Galapagos Aggressor I Captain's Logs

[Aggressor Adventures]

Galapagos Aggressor I Captain's Log: March 22-29 2012
GALAPAGOS AGGRESSOR I
Captain Log
March 22ND to 29TH 2012

Welcome to one of the biggest Marine reserve in the world Heritage “ Galapagos Islands”! , situated on the confluence of three of the earth’s tectonic plates. Tectonic plates are huge pieces of earth’s crust, bearing either continents or ocean floor, or both, which are floating on a bed of liquid rock or magma, Galapagos archipelago , sitting on the Nazca plate, is drifting in a southeasterly direction at the rate of about seven centimeters a year. The nearest mainland is ECUADOR (600 miles away) .

We had a good adventure diving in this wonderful place, our journal started in the Southern Islands ,San Cristobal Island, Santa Cruz Island (Punta Carrion), Cousin's Rock close to Santiago Island. The check out dive with the playful sea Lions, we’ll try to figure it up how much weight do we use, practice your buoyancy. We can find a lot of black coral, Scorpion fish, white tipped reef shark, eagle ray, Green sea turtle, and a lot of Grunts, Snappers, the abundance of fish life is stunning. We had temperature like 75*F/24*C to 79*F/27*C more or less but thermo clines came up.

The Northern Islands , Wolf and Darwin Islands, water temperature 75*F/26*C, 81*F/29*C, with some temperature variations by thermo cline 71*F/20*C, current yes!, Surge. Good visibility.

School of hammer head sharks at the blue (out of the rocks), During the dive suddenly appear one of the most amazing creatures Dolphins swimming in front of us coming again and again what a fantastic experience looking the parents taking care of babes dolphins, Galapagos sharks, lobsters, green sea turtles, hawksbill turtle, many moray eels hiding in the rocks and you can feel the thermo cline coming up.

In these Islands Wolf and Darwin you can enjoy the view seeing the Frigate birds, Red footed boobies, Nazca boobies, you can see them in the morning refreshing their plumage in the water.

Sunday Darwin We had two good dives in the morning and we tried to make the third dive in the afternoon but we could’nt because the ocean change suddenly, the waves hit each other it was not normal, impossible to dive even get in the panga, the waves were strong and we decided to go for next dive site.

Punta Vicente Roca in the north west part of Isabella Island close to the cero line,(Equator). we could feel how cold the water is(Cromwell current)66*F/ to 70*F - 19*C/20*C, here it's the time to put thicker wet suit, “mild” current, anyway the dive over here is wonderful for small creatures like sea horses, Galapagos bulkhead shark 60cm. the Red lipped batfish, green sea turtle everywhere, flightless cormorant and the speeder penguin like if he always in a hurry, sting rays, babe sea lions playing, Harlequin Wrasse, Panamic horse conch, colorful coral, gorgonians, anemones, so tiny flounders.

On surface marine iguana swimming, marine iguana resting in a vertical wall, green sea turtle taking a breath, flightless cormorants hunting , you can see this bird on the surface enjoying what he capture under water take a breath and down again for more, Penguins swimming , blue footed booby standing up on the rocks, frigate birds, noddy tern, there is a big community that lives in harmony.

CaboMarshall (south east side of Isabella Island) we did three dives and we saw manta rays, two at the same time, good visibility, temperature, excellent sun light, one or two Mobula rays or Devil rays, withe tipped reef sharks resting under huge rocks and some playing against the current, School of Barracudas, diamond sting ray, it’s enjoyable to see how the butter fly fish is cleaning to the criole fish, this open the mouth and start the cleaning. Water temperature of 79*F -81*F,27*C/28*C.

Wednesday land visit Santa Cruz Island. We visited the twins, Great view of the Galapagos giant tortoises in the wild and we saw a couple matting and the male got a special noise during his business, Charles Darwin Research station here you can see how they take care of the giant tortoise from the beginning. ( eggs, ) and when they are 5 years old they put them back where belong.

Thank you all of you that choose our hospitality in Galapagos Aggressor I , thanks for the opportunity to make real your dreams about Galapagos Islands.

We hope you will come back again.

Nelson Martinez
Galapagos Aggressor I Instructor

 

[Aggressor Adventures]

Galapagos Aggressor I Captain's Log: April 19 - 26, 2012

Galapagos Aggressor I Captain's Log: April 19-26 2012

Hello Divers!

This is Gustavo, through this short captain logbook; I would like to show you a little part about how was the wonderful world of Galapagos during this week


Day one – (Thursday) Out check out dive was in Isla Lobos – San Cristobal Is, this is a very calm and nice place, the current was very Mild, poor visibility about 4m/12f temperature was about 24C/78F, but here we had the opportunitie to see few sea lions, sting ray, and few tropic fish.

Day two–(Friday) we made three dives in the Central Island, one in Pta. Carrion-Sta. Cruz and two in Cousin’s Rock water temp 28C/ 85F. the visibility was ok small current, we saw a school of Mobulas rays, few Sting ray, marble ray, tip reef shark, pacific green sea turtle, big school of Creole fish, small coral fish in a big area of black coral greenish color, a couple juveniles sea lions appeared at the last moment of diving, they were very curious playing all the time, great dive...!

Day three & four, the further northern Islands, Wolf and Darwin Islands this diving sites are amazing, temperature was over 28C /85F we found small school of hammer head shark, Galapagos shark, couple eagle rays and a few silky sharks, we also had the opportunity to swim with a school of bottle nose dolphins with theirs cow .

Day five- Punta Vicente Roca-Isabela it is in the North West part of Isabella Island close to the cero line, (Equator Line). We made three dives in this diving site, this part of the Island. Is mostly of the time cold because of the Cromwell current 18C /65F come from the west very depth on the water, but at the same time bringing all of the upwelling and nutrition to the surface, we found many activity, here it's the time to put thicker wet suit, hood 5mm fine, 3mm gloves extra liner in between the suit add more weight, but current low but a little surge, anyway the dive over here is wonderful for small but also big creatures like Mola Mola, we had time to see them on the last dives, the temperature this time was unusual 22C/74F and the visibility was about 12mt ,we saw Galapagos bulkhead shark 60cm. long, sea horse, big school of black striped salemas fish, green sea turtle are everywhere but in this place they are old once with a dirty carapace ready to be cleaned by the king angel fish, Mexican hog fish, for them is protected area where they can hide between the big volcanic rocks, we also had the opportunity to see penguin fishing with sea of the same school of fish, suddenly a flight less cormorant appeared.

Day six- Cabo Marshall, the temperature was 26C/ 78F, visibility 15mt /45ft, medium current, we saw huge school of different types of fish everywhere, school of yellow fin tunas, we were surprised by one of the giant Galapagos, a Manta, followed by small school of hammerhead, we also saw few white tip reef shark fishing, school of barracudas, big eye fish, black stripe salemas, “the amazing Mantas”, were, swimming, rolling with their open wing, they were feeding, and display socials behavior.. that was amazing..!

Day seven- Puerto Ayora- Sta. Cruz once on land we went to the highlands on Sta. Cruz in order to visit the “los Gemelos”, two big collapse of a lava chamber, like a crater shape, we also visit the famous Giant tortoises in the wild, in a private farm, and we visited the lava tube, remain of activity of volcano eruption on the Galapagos, after we visited the farm we went to Pto. Ayora to visited visit the Charles Darwin research station with famous program of breeding center of giant tortoises, we also saw land Iguanas, after that our guests had plenty of time to visit nice town of Pto. Ayora, and bought some souvenirs at the local shops. We had dinner at one of the most popular restaurant in town.

Day eight airport- San Cristobal Airport

Gustavo Barba
Galapagos Aggressor Naturalist Guide & Instructor

 

[Aggressor Adventures]

Galapagos Aggressor I Captain's Log: April 26 - May 3, 2012

Galapagos Aggressor I Captain's Log: April 26-May 3 2012

Captain's Log
April 26th –May 3rd, 2012


Day one – (Thursday) Check out dive was in Isla Lobos – San Cristobal Is, this is a very calm and nice place, the current was very Mild, visibility about 4mt or 12ft temperature 26C/80F even that we had the opportunities to see a few sea lion, we also saw sting ray, and tropic fish.

Day two–(Friday) we made three dives in the Central Island, one in Pta. Carrion-Sta. Cruz and two in Cousin’s Rock water temp 26C/ 80F. the visibility was ok small current, we saw a small school of Mobula rays , Sting ray, marble ray, with tip reef shark, a few pacific green sea turtle, coral fishes in a big area of black coral greenish color, for the second dive and third dive we move to Cousin, and here we saw juveniles sea lions, very curious , playing all the time, at the end of the dive we saw sea turtle in a cleaning station display, great dive...!

Day three, four, the northern Islands, Wolf and Darwin Islands here we were diving with small school of hammer head sharks, Galapagos sharks, couple eagle rays, during the safety stop we saw the silky sharks, something that was really amazing was the big school of bottle nose dolphins in Wolf, at Darwin we were surprised by a big female whale shark, she stayed with us for long time, we had the opportunity to see it in every dive!!

Day five- Punta Vicente Roca- Isabella it is in the North West part of Isabella Island close to the cero line,(Equator Line). We made three dives in this diving site, this part of the Island. Is mostly of the time cold because of the Cromwell current 16C/ 60F come from the west very depth on the water, but at the same time bringing all of the upwelling and nutrition to the surface, that is way there’s so many activity, here it's the time to put thicker wet suit, hood 5mm fine, 3mm gloves extra liner in between the suit add more weight, current low but a little surge, this time water temp was ok 21C , dive over here is wonderful for small but also big creatures like Mola Mola, we had time to see them on the last dives, but the second was the best, great..! we saw Galapagos bulkhead shark 60cm. long, sea horse, big school of black striped salemas fish.

Day six -Cabo Marshall the temperature was 24C, 15mt /45f, and medium current, we saw huge school of different types of fish everywhere, school of yellow fin tunas, this one was follow us during whole dive, fishing, it seems like our bubble help them in their catch, we were surprised by school of hammerhead, also there're school of up to 5 white tip reef shark fishing against the current, huge school of barracudas, big eye fish, black stripe salemas, and several of one of the big of Galapagos, “the amazing Mantas”, .. that was amazing..!

Day seven- Puerto Ayora-Sta. Cruz once on land we went to the highlands on Sta Cruz in order to visit the “los Gemelos”, two big collapse of a lava chamber, like a crater shape, we also visit the famous Giant tortoises in the wild, in a private farm, and we visit the lava tube, remain of activity of volcano eruption on the Galapagos, after we visited the farm we went to Pto. Ayora to visited visit the Charles Darwin research station with famous program of breeding center of giant tortoises, we saw also “lonesome George”, after that we had time to visit nice town of Pto. Ayora, and buy some souvenir in the local shops.

Day eight - San Cristobal Airport

Thanks for a joining us onboard the Galapagos Aggressor : Karin, Jean Francois & Veronique, Annie & Patrick, Thomas, Albert, Steven & Jacqueline, Simon & Esther, Dianne Blais & Christian, Roberta(who will stay one more week onboard).

Galapagos Aggressor I Crew

 

[Aggressor Adventures]

Galapagos Aggressor I Captain's Log: May 3-10, 2012

GALAPAGOS AGGRESSOR I

May 3rd to 10th, 2012

Thanks for an amazing week: Roberta, Claudia, Valentin, Alexey, Sergey & Tatiana, Alexey & Inna, Lev & Oxana, Alexey and Iusup.

Visibility: 40-60 ft
Temperature: 68F – 74F at south and 74F- 77F at the North and 68F at Isabela Island.
Sighting: Lots of Hammerhead, Galapagos Sharks, Black tip Sharks, in all dives at Darwin we saw Whale Sharks! , eagle rays, dolphins, moray eels, schools of barracudas and gout fish, Mola Mola at the cleaning station, penguins, flight less cormorants, marine Iguanas, sea lions . This week we had good weather as well.


Safe Dives!
Walter Torres
Galapagos Aggressor I instructor


---------- Post added ----------


MAY 10TH TO 17TH 2012

This week we welcomed a group from USA: Steve, Randy & Cathy, Jonathan , Lisa, Charles, Nicole, David & Sharon, Steve, Joel & Judith, Screven & Terri.

This trip was great! , we enjoyed with many good things like Galapagos Sharks, Hammerheads, Silky, White Tips, and Whale Shark.

We also saw : Mola Mola, Manta Rays, Eagle Rays, many Sting Rays, Dolphins, big schools of Barracudas, Jacks, Grouts, lot of moray eels, sea horses, bat fish, many turtles, the cleaning stations were spectacular, all big fish were cleaning by the small ones.

At Isabela Island we did a panga ride , here we saw penguins, flightless cormorants, blue footed boobies, frigates, marine iguanas, sea lions and more.

The conditions this week were unpredictable, the water temperature was at South and Central Islands 72F to 75F, at the North was 75F to 78F and at West was 68F to 70F.

The current was not strong at the North but in Isabela was very strong, big waves near to the coast.

This week the tour Leader Steve Bosse joining us for second time , completed 700 dives at the end of the week, we celebrate with a big Cake, Congratulations!

We recommend our future guests bringing your 7mm wetsuit with hood and 3mm gloves.

Thanks for joining us onboard the Galapagos Aggressor I!
WALTER TORRES
Galapagos Aggressor I Instructor

 

[Aggressor Adventures]

Galapagos Aggressor I Captain's Log: May 31-June 7 2012

Galapagos Aggressor I Captain's Log: May 31-June 7 2012

GALAPAGOS AGGRESSOR I
MAY 31 TO JUNE 07 2012

Thanks for a great week, Nicola & Jonathan, John, Richard, Geoff & Vanessa, Gillian & Rossley, Pang & Maria, Jeffrey & Alison, Correne & Malcolm.

We enjoyed diving with Galapagos Sharks, Hammerheads, Silky, White Tips, many Whale Sharks!

We saw also Mola Mola, Manta Rays, Eagle Rays, many Sting Rays, Dolphins, big schools of Barracudas, Jacks, Grouts, lot of moray eels, sea horses, bat fish, many turtles, the cleaning stations were spectacular, all big fishes were cleaning by the small ones.

At Isabela Island we did a panga ride end we saw penguins, flight less cormorants, blue footed boobies, frigates, marine iguanas, sea lions and more.

The conditions this week, the water temperature was at South and Central Islands 68F to 75 F, at the North was 75F to 78F and at West was 68F to 70F. The current was very strong at the North but in Isabela was very surging; the visibility at the south was 20 to 30 ft., at the north was 60 to 80 ft.

We had one of our guests, GILLIAN, fulfilled seven hundred dives in this week with us, congratulations!

Thanks for joining us onboard the Galapagos Aggressor!
Walter Torres
Instructor

 

[Aggressor Adventures]

Galapagos Aggressor I Captain's Log: June 7 - 14, 2012

Galapagos Aggressor I
June 7^th – 14^th, 2012


Our guests arrived at 13: 00. They were from all over the world: Doug, Denise and Brad from the USA, Louise & Rob, David, and Ben from England, Vera and Dmitri from Russia, Thomas from Germany, Urs and Thom from Netherlands and Nicolas from France. Nice group, we had lot of fun in and out the water. We started with the yacht and safety briefing. After a snack our guests checked their rooms and got their dive gear together for the week.

The check out dive is at a very shallow place with no current called Isla Lobos. Visibility was approximately 15ft or 5m. The resident colony of sea lions that live here make this dive very enjoyable. During the check out dive, which took us about 50 minutes, we got the chance to play with the sea lions as they were going in circles and playing with our bubbles. We also saw a lot of sea stars.

After a nice sunset we had the welcome cocktail and introduced all the crew members. Our Chef then invited everyone to enjoy his or her first dinner, which was a delicious BBQ on the sun deck.

The second day in the morning we dove at Punta Carrion, which is on the north east corner of Santa Cruz Island. We enjoyed the dive with white-tip sharks, mobula rays and a lot of tropical fish. On the surface we next saw an Orca passing by the exact place we were diving and getting a little closer we also saw a juvenile Orca. In the afternoon we moved to Cousin’s Rock where we saw many sea lions, white-tip sharks, eagle rays and a lot of small creatures camouflaged into the black coral. A 7mm wetsuit is perfect as the water temperature is between 23C to 20 C - don't forget to bring your gloves, you will need them.

About 16:30 we started moving to Wolf Island.

We arrived at Wolf before breakfast and at 07:45 we had the dive briefing and first dive at the site called Land Slide. The diving was good with the visibility approximately 60 ft. We saw hammerhead sharks a school of Galapagos sharks and on the second dive we dived Land Slide again because the conditions were still good and the dive was great!

At the afternoon we went back to the Land Slide, the visibility was the same and lot of activity also; the current change direction and we had to swim a little to get close to a school of hammerheads that were on a cleaning station. After the 3rd dive we moved to the anchorage place to spend the night there.

Sunday at Darwin the conditions were similar to Wolf. The visibility was very good and the water was a warm 81ºF. We saw a few hammerhead sharks, lots of moray eels and a whale shark passing by; we even had dolphins at the surface.

On Monday we spent the morning in Darwin where we saw a tiger shark on the safety stop at the channel between the arch and the island. At 12-feet in size this was a very nice tiger shark. During lunchtime we cruised to Wolf and we had one more dive at the Land Slide. Again the diving was very nice and we had silky sharks swimming around us in the deep blue for our safety stop. Another great day of diving!

Tuesday we started our cruise to Punta Vicente Roca, which is northwest of Isabela Island. Here the visibility was good, about 25 feet, and our divers enjoyed looking at the small stuff such as red-lipped batfish, seahorses, schools of salema, colourful harlequins and many green sea turtles. We saw penguins, flightless cormorants, blue-footed boobies, sea lions, Mola Mola and more…

On Wednesday we went to Santa Cruz Island to visit the reserve of giant tortoises. It is very relaxing to see these lazy giants on the wild. We walked inside a giant lava tube located in the Scalecia forest, which is unique in the world and hosts a habitat in danger of extinction. We then moved to the Charles Darwin Canter to see lonesome George along with more species of tortoises.

Thursday San Cristobal airport.

Thanks for a great week!

Nicolás Andrade
Galapagos Aggressor Dive Master

 

[Aggressor Adventures]

Galapagos Aggressor I
June 14^th-21^st, 2012

This week we welcomed a group of 14 divers from Thailand.

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The first day we started with a nice check out dive at Isla Lobos. The next day we did three dives; the first before breakfast at Punta Carrion. We then we moved to Cousins Rock for our next dives. With the change in seasons the water temperature is starting to get colder. We recommend bringing a 7 mm wetsuit, because now the water temperature is around 18-22C or 65-75F in the south and west islands. The northern sites water temperature is warmer by few degrees.

We next headed north, where we spent the next three days with our first stop at Wolf. Our first dive was amazing with lot of hammerheads and Galapagos sharks. At our safety stop we had silky sharks all around us. We also saw lots of tropical reef fish and a couple of African pompanos at the end of the dive; this was impressive because it is not very common to see them. Here our visibility was around 15 to 20 meters or 60 feet.

The next day we woke up at Darwin Island with a nice sunrise and the view of Darwin’s Arch facing the sun. We all got ready for our first dive at the Arch and all three dives were great. The Sharks were deep, and we were lucky to see a Tiger Shark! There were many Creole wrasses, so many that sometimes it’s hard to see the lobsters and morays that are in the holes. We also saw Galapagos garden eels and spotted eagle rays.

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Our final day of diving was in a place called Punta Vicente Roca. Here the water was a little colder; 16C or 62F approximately and we had a thermocline at 25 m / 75Ft. Here you might even wear a dry suit. We played with sea lions, saw a couple of iguanas eating red algae, spotted many green sea turtles, and found something very interesting with the sea horses; they are getting in groups for some reason - maybe this is their mating season… We enjoyed this dive!

On Wednesday we arrived to Santa Cruz and we had a very nice day for land tours in the highlands. We visited the twin craters “Los Gemelos” that are nearly 250 ft deep and 500 ft across. We also went to the forest of Scalecia, which is filled with lot of orchids and Darwin finches. Then we visited a private farm where we saw a group of giant tortoises that congregate there because of the green grass and the little pool.

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Later we had the pleasure to see “Lonesome George” at the Charles Darwin Research Station. Sadly he passed away just a few days after this visit. Our guests also spent some relaxing time in town walking around and getting some souvenirs for family and friends.

Thursday came all too soon and our guests made their way back to the local airport.

We hope to have you again onboard the Galapagos Aggressor!

Nicolas Andrade
Dive Master

 

[Aggressor Adventures]

GALAPAGOS AGGRESSOR I Captain’s Report June 21 – 28, 2012

Our first day, Thursday - We arrived at the Galapagos Aggressor I and after our briefing and a light lunch we prepared for the check out dive in a calm, nice site.

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Water temperature was about 24C, 75F.
Visibility was about 10m, 30ft.
Current was mild

We saw a few juvenile sea lions playing around the divers. That was great! We also saw a stingray and couple of sea turtles.

Friday - We dove in Santa Cruz and Cousin’s Rock, Santiago.
Water condition was very good, temperature was about 24C, 75F.
Visibility was about 15m, 45ft.
Current was medium

We saw many sea turtles, sea lions, a group of mobulas passed very close, a small school of eagle rays, white-tip reef sharks and sting ray. At the end of our dive we also saw many sea turtles in a cleaning station posture.

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Saturday, Sunday, Monday - We spent diving at Darwin and Wolf Islands. This is one of the top ten dive sites on earth! The conditions were very good.

Water temperature was about 24C, 75F.
Visibility was about 16m, 48ft.
Current was medium

We had the opportunity to see a big school of hammerhead sharks, Galapagos sharks, and silky sharks that were everywhere during our dive. We also got to see a small group of eagle rays that were swimming and eating very close to us. During the safety stop there were many silky sharks around us along with a small school of dolphins.

WOW! Something spectacular was we found a group of about 8 Pilot Whales near us at Wolf Island. We saw them very close from the panga. Additionally, we saw also many Whale Sharks during all our dives at Wolf & Darwin. Big ones and one small one. This last one was playing with us during almost the whole dive. It was amazing! Everyone got a good picture, and of course a video with this giant and gentle creature!.

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Tuesday - After spending our time to the north, we finally arrived at Isabela Island to do our last dive on Punta Vicente Roca.

Water temperature was about 21C, 70F.
Visibility was about 15m, 45ft.
Current was mild

This was a very good dive and we had the opportunity to see many sea lions, a group of penguins, flight-less cormorants feeding, and many sea turtles. Also marine iguanas feeding on the rock near to the surface, blue-footed boobies plunging into the water fishing, sea horses, red lipped bat fish, a bullhead shark, and one of the Giant of Galapagos - we saw 3 Mola Mola very close. It was a great dive..!

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Wednesday - We arrived at Santa Cruz Island to make our land tour day. We visited amazing geological formations such as Big Collapse, Lava Tune and we also visited with giant tortoise in the wild. Once we returned to town we went to the famous Charles Darwin Research Station where we learned about the reproduction center program for giant tortoises and land iguanas.

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Thursday - We journeyed the guests back to the San Cristobal airport for their flights home.

Thanks for a great week!

Gustavo Barba
Galapagos Aggressor Instructor

 

[Aggressor Adventures]

Galapagos Aggressor I
Captain’s Log
July 5^th – 12^th, 2012

This week we welcomed a group of divers from all over the world - Susan and Paul, Alice and Eric, Bridget and Alex, and Robert; all from the United States, Valerie from England, and mother and daughter Cathy and Jenny from Canada. We had lots of fun both in and out of the water.

Our checkout dive was in a very shallow place with no current called Isla Lobos. The colony of sea lions that live in this place makes the dive very enjoyable. For about 50 minutes we played with the sea lion pups that were swimming in circles and playing with our bubbles. It was very enjoyable trying to do what they do as they play with you. We also saw a couple of stingrays, a sea turtle, and sea stars.

After a nice sunset we enjoyed a welcome cocktail and introduced all the crewmembers. The Chef then invited us to our first dinner, which was a delicious BBQ making all of our guests very happy!

The second day in the morning we dove at Punta Carrion located on the northeast corner of Santa Cruz Island. We enjoyed the dive with a hammerhead passing above us, a dozen white tipped sharks, a couple of sting rays, sea turtles resting and passing by and lots of tropical fish. After the first dive we moved to Cousin’s Rock where we saw some sea lions, white tipped sharks, a nice school of 20 eagle rays with one golden cow nose ray mixed in between, stone scorpionfish, and a lot of small creatures camouflaged into the black coral. It was great!

A 7mm wetsuit is perfect right now. Water temperatures is between 18 - 23C (64 – 73F), and don't forget your gloves as you will need them for protection. Remember that the water temperature is getting colder slowly…

Around 16:30 we started moving to Wolf Island. Nice and calm sailing. We arrived at Wolf early for breakfast and at 07:45 we had the dive briefing and first dive at The Point. The dive was good and the visibility was 60 ft. or more. We saw hammerhead sharks and a school of Galapagos sharks. For the second dive we moved to the Land Slide because the conditions were favorable and the dive was great. Moderate current of about 4 knots, that made for a fast drift dive, but very nice. In the afternoon we went back to the Land Slide and again the visibility was the same and lot of activity, we saw our first whale shark!

Sunday we cruised to Darwin Island. Here the visibility was around 60-75 feet and the water temperature 24 – 27C (75-80F). Hammerheads were deep. We went diving at The Arch and as we passed by the sandy bottom there was a nice big school of hammerhead sharks, along with lots of moray eels and a whale shark passing by. We also had dolphins swimming deep and coming straight to us.

On Monday we spent the morning in Darwin. We saw hammerheads and a whale shark. We had a nice safety stop with silky sharks coming by close and checking us out. During lunchtime we cruised back to Wolf. We had one more dive at the Land Slide, which was very nice again. A school of eagle rays playing with us, the hammerheads were closer than before and another safety stop with silky sharks going around us out in the deep blue.

Right after this dive we started cruising to Punta Vicente Roca, which is northwest of Isabela Island. Here the visibility was 15 feet approximately and our guests enjoyed a lot the small staff: red lipped batfish, a Galapagos Sea Robin, seahorses, schools of salemas, many green sea turtles and the beautiful colors of the harlequins wrasses - also the biggest marble ray that I ever seen - over 7 feet across. While there we saw flightless cormorants, blue footed boobies, sea lions, marine iguanas feeding, a Port Jackson shark and lots of sponges, soft coral, and more…..

The last day we went to Santa Cruz Island to visit the reserve of giant tortoises, which is very relaxing and different to see these lazy giants in the wild. We walked inside of a giant lava tube and visited the Scalecia forest, which is unique in the world and a habitat in danger of extinction. After this we visited the Charles Darwin Research Station that is a breading center for giant tortoises in captivity.

Thank you all for choosing Galapagos Aggressor I. We hope we made this an unforgettable experience!

Happy bubbles...

Nicolas Andrade
Lenin Barrera.

 

[Aggressor Adventures]

Galapagos Aggressor I
Captain Log July 19^th -26^th, 2012

Hello divers around the world. Welcome to the Galapagos Islands! You will be diving in the most amazing biodiversity of marine life on earth located 600 miles away from the main land Ecuador. We started the dives in the southeast islands, with the cool South Equatorial current formed by Peru Coastal (Humboldt) and the Peru Oceanic current, pushed by southeastern trade winds from June to December. The dive sites are: Isla lobos (San Cristobal) Punta Carrion (Santa Cruz Island) Cousin’s Rock (close to Santiago Island) At these dive sites mentioned, we enjoyed the sea lions, which are playful, encircling and showing us their aquatic skills. It is difficult to miss the numerous green sea turtles, either swimming out in the blue or resting on the mossy slopes. We also saw marbled rays, diamond sting rays, Galapagos garden eels, long nosed hawkfish, coral hawkfish, stone scorpion fish, anemones, hundreds of tiny fish as the pink cardinal fish, blue striped sea slugs, Panamic horse conch, a school of barracudas formed in a thick tornado like formation, and of course we also shared the ocean with white tip reef sharks – in most dives here in the Galapagos, you will likely see some type of our sharks. These sites had very mild current and the water temperature averaged 73 F.

After enjoying the sea life in this area, we started the overnight navigation 120 miles away moving to the most northern-western islands of Wolf and Darwin, one of the jewel diving sites in the Galapagos! Wolf – Our dive sites were Land Slide and The Point. Here the abundance of Creole fish is immense. It almost creates a wall from the rock edges we hang onto as we watch the marine life passing by. The Creole fish almost obscure the view of the schools of Hammerhead Sharks, but no worries, we DID see the school of Hammerheads with occasional Galapagos Sharks in their group. Once one school of sharks swam by, we simply looked in another direction to catch another school passing. We were quite fortunate to see a seemingly endless flow of Hammerheads for 20-30 minutes. Eagle Rays were also viewed. Swimming out into the blue was also a different view, as not only sharks were plentiful here, but also yellow fin tuna and trevally jacks. Great excitement was met when we encountered the Manta Ray – maybe 3-4 meters/10-12 feet in length. I have to mention the great job that Lenin did with the Manta Ray because it was tied with ropes, cutting the skin and the flippers. I believe he saved its life. Silky Sharks joined us for our safety stop. There is a current and occasional surge here, so gloves are necessary to hang onto the rocks. The water temperature here also averaged 75 F. Darwin Island - This is the northern island whose dive site is named The Theater, as we are able to watch the marine life go by. Moray eels, stonefish, green sea turtles and even a pair of fighting lobsters shared seats with us at The Theater. We were as still as possible in the water current, until the first Whale Shark was spotted and off into the blue we went for a closer view. A young juvenile Whale Shark enjoyed our company, as it stayed with us long enough for all to get close views and photos to document our experience. We were again very fortunate to see a few Whale Sharks: juveniles, pregnant females and then an incredible sighting - MALE Whale Shark. Female Whale Sharks and their young populate this area, so seeing a Male is quite rare. Good luck for us again as we also saw bottlenose dolphins, one on the shallows of the ocean floor and then a pair near the surface during a safety stop. There is also a sandy area here that is a big cleaning station for the hammerhead sharks, which make for great photos as the silhouette of the hammerhead shark against the sand.

Punta Vicente Roca - This bay is on the eastern side of Isabella Island. Diving here is quite different from Wolf and Darwin but still wonderful. The colder waters here is 62 F, but excellent for small creatures like the red lipped batfish, colorful seahorses (we saw red, orange and yellow seahorses), green sea turtles everywhere, flightless cormorant and penguins hunting underwater, stingrays, fans with different colors, algae, and tiger nudibranchs. The topography is totally different because the colors of the rocks and the slope and there is a huge vertical wall where you can see beautiful black coral. One of the most amazing sights here is the rounded shaped fish - Ocean Sunfish aka MOLA MOLA. These fish allowed us to approach very close and see how the cleaning fish (Mexican hockfish and king angelfish) completed the job. All this while the MOLA MOLA stayed still with their mouth towards to the surface in a relaxing position. Great dives!

On the surface we saw marine iguanas swimming, flightless cormorant taking a breath to make a dive, blue-footed booby birds standing up on the rocks along with nude terns. There is a big community that lives in harmony together her at Punta Vicente Roca. Wednesday we made our land visits to Santa Cruz Island. Here we had great views of the Galapagos giant tortoises in the wild, the lava tunnels, and we visited the Charles Darwin Research station. Thank you all: Tim, Lisa, Carolyn, Paolo, Richard, Christian, Luise Marie, Karen, Lisa & Richard for choosing our hospitality onboard the Galapagos Aggressor I and thanks for giving us the opportunity to make real your dreams about Galapagos! All of the crewmembers of the Galapagos Aggressor had a great time with all of you great divers, and we hope you come back again. We have to say thank you to Karen Yee for writing most of this captain log, she was joining us for second time on the Galapagos Aggressor. Her dream for this trip was to see a Manta Ray and she did it! Nelson Martinez, Galapagos Aggressor Instructor Recommendations: wet suit and boots 7mm, gloves and hood 3mm, if you can get a 7mm semi-dry suit will be much better and anything else that you could make you warmer.