How is diving in Galapagos in December?

[Dan]

Wow wow wow , what a fabulous hammerhead picture ! I'm so pleased that you had such a good time.....what was the water temperature like ?

Thanks so much for posting .

Thanks. We stayed 2 days in Darwin & made 8 dives to see the same schooling hammerheads with 30' visibility. They were very shy fish. Hard to get a closeup picture. A camera flash would make them disappear. I needed to hide behind a rock & waited until they came close & came up from the rock & took the shot. So, I took tons of bad shots & eventually got some descent shots.

Here are water temperature data:
San Cristobal Port: 64F (18C)
Mosquera Islet (Seymour): 64-74F (18-23F)
Darwin: 73-77F (23-25C)
Wolf: 75-77F (24-25C), except at anchor line 90' (27m) deep was 63F (17C) to see the red-lip batfish
Punto Vincente Roca (Isabela): 61-63F (16-17C) to see Mola-Mola & Galápagos Bullhead sharks
Cabo Douglas (Fernandino): 61-64F (16-18C) to see the marine iguanas grazing on algae.
Cousin Rock: 70F (21C) to play with sea lion & see marbled ray.

 

[drrich2]

Love the sea lion (seal? Can't tell if that's an external ear or a hole) pic, but am taken with the harlequin wrasse; it's like some sort of 'bump head koi,' if there are such a thing.

Richard.

 

[Dan]

Marbled Ray & playful sea lions of Cousin Rock

 

[Dan]

Love the sea lion (seal? Can't tell if that's an external ear or a hole) pic, but am taken with the harlequin wrasse; it's like some sort of 'bump head koi,' if there are such a thing.

Richard.

They are sea lions.

They own San Cristobal harbor.

I have the same impression as you do. I thought they are saltwater bumphead koi

 

[Dan]

It's not for beginner divers. We did negative entry most of the time to get down fast to avoid from getting swept away by the current, which could be fast, but we were fortunate at that those 2 days in Darwin, the currents weren't bad but the wave picked up a bit in the afternoon, as shown, below.

Unfortunately the less current situation was traded with not so good visibility (30' or 10m). Also, doing the same dive 8 times in Darwin got to be pretty monotonous (8 out of 19 total dives, 42%). I'd rather spend a day in Darwin & 2 days in Wolf next time, but that's the way they got the allotment from the Galapagos National Park management.

Next time, I'll look for a better dive plan. May be even going 3-4 months earlier (Aug-Sep).

 

[Dan]

Some of the animals that I saw & made effort to look them up in the book & took pictures of:
Rays: Marbled, blunt-tail, eagle & diamond stingray.
Sharks: scalloped hammerhead, white-tip, silky, Galápagos (taller back fin than silky), Galápagos bullhead.
Other fish: stone scorpionfish, red-lipped batfish, bravo clinic nuptial male (yellow gill plated blennie), panamic fanged blenny, Mexican hogfish, harlequin wrasse, blue-chin parrotfish, leather bass, flag cabrilla, Panama graysby, barred snapper, blue & gold snapper, Peruvian grunt, black stripped salema, Galápagos grunt, striped mullet, longfin halfbeak, pelican barracuda, black skipjack, bonito, steel pompano, cottonmouth jack, bluefin trevally, almaco jack, bigeye trevalle (black & silver), king angelfish, barberfish, pacific creolefish, fine spotted moray, panamic green moray, Galápagos garden eel, oceanic sunfish, guinea-fowl puffer, coral hawkfish, giant hawkfish.
Iguanas: marine & land
Birds: blue-footed booby, red-footed booby, frigatebirds, pelican
Mammals: sea lions, bottlenose dolphins, unspecified whales.

 

[cephalopod2]

Great stuff Dan. Thanks for sharing your photos & write up. You did really well with the endemics! Sorry to hear you didn't have the best visibility but glad your flight delay didn't screw up your itinerary much.

Do you remember where you saw the Galapagos harlequin wrasses? Are these photos from Cabo Douglas?

The whales I take it you saw from the boat (any underwater)?

Did the mola molas (oceanic sunfish) make a good showing for you? That site is still on my bucket list but I understand one can see 2 mola species there.

In terms of the high percentage of dives at Darwin, sometimes the boats have to apply for that many dives because in whale shark season everyone wants as many dives at Darwin as possible and of course the percentage is also skewed by the relatively small number of total dives (for a liveaboard), due to time lost steaming to and from islands.

[Hammerheads] were very shy fish. Hard to get a closeup picture. A camera flash would make them disappear. I needed to hide behind a rock & waited until they came close & came up from the rock & took the shot. So, I took tons of bad shots & eventually got some descent shots.

I'm sure you discovered this, but separating yourself from the mass of bubbles coming from your group also helps with closer encounters (along with minimizing your own bubble stream).

Edit: I'm surprised you did all 8 Darwin dives at the arch. Who was cruise director and your group's guide? There's a gravelly area that's also good for hammerheads if there's current (different vantage for photos), and sometimes they'll do a blue water drift in the last part of the dive which is good for dolphin encounters. Sounds like you got bored with schooling hammerheads but I thought that's what you were after in booking Banda?

 

[Diving Dubai]

Dan, Thanks for the write up. The Galapagos is on our list, but a monster trek from here (17hrs to Orlando as first stop)

The cold waters are not appealing, As you know we think 22C (70F) is Artic conditions - I'd have to conceal the fact it gets down to 60F or below form my wife

Although I can dive dry, I've never had to make a fast neg entry in one

Did you get to see Mola Mola? I've one see one, a juvenile so they re on my list of course with hammer heads

 

[Dan]

I saw 3 Mola Mola. One while diving in the freezing (17C) greenish water (2m visibility) of Punta Vincente Roca. Check out this picture, below.

The other 2 were while cruising back over the north end of Isabela island on the way to Cousin Island, right on the equatorial line at New Year's Eve. Both were hanging around on the surface for cleaning. You can see the top fin sticking out from the sea surface, below.

 

[cephalopod2]

As you know we think 22C (70F) is Artic conditions - I'd have to conceal the fact it gets down to 60F or below form my wife

Did you get to see Mola Mola? I've one see one, a juvenile so they re on my list of course with hammer heads

Diving Dubai there's always Bali for molas. Crystal Bay is cooler but not as cold as Isabela and the vis is much better (I would bet that's where Dan's avatar shot was taken). It is much more crowded and there can be strong currents however.

Cocos Island would be an alternative for schooling hammerheads. You'd lose the seal lions, potential mola, Galapagos endemics and amazing animal interactions topside, but there are potential gains (silvertip sharks, more chance of bait balls, some chance of tiger sharks, the hunting whitetips night dive, waterfall trek).

Thanks for sharing the mola photo Dan.