Galapagos

[M_B]

Hello,
I have read about diving there ... I think someone wrote a big article last year? on the scubaforums, that all the beauty of diving is almost gone, the sharks are on the verge of extinction ( over fishing, killing sharks etc ). Plus i've heard that the water temp, plus strong unpredictable currents ...

I'm writing these to show you what impression i have about the place. On the other side, i've heard a lot of exciting stories about beauty of the place and excitement diving there with huge sharks and other big animals.

So all the long story comes to a few simple questions:
1. For how long would u recommend to go there - 5 days or 2 weeks ?
2. what is the price tag on this ?
3. Would you recommend this place or, say , Little Cayman ?

i should probably add that our diving expirience are Bonair ( both sides ) and Cozumel. and we are purely vacational divers ( 2 diving vacation a year, 10 days each ).

thank you.

 

[hdtran]

Hi, M_B,

I too posted looking for information. I'm leaning land-based with the occassional dive excursion (see RoatanMan's excellent adventure here http://www.geocities.com/johnofrancis/galapagos.htm). We're planning on the period at the end-of-May/beginning-of-June 2007. (Is that summer, or winter? )

My wife, on the other hand, is thinking cruise (mainly so the kids have things to do, such as run up and down the decks of the ship )

If you find out anything, do let us know!

edit added: Fixed link. (I forgot that the auto-edit-autolinker autolinks punctuation )

 

[aushealer]

I was Galapagos last November aboard Peter Hughes 'Sky Dancer' and had a wonderful dive experience. It was a seven day live-aboard dive trip, with limited shore excursions. If I was to do it again {and I would love to}, I would do the same dive trip and then add a couple of days on either at the beginning or end for some land based exploration.

As to sharks, we saw plenty. Hammerheads on at least half the dives, sometimes singles and sometimes in schools of fifteen to twenty or more. We also saw some white tip and black tip, a couple of Galapagos sharks and Silky sharks. Our guide said we may or may not see any whale sharks, due to the time of year. We did! Only a couple, and the school bus sized one showed up as most of us had already boarded the zodiac after our dive. We jumped back in with mask, snorkel and fins ~ what a wonderful sight.

This does not include the manta-rays {my favorite}, all the other rays, turtles, sea lions, birds, and many species of fish.

Although it is an expensive per dive trip, I would recommend it as you simply will not see as many types of fish, and the number in which they show up, in one place. The diving is easy, I regularly dive in Canadian waters, and like sitting in a life size Discovery Channel documentary...

 

[M_B]

thank you for your input.
We are planing the trip to Bonair coming August. But next year, i hope, we can go somewhere else, such as to Galapagos.
I've been watching the Science channel today - they had a report/show about Galapagos. The guy was diving in a dry suit...
I know that after diving in Canada anything might be like +35 C , but for us, from hot and humid NJ, everything less than 80 is cOOOld

what is the price tag am i looking for two divers for a week of diving/ 10 days staying?

To hdtran :
Unfortunnately the link is not working. We won't do a cruise - don't like to be "trapped" on a boat with tons of people. I guess we are more ground based creatures )
We yet have to try a liveaboard. But i guess, cause of our curiocity to explore the land based attractions we would most likely stay in some hotel and do dive trips from there. But, of course , it's all based on our previos expirience and i'm not saying that we can't change the habits.

 

[Doc]

To hdtran :
Unfortunnately the link is not working.

It's Yahoo, what do you expect? Try http://www.geocities.com/johnofrancis/galapagos.htm It's also on linked my profile. Many of you may know the guy who hosted it, John.

]
We won't do a cruise - don't like to be "trapped" on a boat with tons of people. I guess we are more ground based creatures )

Yes, the website is about land based options- seldom understood or ever experienced by North American divers.

 

[M_B]

RoatanMan,
thank you for the updated link. Interesting indeed.