Introduction
This trip was my third visit to the Galapagos archipelago, but undoubtedly the best as I got to realise a dream, to dive on a closed circuit rebreather at Darwin and Wolf islands, the Northern islands in the archipelago and famous for Whale sharks, Manta Rays, Galapagos sharks and the schooling Hammerheads.
I have been diving closed circuit rebreather since 2006, and had previously travelled to Cocos Island, Costa Rica, for a diving trip. Whilst I had a great experience, and enriching encounters with the aquatic life that lives there, I chose Coco’s Island as there was no rebreather support at that time in the Galapagos. In 2009 I conducted my second trip to the Galapagos and dove from the live-aboard the ‘Estrella Del Mar’ using open circuit scuba as there was still no rebreather support available.
Undeterred I spent several months after that trip talking with management of Explorer Ventures, the company that used the vessel for the liveaboard trip, and after a meeting with the owner at the DEMA 2009 show, and further discussion by e-mail, I was given permission to take my Megaladon CCR on a week long live-aboard trip on the Humboldt Explorer, a new vessel launched in June 2010 and operated under Explorer Ventures, this trip was also a group- booking I had organised and there were 16 of us on the boat though I was the only diver on CCR.
Gaining permission to take my rebreather on the live aboard was just the first of many challenges in conducting this trip. In February I started to look at how I could import a keg of Sofnolime into the country, and to the islands. An initial contact I had was with a dive centre owner, located in Guayaquil on the mainland, who talked with customs about duties in importing Sofnolime and the feedback I received was a special certificate might be needed. At this point I was considering simply vacuum sealing into packages and checking in, and paying any excess baggage charges. However at the same time I happened to browse the South America dive travel section of Scubaboard and saw a posting from a Galapagos resident, and technical/rebreather Instructor Jorge A. Mahauad, offering rebreather support and services. I immediately contacted Jorge and explained my situation to him, and he promptly responded and offered to rent me his tanks, a booster pump and would import Sofnolime.
Over the next few weeks/months I corresponded with Jorge A. Mahauad on a regular basis and he always responded promptly and with good information, and he would also provide me with updates on the progress of the shipping/customs, as he ordered 10 kegs of Sofnolime, and an extra 2 sets of 2 litre cylinders, and early enough so they would clear customs and be available for my trip.
As I was planning to be in Ecuador for a total of 3 weeks, and didn’t want to get hit by excessive roaming charges for checking e-mails/internet use on my smart phone, Jorge also arranged a local SIM card for me with a month’s data plan, so I would be able to check e-mails/access internet, and another sign of his professionalism and service was arranging for it to be at the hotel reception when I checked in so I had immediate access. As far as customer service goes this truly impressed me!!!
The Travel
I arrived in Quito on August 9th, I live and work in Honduras part of the year, so flew to Miami, met my girlfriend and then we flew to Ecuador. I transported the head of the rebreather, and my backplate in my carry on, and TSA security stopped me on both check in’s (one in Honduras and the other in Miami) more concerned with the backplate, than the electronics, but let it through. My 2 checked bags weighed 51 and 54 pounds, and I had to move some items around to get them down from 53 and 57 at check in.
We flew over to Baltra airport on the 12th August, and then after a 5 minute bus ride to the canal, took a short ferry crossing of 5 minutes to the main island of Santa Cruz and then a taxi to the main town of Puerto Ayora as we had were staying there until we had to embark the boat on the 16th August. Although the boat was going to leave from the neighbouring island of San Cristobal we chose to stay in Puerto Ayora as I planned to do a check out dive with Jorge, and collect the booster pump, tanks and sofnolime. There was also more to do in Puerto Ayora and we visited the Darwin station and took a walk to Tortuga beach to see the Iguanas.
I met with Jorge on the afternoon of the 13th August and we set up the rebreathers, and he briefed me on the operation of his booster pump. Jorge was just as professional and pleasant in person as his e-mails suggested and we discussed the potential for rebreather diving on the Galapagos and also diver training and technical training in general. Once the rebreathers were packed and set up, and gases analysed we moved the gear to the dive shop, Scuba Iguana, where we were meeting the next day at 7am to calibrate the units and then go diving for 2 dives.
The land based diving
Saturday 14th August
I met Jorge at the Scuba Iguana dive centre at 7am and we proceeded to check and calibrate the units. We then loaded the gear, and had a 1 hour taxi ride to the channel of Santa Cruz/Baltra where we boarded the boat and headed to the dive site of Mosquera for our first check dive. Jorge briefed the dive crew on emergency procedures for CCR divers as they had never had anyone with a rebreather on board before. Mosquera is a small island with a sea lion colony living there, and after descent/bubble checks we ran a 62 minute dive, to a maximum depth of 22 meters/73 feet at a set point of 1.3, air was used as diluents and we carried an AL80 with air for bail out.
The dive went smoothly, and we saw a sea lion, a Manta Ray glided above us, and it was nice to flip on my back and look up with a clear view and no bubbles, and we also had a very curious black tip reef shark swimming around us. The water temp was 19c/66f and after our safety stop, we just had to be very cautious ascending as we chose not to deploy the SMB and the boat was close by and we were the last 2 divers to ascend. After passing up the bail-out we could climb on board wearing the units, as there was a ladder.
For the second dive we went to Gordon Rocks, which is one of the best dive sites on the Southern islands for encountering Hammerheads, Mantas and turtles. The site is on an underwater volcano (obviously extinct) and has a steep drop off on one side, and the other side is the crater. Upon running the pre-dive checks Jorge had a cell failure so dived on OC, which I put down to the unit being set up on Friday 13th! We descended and within a few minutes had a sighting of 5-6 Hammerhead sharks at a depth of 20 meters/66 feet and our dive time was 51 minutes and again a set point of 1.3. The conditions were choppy on the surface, with strong surge and a 2 knot current underwater in places. There were many turtles at the site, and we also had an Eagle ray on the bottom, and an abundance of fish.
The boat actually took us back to the harbour of Puerto Ayora, and then we moved the rebreathers to Jorges, disinfected the units, and refilled the tanks and I repacked for the next day.
I had purchased 1 full keg of Sofnolime from Jorge, but as I had already used 2 fills on the land based diving, an anticipated another 6 fills, Jorge sold me a used keg that had about 2.5 fills in it so I could be sure of having enough Sofnolime.
Sunday 15th August
We hadn’t planned to dive this day, but the representative for Explorer Ventures, Jennifer Cumming, arranged a boat for us at a special rate, so our group of 4 recreational divers, and me and Jorge took up the offer, and we decided to do another 2 dives at Gordon Rocks. Jorge changed out his sensor as my girlfriend had brought down a couple of spares.
The water temperatures had dropped from the day before and we had a low of 17c/63f at the bottom depth. Our first dive had a run time of 62 minutes, and a max depth of 35.7 meters/120 feet as Jorge showed me the drop off at one edge of the crater. On this dive we descended into a school of 10 Hammerheads, and I’m not sure who was more surprised them or us! Throughout the dive we continued to have several more Hammer head encounters, and saw several turtles, and sea lions. This was by far the best dive so far, mainly due to the Hammerhead but also seeing the potential for diving/exploring the site and afterwards we talked about future dives using trimix.
We made the second dive slightly shorter with a run time of 48 minutes as we were feeling cold and only in 5mm wetsuits, the max depth was 25 meters/84 feet. We didn’t see any Hammerheads this dive but had a sea lion and more turtles, Jorge also guided me on the sheer cliff face side of the volcano and pointed out where a cave entrance is.
After the dives we took the boat ride back to the channel, and Jorge arranged for the kegs of sofnolime, O2 bottle, and booster pump to be put on the Humboldt Explorer as it was docked there on the Sunday with the current week’s guests for their last day/highland tour. This was extremely convenient for me, as I could also put my rebreather on the boat, and it saved me transporting this the next day when we took the passenger ferry to board the Humboldt at the island of San Cristobal. Again small details, but great attention to detail, and logistical support from Jorge to make this trip run so smoothly.
Monday 16th August – The live-aboard
The other part of the group had already arrived in San Cristobal and boarded the boat, so when we took the 2 hour ferry crossing over, they were on their check dive, but we boarded the boat around 6pm, and received our briefing from the guides, Jaime and Maccaron, and had dinner at 7pm. I knew Maccaron from my last visit to the Galapagos and was happy we had 2 guides, each with 15 years experience guiding. There were 16 passengers in total on the boat, and 9 crew including the 2 guides, and we had 2 pangas to dive from. After dinner I set up the rebreather, and then had an early night as I wanted to calibrate the unit and text at 6.30 am in case there were any problems, breakfast was to be at 7am and the first briefing at 8am.
The Humboldt Explorer is a new live aboard, so was in good condition, with spacious rooms by live aboard standards, and a nice open top deck, with a tub and shade. The dining area had 2 tables that seated 8 each, so it was more social than some of the smaller tables on other live aboards. The drinks were complimentary, and a nice sofa area. Each room had a flat screen and DVD player.
The dive area had 2 set up’s to each side of the boat, and another set up area on the lower stern deck, where we boarded the pangas, this made it a little crowded for the divers who were ready and wanted to board the pangas, if the divers on the lower deck were not ready, especially if you’re wearing a rebreather and carrying a bail out.
I had a nice covered area for setting up the unit, and charging the tanks, and also camera storage.
Tuesday 17th August
1st dive Mosquera; We dived with Maccaron for this and the next dive. The max depth was 24 meters/80 feet with a dive time of 43 minutes, we planned 60, but surfaced earlier as we noticed one of the group missing, but they had returned to the boat without alerting anyone, fortunately this was not Darwin! I was familiar with this site from my check dive with Jorge. There was a slight current which we drifted with, and aside from the sea lion and fish, there wasn’t much action.
We returned to the boat for breakfast, I haven’t said much about the food yet, but so far it was amazing.
2nd dive Seymour; This dive was also uneventful as far as the big stuff goes, but Maccaron is a great guide and pointed out some cool Nudibranchs and sting rays. The dive time was 59 minutes and a max depth of 20 meters/66 feet.
After the second dive we collected some more supplies, and then the boat set off for the world famous Darwin, the highlight of this trip for myself on CCR and also the OC divers.
In the evening I prepared the rebreather for the next day and filled the tanks.
The water temp on these dives was 19c/66f.
To be continued.............
This trip was my third visit to the Galapagos archipelago, but undoubtedly the best as I got to realise a dream, to dive on a closed circuit rebreather at Darwin and Wolf islands, the Northern islands in the archipelago and famous for Whale sharks, Manta Rays, Galapagos sharks and the schooling Hammerheads.
I have been diving closed circuit rebreather since 2006, and had previously travelled to Cocos Island, Costa Rica, for a diving trip. Whilst I had a great experience, and enriching encounters with the aquatic life that lives there, I chose Coco’s Island as there was no rebreather support at that time in the Galapagos. In 2009 I conducted my second trip to the Galapagos and dove from the live-aboard the ‘Estrella Del Mar’ using open circuit scuba as there was still no rebreather support available.
Undeterred I spent several months after that trip talking with management of Explorer Ventures, the company that used the vessel for the liveaboard trip, and after a meeting with the owner at the DEMA 2009 show, and further discussion by e-mail, I was given permission to take my Megaladon CCR on a week long live-aboard trip on the Humboldt Explorer, a new vessel launched in June 2010 and operated under Explorer Ventures, this trip was also a group- booking I had organised and there were 16 of us on the boat though I was the only diver on CCR.
Gaining permission to take my rebreather on the live aboard was just the first of many challenges in conducting this trip. In February I started to look at how I could import a keg of Sofnolime into the country, and to the islands. An initial contact I had was with a dive centre owner, located in Guayaquil on the mainland, who talked with customs about duties in importing Sofnolime and the feedback I received was a special certificate might be needed. At this point I was considering simply vacuum sealing into packages and checking in, and paying any excess baggage charges. However at the same time I happened to browse the South America dive travel section of Scubaboard and saw a posting from a Galapagos resident, and technical/rebreather Instructor Jorge A. Mahauad, offering rebreather support and services. I immediately contacted Jorge and explained my situation to him, and he promptly responded and offered to rent me his tanks, a booster pump and would import Sofnolime.
Over the next few weeks/months I corresponded with Jorge A. Mahauad on a regular basis and he always responded promptly and with good information, and he would also provide me with updates on the progress of the shipping/customs, as he ordered 10 kegs of Sofnolime, and an extra 2 sets of 2 litre cylinders, and early enough so they would clear customs and be available for my trip.
As I was planning to be in Ecuador for a total of 3 weeks, and didn’t want to get hit by excessive roaming charges for checking e-mails/internet use on my smart phone, Jorge also arranged a local SIM card for me with a month’s data plan, so I would be able to check e-mails/access internet, and another sign of his professionalism and service was arranging for it to be at the hotel reception when I checked in so I had immediate access. As far as customer service goes this truly impressed me!!!
The Travel
I arrived in Quito on August 9th, I live and work in Honduras part of the year, so flew to Miami, met my girlfriend and then we flew to Ecuador. I transported the head of the rebreather, and my backplate in my carry on, and TSA security stopped me on both check in’s (one in Honduras and the other in Miami) more concerned with the backplate, than the electronics, but let it through. My 2 checked bags weighed 51 and 54 pounds, and I had to move some items around to get them down from 53 and 57 at check in.
We flew over to Baltra airport on the 12th August, and then after a 5 minute bus ride to the canal, took a short ferry crossing of 5 minutes to the main island of Santa Cruz and then a taxi to the main town of Puerto Ayora as we had were staying there until we had to embark the boat on the 16th August. Although the boat was going to leave from the neighbouring island of San Cristobal we chose to stay in Puerto Ayora as I planned to do a check out dive with Jorge, and collect the booster pump, tanks and sofnolime. There was also more to do in Puerto Ayora and we visited the Darwin station and took a walk to Tortuga beach to see the Iguanas.
I met with Jorge on the afternoon of the 13th August and we set up the rebreathers, and he briefed me on the operation of his booster pump. Jorge was just as professional and pleasant in person as his e-mails suggested and we discussed the potential for rebreather diving on the Galapagos and also diver training and technical training in general. Once the rebreathers were packed and set up, and gases analysed we moved the gear to the dive shop, Scuba Iguana, where we were meeting the next day at 7am to calibrate the units and then go diving for 2 dives.
The land based diving
Saturday 14th August
I met Jorge at the Scuba Iguana dive centre at 7am and we proceeded to check and calibrate the units. We then loaded the gear, and had a 1 hour taxi ride to the channel of Santa Cruz/Baltra where we boarded the boat and headed to the dive site of Mosquera for our first check dive. Jorge briefed the dive crew on emergency procedures for CCR divers as they had never had anyone with a rebreather on board before. Mosquera is a small island with a sea lion colony living there, and after descent/bubble checks we ran a 62 minute dive, to a maximum depth of 22 meters/73 feet at a set point of 1.3, air was used as diluents and we carried an AL80 with air for bail out.
The dive went smoothly, and we saw a sea lion, a Manta Ray glided above us, and it was nice to flip on my back and look up with a clear view and no bubbles, and we also had a very curious black tip reef shark swimming around us. The water temp was 19c/66f and after our safety stop, we just had to be very cautious ascending as we chose not to deploy the SMB and the boat was close by and we were the last 2 divers to ascend. After passing up the bail-out we could climb on board wearing the units, as there was a ladder.
For the second dive we went to Gordon Rocks, which is one of the best dive sites on the Southern islands for encountering Hammerheads, Mantas and turtles. The site is on an underwater volcano (obviously extinct) and has a steep drop off on one side, and the other side is the crater. Upon running the pre-dive checks Jorge had a cell failure so dived on OC, which I put down to the unit being set up on Friday 13th! We descended and within a few minutes had a sighting of 5-6 Hammerhead sharks at a depth of 20 meters/66 feet and our dive time was 51 minutes and again a set point of 1.3. The conditions were choppy on the surface, with strong surge and a 2 knot current underwater in places. There were many turtles at the site, and we also had an Eagle ray on the bottom, and an abundance of fish.
The boat actually took us back to the harbour of Puerto Ayora, and then we moved the rebreathers to Jorges, disinfected the units, and refilled the tanks and I repacked for the next day.
I had purchased 1 full keg of Sofnolime from Jorge, but as I had already used 2 fills on the land based diving, an anticipated another 6 fills, Jorge sold me a used keg that had about 2.5 fills in it so I could be sure of having enough Sofnolime.
Sunday 15th August
We hadn’t planned to dive this day, but the representative for Explorer Ventures, Jennifer Cumming, arranged a boat for us at a special rate, so our group of 4 recreational divers, and me and Jorge took up the offer, and we decided to do another 2 dives at Gordon Rocks. Jorge changed out his sensor as my girlfriend had brought down a couple of spares.
The water temperatures had dropped from the day before and we had a low of 17c/63f at the bottom depth. Our first dive had a run time of 62 minutes, and a max depth of 35.7 meters/120 feet as Jorge showed me the drop off at one edge of the crater. On this dive we descended into a school of 10 Hammerheads, and I’m not sure who was more surprised them or us! Throughout the dive we continued to have several more Hammer head encounters, and saw several turtles, and sea lions. This was by far the best dive so far, mainly due to the Hammerhead but also seeing the potential for diving/exploring the site and afterwards we talked about future dives using trimix.
We made the second dive slightly shorter with a run time of 48 minutes as we were feeling cold and only in 5mm wetsuits, the max depth was 25 meters/84 feet. We didn’t see any Hammerheads this dive but had a sea lion and more turtles, Jorge also guided me on the sheer cliff face side of the volcano and pointed out where a cave entrance is.
After the dives we took the boat ride back to the channel, and Jorge arranged for the kegs of sofnolime, O2 bottle, and booster pump to be put on the Humboldt Explorer as it was docked there on the Sunday with the current week’s guests for their last day/highland tour. This was extremely convenient for me, as I could also put my rebreather on the boat, and it saved me transporting this the next day when we took the passenger ferry to board the Humboldt at the island of San Cristobal. Again small details, but great attention to detail, and logistical support from Jorge to make this trip run so smoothly.
Monday 16th August – The live-aboard
The other part of the group had already arrived in San Cristobal and boarded the boat, so when we took the 2 hour ferry crossing over, they were on their check dive, but we boarded the boat around 6pm, and received our briefing from the guides, Jaime and Maccaron, and had dinner at 7pm. I knew Maccaron from my last visit to the Galapagos and was happy we had 2 guides, each with 15 years experience guiding. There were 16 passengers in total on the boat, and 9 crew including the 2 guides, and we had 2 pangas to dive from. After dinner I set up the rebreather, and then had an early night as I wanted to calibrate the unit and text at 6.30 am in case there were any problems, breakfast was to be at 7am and the first briefing at 8am.
The Humboldt Explorer is a new live aboard, so was in good condition, with spacious rooms by live aboard standards, and a nice open top deck, with a tub and shade. The dining area had 2 tables that seated 8 each, so it was more social than some of the smaller tables on other live aboards. The drinks were complimentary, and a nice sofa area. Each room had a flat screen and DVD player.
The dive area had 2 set up’s to each side of the boat, and another set up area on the lower stern deck, where we boarded the pangas, this made it a little crowded for the divers who were ready and wanted to board the pangas, if the divers on the lower deck were not ready, especially if you’re wearing a rebreather and carrying a bail out.
I had a nice covered area for setting up the unit, and charging the tanks, and also camera storage.
Tuesday 17th August
1st dive Mosquera; We dived with Maccaron for this and the next dive. The max depth was 24 meters/80 feet with a dive time of 43 minutes, we planned 60, but surfaced earlier as we noticed one of the group missing, but they had returned to the boat without alerting anyone, fortunately this was not Darwin! I was familiar with this site from my check dive with Jorge. There was a slight current which we drifted with, and aside from the sea lion and fish, there wasn’t much action.
We returned to the boat for breakfast, I haven’t said much about the food yet, but so far it was amazing.
2nd dive Seymour; This dive was also uneventful as far as the big stuff goes, but Maccaron is a great guide and pointed out some cool Nudibranchs and sting rays. The dive time was 59 minutes and a max depth of 20 meters/66 feet.
After the second dive we collected some more supplies, and then the boat set off for the world famous Darwin, the highlight of this trip for myself on CCR and also the OC divers.
In the evening I prepared the rebreather for the next day and filled the tanks.
The water temp on these dives was 19c/66f.
To be continued.............
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