Trip Report Galapagos -- Aqua Liveaboard, June 2024

[scubadada]

Just uploaded the video to Google Drive, this should work better.

Nice video, thanks

 

[peeweediver]

Nice video, thanks. Looks like you had great interactions with the big marine life there. Glad you had a great experience.

 

[TheScubaDirectory]

Great info. thanks!

 

[Robinlee]

Here is a 3 minute video of the trip highlights:

Galapagos June 2024 — trip highlights

Link doesn’t work. Can you PM me? What didn’t you like about Socorro?

 

[nippurmagnum]

Link doesn’t work. Can you PM me? What didn’t you like about Socorro?

I uploaded another link above to Google Drive that seems to have worked for others, did you try that?

Socorro was ok, and I had one dive on which we had three or four mantas, a pod of dolphins, and a school of hammerheads in the distance, which was quite cool. But that was the exception more than the rule. In Galapagos, the majority of dives were on a par with the best that Socorro had to offer.

I am very mindful that some people have had underwhelming experiences in Galapagos and mind-blowing ones in Socorro, and it could just be the luck of the draw

 

[kokwailam]

amazing trip report and video, thanks for sharing

 

[PamelaH]

Thanks! The Calypso seems like an obvious alternative to the Aqua, and I see that it is running promotions for July that put it at the same price range. And from the website, the Calypso cabins definitely look much roomier.

Just curious, what time of the year was your 2022 trip? I know that I'm going to want to go back to the Galapagos, and despite my own advice, I'm going to obsess over what month to go (as well as the phase of the moon, and random other celestial and terrestrial omens).

I went on the Calipso (they spell it with an i) in the 3rd week of June in 2023. No Whale Sharks, No Mola and the vis was not great so I'm impressed with your experience.

The Calipso is a GREAT boat. Very roomy, the food was good, the crew was incredibly helpful and they gave us warm towels and hot cocoa and snacks after every dive. It was heaven. I had a 5mm wetsuit that was incredibly hard to get on and those guys just soaped it up and hauled it on me 3 or 4 times a day. Also, there was great music and a lot of dancing on the dive deck . It's the most fun boat I've ever been on and I highly recommend them.

Here is my Galapagos video which is a whole lot longer than yours (sorry!)

 

[nippurmagnum]

I went on the Calipso (they spell it with an i) in the 3rd week of June in 2023. No Whale Sharks, No Mola and the vis was not great so I'm impressed with your experience.

The Calipso is a GREAT boat. Very roomy, the food was good, the crew was incredibly helpful and they gave us warm towels and hot cocoa and snacks after every dive. It was heaven. I had a 5mm wetsuit that was incredibly hard to get on and those guys just soaped it up and hauled it on me 3 or 4 times a day. Also, there was great music and a lot of dancing on the dive deck . It's the most fun boat I've ever been on and I highly recommend them.

Here is my Galapagos video which is a whole lot longer than yours (sorry!)

Cool video! Thanks for sharing it. I definitely have my eye on the Calipso. I’m a bit afraid to go back to the Galapagos because I might not have the same luck as last time, but if my trip proved anything, it’s that you gotta play to win.

 

[Pacific Diver]

(Part 2 of 2)


THOUGHTS ON THE AQUA LIVEABOARD OPERATION:

I booked the Aqua based on price, as it was several thousand dollars cheaper than other Galapagos boats, but was still well reviewed. I paid $4,300 for a top deck cabin (reflecting a 20 percent discount being offered for early June sailings), and the only additional charge was $150 for nitrox. As I said above, the Aqua operation generally delivered on its very nice website and brochure, which you can see here: Route A - Yacht Aqua The only substantive changes was that we only had one day of diving at Darwin (4 dives) and one-and-a-half days at Wolf (7 dives), rather than having a day and a half at both sites. We would have preferred having a couple more dives at Darwin, though ultimately it was a small quibble.

Some reviews of the Aqua have said that it cuts corners because of the lower price, and I didn't find that to be the case at all. Food was top notch, including steaks, thick tuna, roasted pig, large shrimp, and other pricey food entrees on just about every meal. Lots of fresh fruits and vegetables with meals, and large platters of fruit for snacking. Hot chocolate and snacks after every dive. A fresh towel for each person after EVERY dive. Really good housekeeping, and an immaculately clean boat. Very capable divemasters, one of whom (Jesus) works consistently for the Aqua boat. The Aqua tends to operate much more consistently than other boats in the Galapagos, and seems to have less of the churn of freelance divemaster contractors that is typical of other boats. The zodiac tenders were excellent. The boat has a small dive deck but thoughtful touches, like compressed air to rid camera housings of excess water. All in all, it was a very smooth operation. The only real downside to the boat is the tiny cabins, and as I said, I lucked out in getting one for myself. The divers who had to share with a stranger still enjoyed the trip, but the cabins are so small that in effect they are only suitable for sleeping, and will require a careful ballet so as to not be bumping into each other.

The safety precautions on the boat were a mixed bag. The crew seemed to be safety minded, there were fire extinguishers on every deck, and there was a lengthy safety briefing on the first day that actually took time to explain how the safety features on the boat worked. The boat also lent every diver a Nautilus Marine Rescue GPS unit and SMB, if they didn't have one. However, the safety briefing made no mention of charging lithium batteries, and there were no dedicated charging stations. Divers charged their batteries in their rooms, and a couple of times that I left something charging in my room inadvertently, nobody unplugged it. More importantly, on the first day, we were told that there would be an evacuation drill, and that we should expect to hear an alarm. In the afternoon, one of the divers walked around to say that the alarm had sounded, but I couldn't find anyone else who had actually heard the alarm. The lead divemaster said that he would speak to the captain about this, and I asked that the alarm be sounded as soon as it was fixed, so we could hear what it sounded like. The lead divemaster agreed, but this never happened.

One other disconcerting thing about the boat, which might have been a one-time thing, was that a week before departure, I received an email with a "confirmed itinerary" that showed that we wouldn't dive Darwin at all, and that we would get only 13 dives rather than the advertised 19. I called Liveaboard.com and the Aqua home office, both of which assured me that the "confirmed" itinerary must be in error, but they couldn't explain why the error had been made in the first place, which did not inspire confidence. In the end, I was never able to find anyone who could explain the mistake, and the trip ended up going as advertised. I'm very glad I did not let that mistake lead me to stopping payment with my bank on the reservation, which I briefly had considered doing, when I first got the email with the 13-dive itinerary.

The divers on the boat came from France, Germany, Switzerland, the UK, Australia, and Cuba. It was a great mix of cultures, languages, and ages. Perhaps because of its cheap(er) price range, the Aqua seems to attract a lot of younger divers. The experience level of the divers varied significantly, and there were a couple of divers without Nitrox certification, or with only a few dozen dives under their belts. The divers self-divided into two groups for the week, and one of the two groups tended to consistently run out of gas early. (The couple divers without Nitrox certification took the course on the boat, and dived nitrox the whole week -- it would have been unmanageable otherwise to have only two divers on air.) I was surprised that divers would pay upwards of $4,000 for a trip to a destination known to have cold water, currents, low visibility, etc., as a first liveaboard experience. In the end, everyone had a great time and there were no major mishaps, but if conditions had been more challenging, that likely would not have been the case.

I would certainly consider the Aqua again for a return dive trip to the Galapagos. If there was a well-reviewed boat with more spacious cabins within $500 of the Aqua price, I'd probably consider that too, as I could not count on getting a double cabin for myself again.

FINAL THOUGHTS ON DIVING THE GALAPAGOS: I really enjoyed this first trip to the Galapagos (much more than my one trip to Socorro), and on the basis of this admittedly small sample size, I would definitely encourage any experienced diver who has never been to the Galapagos to absolutely go. The highlights of the dives for me were the close approaches to the whale sharks (I'm the guy with the camera in the video clip above), the schooling hammerheads, and the molas, which I had never seen before. Seeing a dozen mola at a time is an otherworldly experience. But I also REALLY enjoyed the hour long dive with marine iguanas, which is something you are only going to get in the Galapagos, and which was unforgettable. The birds that you encounter during the week are insanely cool as well, and I am generally not a bird guy. And a couple of days in Puerto Ayora are definitely well spent, and comparatively cheap. My final words of advice would be, do your research, pick a boat, book your flights, and then don't obsess too much over whether you picked the right month or boat. Odds are, you will have a fabulous time. And if you are a newbie diver, do yourself a favor and get a good number of dives in different conditions before undertaking a Galapagos trip -- you will get a lot more out of it, and be safer doing it.

Thanks for a terrific, thorough report. Could you talk a bit more about the currents? If I were to do the Galapagos I'd have to get over my hatred of cold water, but before I tackle that I want to be sure I could handle the currents. I'm 60 and not as fit as I could be. I can handle the moderate current we've encountered in the Caribbean and Red Sea, but very strong current can be a problem.

 

[nippurmagnum]

Glad it was helpful!

I thought the currents were manageable. (I’m 58 and in reasonably good shape; there were divers in their late sixties and early seventies as well in the group, and nobody had superhuman strength, and everyone managed). There were definitely currents at Wolf and Darwin, especially Darwin, but the kind of current you can kick against for a while, not the kind of current that can rip your mask off.

At both Darwin and Wolf dive guides were big on divers holding on to rocks and staying low for most of the dive, and that helped with the currents. Sometimes in the rocks there was enough shelter that you could just hover a little bit above them, but always careful not to get too high in the water column. I found that this brought me closer to the sharks as well, though I got a couple of disapproving glances from the dive guides for that, as they want their groups staying put for most of the dives.

One thing I’ll say is that when our boat arrived at Darwin, one of the guides became concerned that there might NOT be any current. As he put it, “no current, no sharks.” The captain told him that we would most certainly find current at Darwin’s Pillars, and we did. So I kept thanking my lucky stars whenever the current picked up a bit.

For the marine iguana dive there wasn’t really any current but there was quite a bit of surge, but I didn’t care because, hey, marine iguanas! One of the divers in our group did get motion sickness on that one though.

As for the cold — you just need a well fitting 7 mm, and a hooded vest, and for the really cold dives, two hooded vests if you’ve got an extra.