How is diving in Galapagos in December?

[Dan]

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.

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?

@NatashaS, thanks for the compliment.

Yes, I saw the Galápagos Harlequin wrasses while searching for marine iguana underwater in Cabo Douglas. They are all over there. I took more pictures of them with variety color combinations just like you see in Koi. I just posted the 2 best ones here.

I haven't seen whale while diving anywhere, unfortunately. Seeing one while snorkeling is in my bucket list. I'm thinking of seeing humpback whales in Silver Banks or spermwhale of Dominica someday.

We decided to do only one dive in Punto Vincente Roca, where I saw the silhouette of Mola Mola due to poor visibility, as you see in my previous post, above. Fortunately, that's where we saw the Galápagos Bullhead sharks.

I have seen tons whalesharks while snorkeling in Holbox & Isla Mujeres, Mexico & while diving in Cendrawasih Bay, Papua, Indonesia, so that's not my goal to see while diving in Darwin. I wanted to see schooling hammerhead sharks. Never seen one while diving before. So, seeing them in Darwin was a mission accomplished. Seeing them in Banda may be a meh unless we have much better visibility than in Darwin, which was about 10m. I did manage to capture this one, below, by popping up my head from my hideout under a big rock.

The cruise director is Jimmy. He probably thought that would be the safest place to stay & wait since some of us were newbies. He did took me down to the bottom, after the newbies went up to the safety stop to see Galápagos garden eels on the sands.

 

[sunshower]

I think that's my favorite destination but there are more to check out; did a 10-day live aboard many years ago and loved everything about it. Great photos, glad you had such a great time. Now you have to find something to match it!

 

[cephalopod2]

You've got a lot of great shots in your treasure chest Dan!

Awesome Galapagos garden eels. I love all the big animals of the Galapagos but I also think the endemics are really special - I hope you enjoyed them as well.

I have seen tons whalesharks while snorkeling in Holbox & Isla Mujeres, Mexico & while diving in Cendrawasih Bay, Papua, Indonesia, so that's not my goal to see while diving in Darwin. I wanted to see schooling hammerhead sharks. Never seen one while diving before. So, seeing them in Darwin was a mission accomplished. Seeing them in Banda may be a meh unless we have much better visibility than in Darwin, which was about 10m.

Banda vis should be much better than your personal vis in Darwin however based on the images, the Banda hammerheads look significantly further away. I've had some incredibly close passes of individual and schooling hammerheads - above, besides and below - at Darwin and Wolf. Often by that point there were just 2 divers in the area. From the belly colour, it looks like the HH you just posted was close enough for your strobe(s) to reach, which is close .

If you're not interested in whale sharks, I would not plan your next Gal trip for Aug-Sep as the focus then is definitely whale sharks. Typically vis at Darwin and Wolf is not as good in whale shark season as in the winter months (but as you experienced, vis is a bit of a crap shoot anyway). However before you write them off, you may want to google for photos of Holbox, Cendrawasih and Galapagos whale sharks with divers in them for scale. I know from all the photos I have seen the Mexican whale sharks are much smaller. The photos I've seen from Cendrawasih looked like larger animals than in Mexico but smaller than the adult female whale sharks typical at Darwin (sometimes pregnant - now that is a huge animal). If any of that matters to you...

The cruise director is Jimmy. He probably thought that would be the safest place to stay & wait since some of us were newbies.

Well that makes sense then.

Were you able to add on any topside tours beyond the liveaboard? I remember at one point you were looking into that.

If you didn't make it to the area at Wolf (Landslide) where the Galapagos sharks circle, that's one thing you could request on your next trip. And if you have the chance to dive Leon Dormido (Kicker Rock) before the liveaboard, I do recommend it (as long as you don't mind the cold).

 

[Dan]

I did dive in Wolf's Landslide twice, saw eagle ray hovering 1m away from me. Took cool video which turned out nothing due to corrupted mini SD card, but I was able to get a descent picture of it.

Saw a huge Galápagos shark in Shark Bay hovering in front of my dive buddy & took a cool video of it too from the same bad SD card. Didn't check the video until the evening after those 3 dives were done. So, no video to show

For the fourth dive, we went down Anchor Line to about 30m deep & 15C freezing temperature to see that Red-lip Batfish for the first time.

 

[Dan]

Top side tour, I went to Tortuga Bay in Santa Cruz, Santa Fe Island , Pinzon Island, bird & land iguana tour in Baltra lsland, and Giant Tortoise tour in Santa Cruz. The complete land, snorkeling & diving tours can be seen in my: Dropbox - Galapagos folder

 

[Dan]

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.

You welcome.

I only saw the Oceanic Mola Mola. It looked the same as those I saw in Bali. Your guess is spot on.

The one in my avatar was huge. You can imagine how big it was by comparing it with the emperor anglefish that were busy cleaning it in 144' (44m) deep cold water (68F or 20C). It was my deepest dive ever. My DM was watching me from 10' (3m) above me. I was there just long enough to take that picture.

 

[Clark Bentley]

I am heade to Galapagos in first week of March. Thank you for the posts from December. Will the water b very different in March I wonder? Anybody know.? Thanks, Clark

 

[Dan]

You welcome.

According to this: Galapagos Weather | When To Go - Galapagos Islands | Weather Info
March would be the warmest month of the year with average temperature of 25C (77F). I let other divers who have been there during that month to confirm this.

Galápagos will always be too cold for me, a whim warm water diver, due to Humboldt current. Area like Punta Vincente Roca & Cabo Douglas would always be 2-3C colder than the other places there. So, you should be ready to layer up & add hood if needed.

Hope you get to see the schooling hammerheads. Thanks to Rob Stewart of Sharkwater outcry against the shark finning, the hammerheads seem to make a come back. Too bad that he left the world too soon.

 

[ClairevL]

Dan, did you see big schools of hammerheads at this trip? I'm considering to go in September this year and I'm just trying to find out how a potential El Nino could affect the marine life. I've often seen groups of hammerheads in Egypt in Sudan, but I really hope to see big schools in Galapagos.

 

[Dan]

Dan, did you see big schools of hammerheads at this trip? I'm considering to go in September this year and I'm just trying to find out how a potential El Nino could affect the marine life. I've often seen groups of hammerheads in Egypt in Sudan, but I really hope to see big schools in Galapagos.

Not so much. Visibility also sucks. Check out my GoPro video of one dive in Darwin, below


You want to go to Banda for that with probably 10 times more hammerheads in the school. I'm going there this coming November.

Check out this video from Banda: