Wednesday 18th and Thursday 19th August at Darwin
We made 4 dives each day at approximately 8am, 11am, 2pm and 4pm with snacks in between dives and lunch served at 12.30pm to 1pm.
We were given a maximum dive time of 60 minutes, which for most of the OC divers was realistic for the first 2 dives of the day but then the afternoon dives tended to be shorter at depth. As a rebreather diver I kept the same run as the group, but the guides allowed me to stay off to the side and a little deeper, and I maintained a set point of 1.3.
The profiles I ran were;
Wednesday; Dive 1-25mt/84ft for 54min, Dive 2-27mt/90ft for 57min, Dive 3-26mt/87ft for 61 min, Dive 4-22mt/70ft for 51min.
Thursday; Dive 1-29mt/97ft for 53min, Dive 2-32mt/107ft for 44min, Dive 3-30mt/100ft for 55min, Dive 4-27mt/90ft for 45min.
The water temperature was warmer than the Southern islands and around 23c/73f, and the entries/descents were the challenging part of the dives, as it was negative entries and meet around 10mt/33ft to continue the descent. So immediately upon entering I ran descent checks and had my girlfriend do the bubble check and at depth pass me the camera, the surge/current made it tricky as well.
After the last dive I would disinfect the unit and let it dry, after dinner I would repack the scrubber, refill the tanks and assemble. The crew would top off my diluent, but I would operate the booster pump as it had been rented and the crew had no experience with this and I wanted to take care of it. Each morning I would get up before breakfast to calibrate and run the checks. The boat was rebreather friendly in terms of set up, a large deck with a camera area and I had a shelf for the rebreather parts, a hose with fresh water, my bottle of O2 out of the way, and a cupboard where I kept my sofnolime. There were also these air hoses which I used for drying the hoses/lungs. I noticed my primary handset was getting low on the battery, around 5.2v under load so I changed to my spare battery, however it didn’t work, so note to self, always test spare batteries before departure. I then switched the secondary with the primary as a short term solution which lasted the duration of the trip.
For the aquatic life it was just incredible, each day we would spend part of the dive just fixed to the rocks so we had Hammerhead encounters as they would pass and check us out, and also Galapagos sharks. There were moray eels, schools of trevallys, and we also had several Whale shark encounters. Silky’s would circle the boat as well, and Dolphins accompany us on the panga rides.
The best dive was the last one on Thursday, we noticed on dive 3 the schools of Hammerheads increasing in size, and on a sand area, so we spent dive 4 with 10 minutes on the rocks then moved to about 20mt/67ft, but I moved off from the group and stayed around 26mt/87ft, and was circled/buzzed/shocked/awed by hundreds of Hammerheads going above and around me, and several came within 1mt/3ft!!!!
In the evening the boat made the 3 hour crossing to Wolf island for the next day’s diving.
Friday 20th August Wolf Island
Wolf Island is larger than Darwin Island so we were briefed on the days diving early in the AM, and that involved 4 dives at 3-4 different dive sites. My profiles were very similar to Darwin;
Dive 1-30mt/100ft with runtime 54 minutes, Dive 227mt/90ft with runtime 46 minutes, Dive 3-26mt/87ft with runtime 60 minutes, Dive 4-27mt/90ft with runtime 41 minutes (briefed for 40 as we were losing daylight soon).
There were less chances of a Whale shark encounter at Wolf Island, and we didn’t get one, but the action from the Hammerheads made up for it and on the first dive they seemed really agitated and we would find out later why. We dived on sloping walls/rocks, and so the schools of Hammerheads would pass to the side in walls as opposed to swimming directly overhead. On all dives I kept my distance from the group on OC, but within sight of their bubbles. One of the better Hammerhead encounters was when a school of 100 passed me, some swimming directly over me, and then the school circled and came back to check me out. The Galapagos sharks were very curious, and I had one circle me over 6 times.
Between Dive 1 and 2 we had Orca whales come into the island to hunt and feed, in fact one of the guides actually saw one Orca take out a Hammerhead, and he said in 15 years of guiding/diving the island it was only the second time he had seen an Orca underwater on a dive, and that’s what was making the Hammerheads so anxious and swimming frantically around the rocks. We followed in the pangas and actually dropped in the water in snorkel gear, hanging onto the side of the panga to take videos/stills.
There was a little incident after dive 2, when we surfaced the panga was nowhere in sight and we surfaced to the South of Wolf, and the pangas and liveaboard were on the East side. We deployed the surface markers and kept together as a group, and we drifted for 20 minutes before the panga came to pick us up. During this time a school of silky sharks gathered below us. The panga driver apologised as he followed the wrong set of bubbles as the other group had broke in 2. This made me think how more challenging it would be to follow a dedicated group of rebreather divers.
I topped up my tanks at lunch time again, and maybe on the next trip I would use 3 litres instead as Jorge had these available.
We had the same action with the Hammerheads in the afternoon as the morning, and the last dive was a little shorter as we were losing daylight, and the local laws require all divers to be out of the water before sunset.
There was no one else in the group who consistently had such close encounters with the Hammerheads. I can’t describe the level of intimacy that diving on a CCR allows you to get from the aquatic encounters, it was almost as if the sharks would come to check me out, and I hyperlinked my amateur videos below, and in one of them you can see the Hammerheads turn and buzz me! This kind of think wouldn’t be achievable on open circuit, as my fellow divers testified.
At 6 pm we left Wolf and made the crossing to the island of Isabella, for the next day’s diving. I cleaned the unit, inspected it for any damage as with the surge I had taken some knocks against the rocks. After dinner I then repacked and filled tanks for the next day.
The water temps were also 23c/73f.
Saturday 21st August
The briefing for Cabo Marshall, Isabela, was a little earlier at 7.45am, and we were offered the option of 3 dives, or 2 dives, and a panga ride on the shoreline. Due to the lowered water temperature to 19c/66f and reduced visibility, all divers opted for the 2 dives and panga ride.
Isabela is the largest and highest altitude of the Southern islands, and was formed from the eruptions of at least six former volcanoes that ended up forming a big lava mass, which is actually the largest island in the archipelago today. The site was a sloping rocky wall, formed from lava rock and with small tube formations, to a bottom of 45mt/133ft, and the dive profile was advised to be 10mt/33ft to 20mt/66ft.
I followed ahead most of the group on this dive, with 2 open circuit buddies, and after we all saw a Manta Ray, approx 5mt/15ft wide, on descent, had another 2 sightings, though due to condensation on the camera was unable to get good footage, plus the other 2 encounters were very brief. After 40 minutes I ascended to the safety stop and had my 3rd encounter by myself with a smaller Manta passing.
After the surface interval only half of the group made the second dive. To reduce the chances of condensation in the camera housing I put the camera in the AC cabin to cool, and packed the housing with toilet paper. It worked, as throughout the second dive I had no condensation at all. For the second dive I spent most of it by myself, but within site so I could see the other open circuit diver’s bubbles. This was by far my best opportunity for better Manta Ray encounters, as at an average depth of 15mt/38ft, I had at least 5 decent encounters, and got some good video footage and swam with one Manta for 1.5 minutes underneath.
My 2 profiles were;
Dive 1-19mt/63ft for 43 minutes
Dive 1-16mt/54ft for 48 minutes
After the second dive the guides took us on a short 15 minute snorkel tour in a lagoon to see sea lions. Due to national park guidelines the liveaboard had to leave the area by 1pm to the island of Santa Cruz for our destination of Cousins dive site for the last day of diving.
When we got back to the boat I cleaned the rebreather, filled tanks and left the parts to dry, whilst I sealed the scrubber in a plastic bin liner, as I only had 90 minutes of use I planned to use this for the last day of diving.
The boat ride to Santa Cruz was 5 hours and a smooth crossing with time to update this report and back up photos/video plus time for a siesta.
Sunday 22nd August last dive
We arrived at Cousins Rock the previous night, and after breakfast received the briefing. This dive site was more for the macro life rather than the big action we had encountered during the trip, and was a volcanic rock, with different topography on each side, a sloping wall, to steeper drop off’s. The dive time was planned to 40-50 minutes due to the lower water temperatures of 16c/63f. I had planned just 1 dive at this point as I needed a bit of extra time to clean, dry out and put away the rebreather.
The dive was pretty tame compared to what we had seen so far, but there were sea lions and some of the other divers had a Manta pass by. My profile was 20mt/66ft, set point 1.3, for runtime of 45 minutes.
After the dive I broke down the unit, cleaned and then put the equipment out to dry. The head went back in my carry on bag, with the canister, and everything else in the dive bag. I also cleaned the booster pump, and set the remainder of my sofnolime on the deck for taking back to the town where we would stay for a few days. The liveaboard moored between Baltra and Santa Cruz and after lunch and farewell cocktails the pangas took the entire group to the dock where a mini bus was waiting to take the group for a highland tour at a turtle farm. After the tour the group would then go souvenir shopping in the town before returning to the boat at 6.30pm. Myself and 4 others skipped the tour as we had previously done this, and there were 5 of us that would disembark now from the trip and stay in Puerto Ayora, whilst the rest of the guests and the boat continued onto San Cristobal where they would disembark the next day.
The crew were extremely helpful and transferred all our baggage, and the O2 bottle, booster pump and Sofnolime for me, and when we arrived at Puerto Ayora I delivered them back to Jorge at his office, and arranged to meet him the next day at 2pm for a debrief on the trip, and to plan one last land based CCR dive for Tuesday with Jorge.
To be continued..........
We made 4 dives each day at approximately 8am, 11am, 2pm and 4pm with snacks in between dives and lunch served at 12.30pm to 1pm.
We were given a maximum dive time of 60 minutes, which for most of the OC divers was realistic for the first 2 dives of the day but then the afternoon dives tended to be shorter at depth. As a rebreather diver I kept the same run as the group, but the guides allowed me to stay off to the side and a little deeper, and I maintained a set point of 1.3.
The profiles I ran were;
Wednesday; Dive 1-25mt/84ft for 54min, Dive 2-27mt/90ft for 57min, Dive 3-26mt/87ft for 61 min, Dive 4-22mt/70ft for 51min.
Thursday; Dive 1-29mt/97ft for 53min, Dive 2-32mt/107ft for 44min, Dive 3-30mt/100ft for 55min, Dive 4-27mt/90ft for 45min.
The water temperature was warmer than the Southern islands and around 23c/73f, and the entries/descents were the challenging part of the dives, as it was negative entries and meet around 10mt/33ft to continue the descent. So immediately upon entering I ran descent checks and had my girlfriend do the bubble check and at depth pass me the camera, the surge/current made it tricky as well.
After the last dive I would disinfect the unit and let it dry, after dinner I would repack the scrubber, refill the tanks and assemble. The crew would top off my diluent, but I would operate the booster pump as it had been rented and the crew had no experience with this and I wanted to take care of it. Each morning I would get up before breakfast to calibrate and run the checks. The boat was rebreather friendly in terms of set up, a large deck with a camera area and I had a shelf for the rebreather parts, a hose with fresh water, my bottle of O2 out of the way, and a cupboard where I kept my sofnolime. There were also these air hoses which I used for drying the hoses/lungs. I noticed my primary handset was getting low on the battery, around 5.2v under load so I changed to my spare battery, however it didn’t work, so note to self, always test spare batteries before departure. I then switched the secondary with the primary as a short term solution which lasted the duration of the trip.
For the aquatic life it was just incredible, each day we would spend part of the dive just fixed to the rocks so we had Hammerhead encounters as they would pass and check us out, and also Galapagos sharks. There were moray eels, schools of trevallys, and we also had several Whale shark encounters. Silky’s would circle the boat as well, and Dolphins accompany us on the panga rides.
The best dive was the last one on Thursday, we noticed on dive 3 the schools of Hammerheads increasing in size, and on a sand area, so we spent dive 4 with 10 minutes on the rocks then moved to about 20mt/67ft, but I moved off from the group and stayed around 26mt/87ft, and was circled/buzzed/shocked/awed by hundreds of Hammerheads going above and around me, and several came within 1mt/3ft!!!!
In the evening the boat made the 3 hour crossing to Wolf island for the next day’s diving.
Friday 20th August Wolf Island
Wolf Island is larger than Darwin Island so we were briefed on the days diving early in the AM, and that involved 4 dives at 3-4 different dive sites. My profiles were very similar to Darwin;
Dive 1-30mt/100ft with runtime 54 minutes, Dive 227mt/90ft with runtime 46 minutes, Dive 3-26mt/87ft with runtime 60 minutes, Dive 4-27mt/90ft with runtime 41 minutes (briefed for 40 as we were losing daylight soon).
There were less chances of a Whale shark encounter at Wolf Island, and we didn’t get one, but the action from the Hammerheads made up for it and on the first dive they seemed really agitated and we would find out later why. We dived on sloping walls/rocks, and so the schools of Hammerheads would pass to the side in walls as opposed to swimming directly overhead. On all dives I kept my distance from the group on OC, but within sight of their bubbles. One of the better Hammerhead encounters was when a school of 100 passed me, some swimming directly over me, and then the school circled and came back to check me out. The Galapagos sharks were very curious, and I had one circle me over 6 times.
Between Dive 1 and 2 we had Orca whales come into the island to hunt and feed, in fact one of the guides actually saw one Orca take out a Hammerhead, and he said in 15 years of guiding/diving the island it was only the second time he had seen an Orca underwater on a dive, and that’s what was making the Hammerheads so anxious and swimming frantically around the rocks. We followed in the pangas and actually dropped in the water in snorkel gear, hanging onto the side of the panga to take videos/stills.
There was a little incident after dive 2, when we surfaced the panga was nowhere in sight and we surfaced to the South of Wolf, and the pangas and liveaboard were on the East side. We deployed the surface markers and kept together as a group, and we drifted for 20 minutes before the panga came to pick us up. During this time a school of silky sharks gathered below us. The panga driver apologised as he followed the wrong set of bubbles as the other group had broke in 2. This made me think how more challenging it would be to follow a dedicated group of rebreather divers.
I topped up my tanks at lunch time again, and maybe on the next trip I would use 3 litres instead as Jorge had these available.
We had the same action with the Hammerheads in the afternoon as the morning, and the last dive was a little shorter as we were losing daylight, and the local laws require all divers to be out of the water before sunset.
There was no one else in the group who consistently had such close encounters with the Hammerheads. I can’t describe the level of intimacy that diving on a CCR allows you to get from the aquatic encounters, it was almost as if the sharks would come to check me out, and I hyperlinked my amateur videos below, and in one of them you can see the Hammerheads turn and buzz me! This kind of think wouldn’t be achievable on open circuit, as my fellow divers testified.
At 6 pm we left Wolf and made the crossing to the island of Isabella, for the next day’s diving. I cleaned the unit, inspected it for any damage as with the surge I had taken some knocks against the rocks. After dinner I then repacked and filled tanks for the next day.
The water temps were also 23c/73f.
Saturday 21st August
The briefing for Cabo Marshall, Isabela, was a little earlier at 7.45am, and we were offered the option of 3 dives, or 2 dives, and a panga ride on the shoreline. Due to the lowered water temperature to 19c/66f and reduced visibility, all divers opted for the 2 dives and panga ride.
Isabela is the largest and highest altitude of the Southern islands, and was formed from the eruptions of at least six former volcanoes that ended up forming a big lava mass, which is actually the largest island in the archipelago today. The site was a sloping rocky wall, formed from lava rock and with small tube formations, to a bottom of 45mt/133ft, and the dive profile was advised to be 10mt/33ft to 20mt/66ft.
I followed ahead most of the group on this dive, with 2 open circuit buddies, and after we all saw a Manta Ray, approx 5mt/15ft wide, on descent, had another 2 sightings, though due to condensation on the camera was unable to get good footage, plus the other 2 encounters were very brief. After 40 minutes I ascended to the safety stop and had my 3rd encounter by myself with a smaller Manta passing.
After the surface interval only half of the group made the second dive. To reduce the chances of condensation in the camera housing I put the camera in the AC cabin to cool, and packed the housing with toilet paper. It worked, as throughout the second dive I had no condensation at all. For the second dive I spent most of it by myself, but within site so I could see the other open circuit diver’s bubbles. This was by far my best opportunity for better Manta Ray encounters, as at an average depth of 15mt/38ft, I had at least 5 decent encounters, and got some good video footage and swam with one Manta for 1.5 minutes underneath.
My 2 profiles were;
Dive 1-19mt/63ft for 43 minutes
Dive 1-16mt/54ft for 48 minutes
After the second dive the guides took us on a short 15 minute snorkel tour in a lagoon to see sea lions. Due to national park guidelines the liveaboard had to leave the area by 1pm to the island of Santa Cruz for our destination of Cousins dive site for the last day of diving.
When we got back to the boat I cleaned the rebreather, filled tanks and left the parts to dry, whilst I sealed the scrubber in a plastic bin liner, as I only had 90 minutes of use I planned to use this for the last day of diving.
The boat ride to Santa Cruz was 5 hours and a smooth crossing with time to update this report and back up photos/video plus time for a siesta.
Sunday 22nd August last dive
We arrived at Cousins Rock the previous night, and after breakfast received the briefing. This dive site was more for the macro life rather than the big action we had encountered during the trip, and was a volcanic rock, with different topography on each side, a sloping wall, to steeper drop off’s. The dive time was planned to 40-50 minutes due to the lower water temperatures of 16c/63f. I had planned just 1 dive at this point as I needed a bit of extra time to clean, dry out and put away the rebreather.
The dive was pretty tame compared to what we had seen so far, but there were sea lions and some of the other divers had a Manta pass by. My profile was 20mt/66ft, set point 1.3, for runtime of 45 minutes.
After the dive I broke down the unit, cleaned and then put the equipment out to dry. The head went back in my carry on bag, with the canister, and everything else in the dive bag. I also cleaned the booster pump, and set the remainder of my sofnolime on the deck for taking back to the town where we would stay for a few days. The liveaboard moored between Baltra and Santa Cruz and after lunch and farewell cocktails the pangas took the entire group to the dock where a mini bus was waiting to take the group for a highland tour at a turtle farm. After the tour the group would then go souvenir shopping in the town before returning to the boat at 6.30pm. Myself and 4 others skipped the tour as we had previously done this, and there were 5 of us that would disembark now from the trip and stay in Puerto Ayora, whilst the rest of the guests and the boat continued onto San Cristobal where they would disembark the next day.
The crew were extremely helpful and transferred all our baggage, and the O2 bottle, booster pump and Sofnolime for me, and when we arrived at Puerto Ayora I delivered them back to Jorge at his office, and arranged to meet him the next day at 2pm for a debrief on the trip, and to plan one last land based CCR dive for Tuesday with Jorge.
To be continued..........
Last edited:
