ready to meet the moment! Dirty dozen caters to technical divers and as far as I can tell they don’t usually do open circuit so people who come on that boat are likely to be hand core divers with thousands of dives and gills instead of lungs. Also Jill’s fans who will pay that amount of money, to be with her are likely to be hard core divers, mostly technical divers.

About me, I will be 51, relatively good shape, pretty healthy and close to 300 dives now, hopefully close to 400 by the time we go! I know number of dives of relative up to a point! I met ****** divers with thousands of dives and met amazing natural divers with 100. Diving didn’t come easy to me, from questionable training to some scary situations that kept me dry for years. While I have come a looooong way, and I have most of my dives in the last 4 years, I am still unsure of myself sometimes. My wife will be 70, in excellent physical shape, basically been an athlete most of her life. The same amount of dive experience I have! We live in the San Francisco Bay Area so we dive cold water occasionally, though most of the cold water experience is in Catalina at Casino point. We are going in the middle of August next year and planning to dive dry(we are both newly certified but will work on getting more comfortable in them) and RK3 fins! I mention specifically those pieces of equipment because I have red pros and cons about both specifically in Galapagos. So that being said my goals are
1. Get the most out of this trip! Enjoy it and not just survive it
2. Nor be “that” diver that ruins someone else’s experience because they came unprepared and untrained and without sufficient experience! There is a time and place for that and Galapagos is not it!

So to get those goals met, I am planing to dive as much as time and money will allow, Monterey and Chanel Islands, go to the pool as much as I can to strengthen those finning muscles as much as I can and work out regularly so I can stay in good or even better shape. I am not going to ask you if I am ready because only I can answer that, but I will ask, specially if you went to the Galapagos, specially in the high season with rough currents and choppy seas, what did you wish you knew before you went? What did you wish you did before you went? What did you wish the people you dove with did or did not do? What can you suggest more that I can do to meet my goals? I would love some pros and cons on fins and exposure suit. Are RK3s enough? Is drysuit a good idea or not? Thank you! You are the best!

 

[Doc Harry]

If your dive op accepted you as an OC diver then don't worry about it. Dive what you can for as long as you can, and don't take any BS from any CC diver about your bottom time. If they wanted all CC divers then they can hire a charter just for them.

I dove there in ten years ago in March. I froze in a 7mm rental wetsuit. The water was really cold.

We stayed in Puerto Ayora. Hotels were $50-$350/night. But usually we stayed in hostels for $15/night. Nice basic air conditioned single rooms with private bathroom, breakfast included.

My ATM card did not work in the Galapagos. Make sure you have other ways of getting cash. Take plenty of cash, small denominations like $20. The bills should be the new style and crisp. No tattered or well used bills. No traveler's cheques!

Quito airport is known for bad weather and fog. Plan on getting diverted on arrival. Plan to get to the islands a couple of days early in case of weather issues. Day 1 we flew to Quito but got diverted to Guayaquil. Day 2 we flew back to Quito, and day 3 back to Guyaquil and the Galapagos.

 

[MizzO]

First of all I'm uber jealous. Love Jill and I am happy to hear she's already planning adventures post-recovery.

I went in August last year. Sadly, even though it's the middle of peak season, you might not see any whale sharks (we didn't), so be prepared for that. The dive guides suspected orcas may be scaring them, but we didn't see any of those either. It's still magical, though and I'd love to go back.

My biggest regret of the trip was taking my camera on the first dive at Darwin. It was double clipped to me - what could go wrong? I did my 200th dive on the trip, and am a cold water diver from Canada with frequently sporty conditions, but the currents on our first Darwin dive were the strongest of the whole trip, and it's a different kind of diving since your goal is to get down quickly, cling to a rock and stay with your group, not the usual drift diving in current. My octo was on a holder and started free flowing and I couldn't get it secured with one hand into another area where it could stop free-flowing until we moved (other hand on the rock) -- good thing to practice one handed skills! With both hands occupied, I didn't notice my camera housing was taking a beating on the rock and it actually came off the mount when surfacing after the safety stop. I didn't notice until it was too late, sadly. Another lesson is to use smaller SD cards or at least transfer files frequently On that note, look thoroughly into your insurances (credit card, house insurance) -- turns out I was over insured but still got back less than I paid in a premium on my "extra" insurance... always learning!!

When you let go of the rock, you mostly drift with your group until you find the next spot to cling to rocks. There wasn't really a whole lot of hard finning, but some people did bring freediving fins for the high current spots. My FE tech fins (similar to RK3s) were perfectly fine even in the high current.

I really missed my home dive buddies on this trip. The warm water divers who happened to be on my boat wanted to cut short the colder western dives, which to me were practically pleasant at 14C at depth I was also partnered with someone with 60 warm water dives who had the highest SAC on the boat. You won't have either of those problems! If you're worried you'll be the one with the highest SAC, maybe look into upgrading your tank size. Oh, I also didn't realize the number of DIN compatible tanks would be limited (though I was lucky, and also the first with DIN to board haha) -- so tell operator in advance if you need one!

Despite being Canadian, I dive wet (custom drysuit is finally on the way!!). In the north I used my 5mm and in the west my single layer 7mm. There was one woman who used a drysuit and she had difficulty with the negative entries -- dangerous business in the north with the high currents! If you plan to dive dry, I'd also bring at least one wetsuit for backup. A couple of folks on my trip ended up using some of the boats' wetsuits unplanned (the drysuit diver, and another who was too cold in what she brought).

Someone else commented on bringing crisp small bills, but I disagree about 20s -- bring lower! you'll be happy if you have a lot of ones and fives. I had to make change for folks with 20s a couple of times.

I did a week liveaboard but stayed in the Galapagos for nearly three weeks. My favourite land-based was Floreana. You can actually stay overnight there (recommend Black Beach House if you don't require anything too fancy -- they can help with transportation too since there's no regular "ferry"). It's the least inhabited island and there's excellent snorkelling (surgeon fish the size of dinner plates (didn't see them that big anywhere else), lots of turtles, playful sea lions, even bullheaded sharks and Christmas marine iguanas -- and most of the time you have the beach to yourself.) Met a few conservation scientists so that was really cool, and you can do a lot of activities self-guided. I really appreciated the chance to unwind and let my shoulders drop a few inches before getting on the liveaboard, and the snorkelling was better than some of the diving we did around the central islands. If I went back, I would stay even longer on Floreana and also check out Isabela (and get my free-diving cert )

 

[Callasrn]

If your dive op accepted you as an OC diver then don't worry about it. Dive what you can for as long as you can, and don't take any BS from any CC diver about your bottom time. If they wanted all CC divers then they can hire a charter just for them.

I dove there in ten years ago in March. I froze in a 7mm rental wetsuit. The water was really cold.

We stayed in Puerto Ayora. Hotels were $50-$350/night. But usually we stayed in hostels for $15/night. Nice basic air conditioned single rooms with private bathroom, breakfast included.

My ATM card did not work in the Galapagos. Make sure you have other ways of getting cash. Take plenty of cash, small denominations like $20. The bills should be the new style and crisp. No tattered or well used bills. No traveler's cheques!

Quito airport is known for bad weather and fog. Plan on getting diverted on arrival. Plan to get to the islands a couple of days early in case of weather issues. Day 1 we flew to Quito but got diverted to Guayaquil. Day 2 we flew back to Quito, and day 3 back to Guyaquil and the Galapagos.

they didn’t mix them, the CCR trip is going the week before, the company does cater mostly to CCR divers but this trip is an exception that is an OC.

 

[Callasrn]

First of all I'm uber jealous. Love Jill and I am happy to hear she's already planning adventures post-recovery.

I went in August last year. Sadly, even though it's the middle of peak season, you might not see any whale sharks (we didn't), so be prepared for that. The dive guides suspected orcas may be scaring them, but we didn't see any of those either. It's still magical, though and I'd love to go back.

My biggest regret of the trip was taking my camera on the first dive at Darwin. It was double clipped to me - what could go wrong? I did my 200th dive on the trip, and am a cold water diver from Canada with frequently sporty conditions, but the currents on our first Darwin dive were the strongest of the whole trip, and it's a different kind of diving since your goal is to get down quickly, cling to a rock and stay with your group, not the usual drift diving in current. My octo was on a holder and started free flowing and I couldn't get it secured with one hand into another area where it could stop free-flowing until we moved (other hand on the rock) -- good thing to practice one handed skills! With both hands occupied, I didn't notice my camera housing was taking a beating on the rock and it actually came off the mount when surfacing after the safety stop. I didn't notice until it was too late, sadly. Another lesson is to use smaller SD cards or at least transfer files frequently On that note, look thoroughly into your insurances (credit card, house insurance) -- turns out I was over insured but still got back less than I paid in a premium on my "extra" insurance... always learning!!

When you let go of the rock, you mostly drift with your group until you find the next spot to cling to rocks. There wasn't really a whole lot of hard finning, but some people did bring freediving fins for the high current spots. My FE tech fins (similar to RK3s) were perfectly fine even in the high current.

I really missed my home dive buddies on this trip. The warm water divers who happened to be on my boat wanted to cut short the colder western dives, which to me were practically pleasant at 14C at depth I was also partnered with someone with 60 warm water dives who had the highest SAC on the boat. You won't have either of those problems! If you're worried you'll be the one with the highest SAC, maybe look into upgrading your tank size. Oh, I also didn't realize the number of DIN compatible tanks would be limited (though I was lucky, and also the first with DIN to board haha) -- so tell operator in advance if you need one!

Despite being Canadian, I dive wet (custom drysuit is finally on the way!!). In the north I used my 5mm and in the west my single layer 7mm. There was one woman who used a drysuit and she had difficulty with the negative entries -- dangerous business in the north with the high currents! If you plan to dive dry, I'd also bring at least one wetsuit for backup. A couple of folks on my trip ended up using some of the boats' wetsuits unplanned (the drysuit diver, and another who was too cold in what she brought).

Someone else commented on bringing crisp small bills, but I disagree about 20s -- bring lower! you'll be happy if you have a lot of ones and fives. I had to make change for folks with 20s a couple of times.

I did a week liveaboard but stayed in the Galapagos for nearly three weeks. My favourite land-based was Floreana. You can actually stay overnight there (recommend Black Beach House if you don't require anything too fancy -- they can help with transportation too since there's no regular "ferry"). It's the least inhabited island and there's excellent snorkelling (surgeon fish the size of dinner plates (didn't see them that big anywhere else), lots of turtles, playful sea lions, even bullheaded sharks and Christmas marine iguanas -- and most of the time you have the beach to yourself.) Met a few conservation scientists so that was really cool, and you can do a lot of activities self-guided. I really appreciated the chance to unwind and let my shoulders drop a few inches before getting on the liveaboard, and the snorkelling was better than some of the diving we did around the central islands. If I went back, I would stay even longer on Floreana and also check out Isabela (and get my free-diving cert )

Thank you for the detailed response! It’s exactly what I was looking for! I will weigh it about the dry suit but bring a wetsuit back up just in case. Your trip sounds amazing even without the whale shark. Diving wet in Canada, you are hard core! We initially got our drysuits for God’s pocket which is on the bucket list.