Galapagos affected by warm water / El Nino?

[mike jj]

I'm leaving in 10 days. I will report as soon as I get back.

Mike

 

[scubajoe86]

hi,...

i just heard that there is some restriction about not allowing people to get in the water/snorkel with the marine iguana? or is there is a time limit to it?

The only time limit we had on the Galapagos Sky when diving with the marine iguanas was they wanted to keep the dive under an hour so we would have time to move the boat for our afternoon dive. With it being such a shallow dive, I'm sure some people could do 80 minutes if they didn't set a max time. The park service does keep track of the location of each boat and they are only allowed to be in their designated location for the allotted amount of time. This works well to avoid having all the boats just doing their own thing and having a dive site overcrowded or visited so often that too many divers every day starts to impact the health of the site. BTW they also monitor the boats doing land just land excursions in the same manner. This helps minimize the volume of human interactions the wildlife have each day.

 

[hellhole]

Thanks... And.. Are the iguanas 'cooperative' in getting in the water... Hahaha

 

[scubajoe86]

Actually the iguanad getting in the water was the main topic of the dive briefing. The Galapagos Sky dive masters really did have a great plan. They waited to do the dive until the iguanas had enough time in the sun to finally want to get in the water. Basically all of us on the boat relaxing and the dive masters watching the shoreline before getting us geared up and into the pangas. I guess previously there had been a few dives where only a few iguanas were in the water because they were still basking on the rocks getting warm. By the time we did our dive, we had plenty of iguanas spread out under the water where divers didn't end up on top of each other just to see one.

 

[orenbvip]

I am planning on going this christmas break, overall any concerns for that time of year? should I look at another destination?

 

[paulthenurse]

Luvfree,
When are you going and what boat? We're on the Nortada on September 11th.

PTN

 

[luvfreediving]

please report back mike JJ good or bad! and thanks for the report ScubaJoe, that's great news. we are going to be on the HE in september so hopefully the water doesn't get warmer. trip of a lifetime for sure so fingers crossed conditions are good....thanks again for the feedback .

---------- Post added August 26th, 2015 at 04:19 PM ----------

amazing pics too! luv the iguana pics especially and great to see the huge schools of fish and hammerheads are still around

 

[kevindale222]

Any news guys??? Am on Galapsgos Sky late sept. .

 

[endurodog]

I was there 2 weeks ago. It was my first time so I have to go on the words of others. Temps were warmer than usual. Most of our dive temps were mid 70's had a few in the upper 60's. One dive we went a little deeper and had brief low 60's. We saw all the usual life We saw 4 whale sharks on our dives and I hear that may be on the low side but I have nothing to compare it to. Viz was less than normal is my understanding, it wasn't good but not horrible. In the end I was still in awe and thought it was an amazing trip, wasn't disappointed at all.

 

[kevindale222]

Great. Sounds good mate. How many mtrs vis did you have? What boat where you on?