narkedat50
Registered
Hi Guys
I just got back to the UK from the Galapagos Islands and thought that after all the political turmoil out there I would let you know how things went - I know that I did not believe I was actually going to be allowed to dive there this year till I hit the water personally!
I was on a 10 day trip on the Live aboard vessel Deep Blue, the boat itself is quite good, steel hulled with big cabins and individual beds, not bunks. The rooms all have on-suits and a decent shower with plenty of storage for you personal belongings. The couple of downsides are that for an expensive trip like this I would liked to have seen a DVD library on board, there were only a few poor quality copies of old movies, nothing on the Galapagos or nature. There was no CD library or any games either, these are all common on the other live aboards I have done, and cost very little to put in place, this meant evenings were totally without entertainment unless you brought it yourself as there was nothing laid on in any way. The lounge was always cold as the crew kept the air conditioning on so they were comfortable in the kitchen, we were constantly asking for it to be switched off, but it would be on again within hours which meant the place was pretty miserable to sit in, not exactly customer focused these guys.
The diving is basically in two places - Wolf/Darwin, and then everywhere else. The reason I am so general is that around the main islands the water was around 17 to 19 degrees C and visibility was 10 to 15 meters. The life was ok with the odd sea lion and turtle, but not anything you would travel thousands of miles for. As for the other place - Wolf and Darwin - these are two of the best dive sites I have ever visited. I would find it difficult not to list them as probably the best dive sites on the planet - depending upon what you like. Both had temperatures around 20 to 22 degrees C and the strong currents would keep you hanging on to rocks to avoid getting swept away. There is little in the way of coral here, the rocks are volcanic boulders covered with large barnacles, so take a 7mm wet suit or semi dry at this time of year, dont take a dry suit, it will get shredded, and take two pairs of gloves. Wolf has schools of hundreds of hammerhead sharks, dolphins, Galapagos sharks and Silky sharks with a sprinkling of Eagle rays, Mobula rays, Mantas, Sea Lions and Turtles as well.
This mix is abundant on every dive as well as thousands of fish in vast shoals, so if you like wild life, this will not disappoint, expect to see several hundred of the above in various mixes each dive. Darwin does not have as much of these as wolf, but it has more fish - you can look up and these block out the sun like clouds - it also has Whale sharks!!, and lots of them. I seen around 15 on the 6 dives I done there, we recon we had over 30 encounters with different animals between the 16 of us the boat holds. These were huge - typically 12 to 14 meters. They usually swam away from us when they seen us, but don't let any of your group touch them or they will disappear and spoil it for the rest of you, strictly look but don't touch. A typical encounter would last several minuets and I got some excellent pictures, as did all of my group who had cameras - you can get that close.
The guides were ok, but the rest of the crew on Deep Blue do not speak English, so you tend not to see or speak to the crew at all except on the dive deck by gesture/broken English. After diving you just don't see them or the guides, your very much on your own. This gave the impression they arent that concerned about you and certainly never went out of their way to change this. Overall they gave the impression to all of us it was just a job and gave nothing but the minimum in terms of service, this is the worst I have had in half a dozen live aboards around the world and this was the most expensive! This was unfortunate as I mentioned the actual boat was fine, but the running of it was short of satisfactory in terms of treating the guests well and catering for us, as we were constantly running out of things e.g. we ran out of any diet/light soft drinks on day 2!! (remember its a 10 day trip) There was a bowl of chocolates which lasted 3 days but was never re-filled, the sweet biscuits ran out a day after that, so the only snack just 5 days into the trip was dry crackers. Coke ended on day 6 and all soft drinks with the exception of water were gone by day 7. The weather was only in the low twenties and overcast virtually the whole time, so no one was drinking that much, but surprisingly they never ran out of beer which was at an additional charge! For an all inclusive trip which included a mandatory service charge of $400 (tip) we were less than impressed by this. After several complaints a few cases of soft drinks were obtained from another live aboard and one of the islands, but we had to make a noise for it. On the plus side there was always something to eat and drink when returning from a dive. Hot chocolate, perhaps some sponge cake and a hot towel were left for us to help ourselves to on all of the dives, and the crew would pass cameras up and down, but could have been more careful with the other kit. Regulators were regularly dragging along the deck attached to tanks and BCDs, you would not treat your own kit like this, but then, they didnt own it.
Overall we done 3 days at Wolf, 2 at Darwin and 3 days diving other sites around the main islands, we also had a couple of land excursions which were fine. The current position of the National park is that things will remain as they are until the end of the year, after that we will have to wait and see what the changes are, but it is likely to be that live aboards are either land or diving based, and not a combination of the two.
So the summery must read like this:
Excellent diving at Wolf/Darwin - truly world leading, the other diving is good, but not worth travelling from the UK for.
The boat is good and spacious, but perhaps a bit noisy, often the case with a steel hull.
The crew knew what they were doing operationally to handle the boat and were competent at that level.
The majority of the crew were unenthusiastic and did nothing to help or suggest anything in the way of customer service, they looked after themselves as a priority, not the guests. Eric was the most helpfull.
The constant shortages of supplies was ridiculous, who ever holds the purse strings for the food is either poorly done to by the owner, or making a good saving for some other reason.
The $400 each ($6,400!!) we had to pay up front for a tip was a slap in the face for the service we had - $40 would have been too much. I cant help but think this is just a tax dodge, how can a gratuity be mandatory? Some one from the IRS should ask the American agent who imposed it.
This is a fantastic destination, visit it for yourself and treat it with respect while there, dont touch the wildlife, the guides on Deep Blue were excellent on this point, do not touch meant just that or you didnt dive. The experience of Wolf and Darwin for me made up for the crews inadequacies, but Id use another boat next time.
Hope this helps,
James
I just got back to the UK from the Galapagos Islands and thought that after all the political turmoil out there I would let you know how things went - I know that I did not believe I was actually going to be allowed to dive there this year till I hit the water personally!
I was on a 10 day trip on the Live aboard vessel Deep Blue, the boat itself is quite good, steel hulled with big cabins and individual beds, not bunks. The rooms all have on-suits and a decent shower with plenty of storage for you personal belongings. The couple of downsides are that for an expensive trip like this I would liked to have seen a DVD library on board, there were only a few poor quality copies of old movies, nothing on the Galapagos or nature. There was no CD library or any games either, these are all common on the other live aboards I have done, and cost very little to put in place, this meant evenings were totally without entertainment unless you brought it yourself as there was nothing laid on in any way. The lounge was always cold as the crew kept the air conditioning on so they were comfortable in the kitchen, we were constantly asking for it to be switched off, but it would be on again within hours which meant the place was pretty miserable to sit in, not exactly customer focused these guys.
The diving is basically in two places - Wolf/Darwin, and then everywhere else. The reason I am so general is that around the main islands the water was around 17 to 19 degrees C and visibility was 10 to 15 meters. The life was ok with the odd sea lion and turtle, but not anything you would travel thousands of miles for. As for the other place - Wolf and Darwin - these are two of the best dive sites I have ever visited. I would find it difficult not to list them as probably the best dive sites on the planet - depending upon what you like. Both had temperatures around 20 to 22 degrees C and the strong currents would keep you hanging on to rocks to avoid getting swept away. There is little in the way of coral here, the rocks are volcanic boulders covered with large barnacles, so take a 7mm wet suit or semi dry at this time of year, dont take a dry suit, it will get shredded, and take two pairs of gloves. Wolf has schools of hundreds of hammerhead sharks, dolphins, Galapagos sharks and Silky sharks with a sprinkling of Eagle rays, Mobula rays, Mantas, Sea Lions and Turtles as well.
This mix is abundant on every dive as well as thousands of fish in vast shoals, so if you like wild life, this will not disappoint, expect to see several hundred of the above in various mixes each dive. Darwin does not have as much of these as wolf, but it has more fish - you can look up and these block out the sun like clouds - it also has Whale sharks!!, and lots of them. I seen around 15 on the 6 dives I done there, we recon we had over 30 encounters with different animals between the 16 of us the boat holds. These were huge - typically 12 to 14 meters. They usually swam away from us when they seen us, but don't let any of your group touch them or they will disappear and spoil it for the rest of you, strictly look but don't touch. A typical encounter would last several minuets and I got some excellent pictures, as did all of my group who had cameras - you can get that close.
The guides were ok, but the rest of the crew on Deep Blue do not speak English, so you tend not to see or speak to the crew at all except on the dive deck by gesture/broken English. After diving you just don't see them or the guides, your very much on your own. This gave the impression they arent that concerned about you and certainly never went out of their way to change this. Overall they gave the impression to all of us it was just a job and gave nothing but the minimum in terms of service, this is the worst I have had in half a dozen live aboards around the world and this was the most expensive! This was unfortunate as I mentioned the actual boat was fine, but the running of it was short of satisfactory in terms of treating the guests well and catering for us, as we were constantly running out of things e.g. we ran out of any diet/light soft drinks on day 2!! (remember its a 10 day trip) There was a bowl of chocolates which lasted 3 days but was never re-filled, the sweet biscuits ran out a day after that, so the only snack just 5 days into the trip was dry crackers. Coke ended on day 6 and all soft drinks with the exception of water were gone by day 7. The weather was only in the low twenties and overcast virtually the whole time, so no one was drinking that much, but surprisingly they never ran out of beer which was at an additional charge! For an all inclusive trip which included a mandatory service charge of $400 (tip) we were less than impressed by this. After several complaints a few cases of soft drinks were obtained from another live aboard and one of the islands, but we had to make a noise for it. On the plus side there was always something to eat and drink when returning from a dive. Hot chocolate, perhaps some sponge cake and a hot towel were left for us to help ourselves to on all of the dives, and the crew would pass cameras up and down, but could have been more careful with the other kit. Regulators were regularly dragging along the deck attached to tanks and BCDs, you would not treat your own kit like this, but then, they didnt own it.
Overall we done 3 days at Wolf, 2 at Darwin and 3 days diving other sites around the main islands, we also had a couple of land excursions which were fine. The current position of the National park is that things will remain as they are until the end of the year, after that we will have to wait and see what the changes are, but it is likely to be that live aboards are either land or diving based, and not a combination of the two.
So the summery must read like this:
Excellent diving at Wolf/Darwin - truly world leading, the other diving is good, but not worth travelling from the UK for.
The boat is good and spacious, but perhaps a bit noisy, often the case with a steel hull.
The crew knew what they were doing operationally to handle the boat and were competent at that level.
The majority of the crew were unenthusiastic and did nothing to help or suggest anything in the way of customer service, they looked after themselves as a priority, not the guests. Eric was the most helpfull.
The constant shortages of supplies was ridiculous, who ever holds the purse strings for the food is either poorly done to by the owner, or making a good saving for some other reason.
The $400 each ($6,400!!) we had to pay up front for a tip was a slap in the face for the service we had - $40 would have been too much. I cant help but think this is just a tax dodge, how can a gratuity be mandatory? Some one from the IRS should ask the American agent who imposed it.
This is a fantastic destination, visit it for yourself and treat it with respect while there, dont touch the wildlife, the guides on Deep Blue were excellent on this point, do not touch meant just that or you didnt dive. The experience of Wolf and Darwin for me made up for the crews inadequacies, but Id use another boat next time.
Hope this helps,
James
