edoralive
Contributor
Me:
Happy to recommend the boat to others, which some caveats about safety (below). The logistics were flawless, crew were attentive, the other divers were quite lovely (and from around the world - Singapore, Israel, UK, Japan, Spain, Canada, New Zealand, US), and the trip on the whole was well worth it. As our guide said at our final toast, we may have left the Galapagos, but the Galapagos will never leave our hearts.
Expecting water 70 degrees or lower, I brought my drysuit and two base layers and an extra base top and that’s it. Everyone else was in 7 mil or 5 mil plus a 2 mil vest, or some variation of those things.
The Boat
Calipso was refurbished a few years ago, and is in generally fine shape. The cabins were bigger than others I’ve experienced, and the showers in particular were quite large for a boat. There is a jacuzzi on the top deck that was available when we were anchored and particularly after cold water dives. On Tuesday evening, we had a celebratory dinner on the top deck which included festivities I’ll leave you to discover for yourself. The dives are by panga - we were divided into two groups and dove with those groups the duration of the trip.
Dive pacing was all over the place and depended on conditions, boat schedule and desires of the divers. The first full day we dove once before breakfast, and then got two more in before lunch. Other days we had breakfast and then dove twice before lunch.
We ran nitrox the whole week, and were expected to fill out the nitrox sheet, but in my experience the dive masters expected us to accept an analysis on one cylinder to represent all the cylinders. Often, when I would ask for the analyzer I would be told it had already been analyzed, so I took to not asking and just taking it off the shelf to check. The standing advice was to set our computers to 31% and 1.4 for the duration of the trip. This felt dodgy.
We also had a few mishaps on the trip that had their genesis in recklessness or perhaps inattention. On two different dives, we had a diver run out of air and need to share air with a buddy or the guide to get back to the surface. Equipment failure is one thing; letting your cylinder run to zero without intervention is something else entirely. We also had a number of divers chase marine life into the blue and the intense current.
Most dives were “negative entry” but really what that meant was ‘get down as soon as you can.’ I inevitably had some lingering air in my drysuit or wing and would end up on the surface before figuring it out, and it wasn’t a problem. I also tend to descend slower than anyone, and that also wasn't a problem. The biggest challenge was getting to a rock to crawl along to get back to the group, but even this wasn’t a significant challenge.
Equipment provided to all divers included a sea whistle, a nautilus lifeline and an SMB. My first sea whistle leaked quite a bit, and the second one leaked even more. Eventually they told me to remove the whistle and stay close to my buddy. Okie dokey. I heard comments from other divers that the rental equipment could use a refreshment.
Food was generally good and plentiful. Lots of meat options. For the vegetarians, it was a little more challenging - we saw eggplant on five different meals. Eggs were made to order at breakfast, and lunch and dinner included some sort of dessert.
The Crew were top notch. Everyone pitched in to launch and recover dives, including the chefs! Everyone was kind, attentive and showed up with a magnetic, positive personality each day.
Pre-arrival:
The boat departs from San Cristobal. To get there, I flew by LATAM into Quito, then to Guayaquil, then to the Island.
Arriving at Quito airport, I found a Calipso representative waiting at the door to the terminal who helped me clear the next several, confusing steps. In SCY, the Calipso team met us outside the terminal. We gathered luggage and waited for another arrival before heading to the boat.
Arrival and beyond:
Day 0: San Cristobal
After lunch we had our checkout dive, twenty minutes in the cove off San Cristobal.
Dive 1: San Cristobal
Overnight to Mosquera Island for a disappointing first day of diving.
Dive 1: Mosquera South
Day 2 was the coldest of the trip, and I was thankful to be dry. For these dives I put on two smart wool base layers, and it worked ok.
Dive 1: Point Douglas Deep
Dive 3: Punta Vincente Rojas
Dive 4 was scrubbed in favor of a panga tour of the point and an early departure to Darwin, which was well worth it.
Day 3: Darwin Island
Darwin and Wolf are the two big guns of the Galapagos, requiring an overnight crossing and presenting us with the most demanding currents but also incredible quantity and variety of sea life.
Dive 1: Hollywood
The current gets stronger as the day goes on, so while dive two was more of the same, it was under more uncomfortable conditions. Safety stops for both were in the blue.
Dive 2: Hollywood
…except we didn’t abort the dive. Instead, the diver made it onto the panga which signaled with its engine that it had picked her up. Our guide, apparently hearing the panga, changed his mind and reengaged the dive, beelining for the rocks at 80’. This to me is a cardinal sin. If we signal to abort the dive, we abort the dive. We've wasted gas, we've created confusion with non-standard hand signals, and reengaging just seems like tempting fate.
This dive didn't get better from there. We spent the remaining 40 minutes clinging to rocks for dear life in current. We had more issues with divers who were more focused on taking pictures than sound diving, and there were a lot of crushed fingers and kicks to the face among the group. Mostly it was holding on, waiting for the end.
There was a fourth dive, but all but two of my group decided to skip it.
- Solo traveler
- Divemaster
- GUE Fundamentals
- 140 dives, including cold water, low viz and ice dives and current experience.
Happy to recommend the boat to others, which some caveats about safety (below). The logistics were flawless, crew were attentive, the other divers were quite lovely (and from around the world - Singapore, Israel, UK, Japan, Spain, Canada, New Zealand, US), and the trip on the whole was well worth it. As our guide said at our final toast, we may have left the Galapagos, but the Galapagos will never leave our hearts.
Expecting water 70 degrees or lower, I brought my drysuit and two base layers and an extra base top and that’s it. Everyone else was in 7 mil or 5 mil plus a 2 mil vest, or some variation of those things.
The Boat
Calipso was refurbished a few years ago, and is in generally fine shape. The cabins were bigger than others I’ve experienced, and the showers in particular were quite large for a boat. There is a jacuzzi on the top deck that was available when we were anchored and particularly after cold water dives. On Tuesday evening, we had a celebratory dinner on the top deck which included festivities I’ll leave you to discover for yourself. The dives are by panga - we were divided into two groups and dove with those groups the duration of the trip.
Dive pacing was all over the place and depended on conditions, boat schedule and desires of the divers. The first full day we dove once before breakfast, and then got two more in before lunch. Other days we had breakfast and then dove twice before lunch.
We ran nitrox the whole week, and were expected to fill out the nitrox sheet, but in my experience the dive masters expected us to accept an analysis on one cylinder to represent all the cylinders. Often, when I would ask for the analyzer I would be told it had already been analyzed, so I took to not asking and just taking it off the shelf to check. The standing advice was to set our computers to 31% and 1.4 for the duration of the trip. This felt dodgy.
We also had a few mishaps on the trip that had their genesis in recklessness or perhaps inattention. On two different dives, we had a diver run out of air and need to share air with a buddy or the guide to get back to the surface. Equipment failure is one thing; letting your cylinder run to zero without intervention is something else entirely. We also had a number of divers chase marine life into the blue and the intense current.
Most dives were “negative entry” but really what that meant was ‘get down as soon as you can.’ I inevitably had some lingering air in my drysuit or wing and would end up on the surface before figuring it out, and it wasn’t a problem. I also tend to descend slower than anyone, and that also wasn't a problem. The biggest challenge was getting to a rock to crawl along to get back to the group, but even this wasn’t a significant challenge.
Equipment provided to all divers included a sea whistle, a nautilus lifeline and an SMB. My first sea whistle leaked quite a bit, and the second one leaked even more. Eventually they told me to remove the whistle and stay close to my buddy. Okie dokey. I heard comments from other divers that the rental equipment could use a refreshment.
Food was generally good and plentiful. Lots of meat options. For the vegetarians, it was a little more challenging - we saw eggplant on five different meals. Eggs were made to order at breakfast, and lunch and dinner included some sort of dessert.
The Crew were top notch. Everyone pitched in to launch and recover dives, including the chefs! Everyone was kind, attentive and showed up with a magnetic, positive personality each day.
Pre-arrival:
The boat departs from San Cristobal. To get there, I flew by LATAM into Quito, then to Guayaquil, then to the Island.
Arriving at Quito airport, I found a Calipso representative waiting at the door to the terminal who helped me clear the next several, confusing steps. In SCY, the Calipso team met us outside the terminal. We gathered luggage and waited for another arrival before heading to the boat.
Arrival and beyond:
Day 0: San Cristobal
After lunch we had our checkout dive, twenty minutes in the cove off San Cristobal.
Dive 1: San Cristobal
- Water temp: 70
- Current: None
- Visibility: 30’
Overnight to Mosquera Island for a disappointing first day of diving.
Dive 1: Mosquera South
- Water temp: 74
- Current: None
- Visibility: 30’
- Max depth: 108’
- Average depth: 51’
- Water temp: 74
- Current: None
- Visibility: 30’
- Max depth: 106’
- Average depth: 59’
- Water temp: 74
- Current: Strong
- Visibility: 30’
- Max depth: 66’
- Average depth: 39'
Day 2 was the coldest of the trip, and I was thankful to be dry. For these dives I put on two smart wool base layers, and it worked ok.
Dive 1: Point Douglas Deep
- aWater temp: 63
- Current: light
- Visibility: 40’
- Max depth: 75’
- Average depth: 51'
- Water temp: 69
- Current: very surgey as you got toward the shallows
- Visibility: hard to tell - I was shallow the whole time
- Max depth: 18’
- Average depth: 9’
Dive 3: Punta Vincente Rojas
- Water temp: 64
- Current: none
- Visibility: 40’
- Max depth: 106’
- Average: 62’
Dive 4 was scrubbed in favor of a panga tour of the point and an early departure to Darwin, which was well worth it.
Day 3: Darwin Island
Darwin and Wolf are the two big guns of the Galapagos, requiring an overnight crossing and presenting us with the most demanding currents but also incredible quantity and variety of sea life.
Dive 1: Hollywood
- Water temp: 5
- Current: moderate
- Visibility: 40’
- Max depth: 81’
- Average: 46’
The current gets stronger as the day goes on, so while dive two was more of the same, it was under more uncomfortable conditions. Safety stops for both were in the blue.
Dive 2: Hollywood
- Water temp: 74
- Current: strong
- Visibility: 40’
- Max depth: 61’
- Average: 45’
- Water temp: 74
- Current: very, very strong
- Visibility: 30’
- Max depth: 81’
- Average: 40’
…except we didn’t abort the dive. Instead, the diver made it onto the panga which signaled with its engine that it had picked her up. Our guide, apparently hearing the panga, changed his mind and reengaged the dive, beelining for the rocks at 80’. This to me is a cardinal sin. If we signal to abort the dive, we abort the dive. We've wasted gas, we've created confusion with non-standard hand signals, and reengaging just seems like tempting fate.
This dive didn't get better from there. We spent the remaining 40 minutes clinging to rocks for dear life in current. We had more issues with divers who were more focused on taking pictures than sound diving, and there were a lot of crushed fingers and kicks to the face among the group. Mostly it was holding on, waiting for the end.
There was a fourth dive, but all but two of my group decided to skip it.
