Galapagos From Land - On a Budget

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We used the inter-island ferries. No flying except to go back to Guayaquil.

i dont recall if when i was there in 2010 ferries where there. But i take your words.
 
We just returned from a land based dive trip to Galapagos and it was epic. We dove 5 days from Puerto Ayora and 2 from San Cristobal. The entire trip was arranged by Academy Bay Dive Center, They put together all of our accommodations, transfers, boat dives, ferry to San Cristobal, diving there and land based tours to North Seymour, Espanola and the Highlands (If you like birds, it doesn't get any better!). Diving in Galapagos is expensive and working with them on a package brought the price point down to a reasonable level.

The package was designed custom for us based on our interests and the level of accommodation we chose. They were pretty basic but included air conditioning and breakfast. They serve a pretty tasty lunch on the boat after the second tank as well.

I think cost was around $2700 per person. So that’s excluding flights, dinner and tips for the boat crew. But including 7 full days of diving, 3 land tours, all transfers and ferry to San Cristobal, breakfast and lunch.
Boat dives were 2 tanks per day. Some sites were a 20 minute steam and others were 2 hours to places like Espanola and Floreana. Most days it's a 45-50 minute drive up to the north ferry port to catch the boat. The shop provides this.

Dives were almost all epic. Hammerhead sharks solo and in groups on most sites. I don't think we did one dive that we didn't see scalloped hammerhead, Galapagos or white tip reef sharks. More turtles than anywhere I've been, schools of eagle and mobula rays, schools of yellowfin tuna and bonito, sea lions! Not to mention the incredible topography. Unfortunately, on the other side of things, the visibility isn't great at most sites and the water is a chilly 70-72 degrees, at least in May. Gordon Rocks, Mosquera and Kicker Rock were world class dives. The others, as good or better than anyplace we've been.

We wanted to do a live aboard but it just wasn't in our price range this year but we're so happy we chose to go anyway. It's an incredible place. I love Eastern Pacific diving.

I forgot to mention the $20 fee for a Tourist Transit Card. You’ll need to purchase one at the airport on the mainland. There’s also a $100 entrance fee into Galapagos that increases to $200 in August. You’ll pay that at passport control in the airport on the islands.

As for tips I give $10/tank everywhere I dive. So both of us would tip $40 per day=4 tanks. A little more if they helped with something specific to us.

Most nights we ate for about $50 for the two of us. There are cheaper and more expensive options as well. For example, we found a parking lot near the hotel where ladies were frying up big, delicious empanadas of all types for about $2 each. We walked away very full, very happy and spent about $8 that night.

Hope this helps!

Hi, thanks for the great report and video :) I am now in Puerto Ayora and I'm trying to do something very similar to your tour: land-based diving from Puerto Ayora and San Cristobal (plus "Los tuneles" in Isabela). I'd like to ask you if you can please share the dive sites (and islands) that you liked best for...well, everything that you mentioned :)) like hammers, eagle rays, assorted sharks etc. I have already located the Academy Bay dive shop and I am planning to go there asap with some detailed requests so that they can arrange a similar set of dives to the one you had. Thanks a lot :)) Larry
 

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