The Friedmans' Travel and Photos

Mabini Day 3

2017-02-06T22:06:00.000+02:00

By now waking up, breakfast, and loading the boat was becoming a routine.

Dive #8 Kanto Bahura

This was a wall dive with a bit of current. The wall was from ~5-10m all the way down to ~30-40 meters. The current brought food, and many fish were out feeding in the water column.

After about 20min we reach the corner of the wall. Here Abbet points to large fish that go over our head.

At the corner we hit strong current. It takes a while to get ourselves straightened out. By this time most of the group is low on air. Abbet, raises a signal, and we hang on the line waiting for the safety stop. This is a good excuse for some pictures.

Dive #9 Beatrize/Beatrice

This dive site is just next to Sombrero site we visited yesterday (just a bit further from the island).

This dive I am mostly focused on capturing the landscape. The area has coral pillars and large barrel sponges. All are surrounded by corals everywhere in between. A wonderful coral garden.

A large green frogfish pretends we can't see it.

I find a large anemone and photograph it.

Abbet signals a find. This is a weird brown short arm anemone and on it resting two half-transparent shrimps.

The last few minutes of the dive I spend on a nudibranch perched on a pinecone-like tunicate.

As I finish with it, Noa points to a pair of similar nudibranches actively mating. They are hiding in a coral overhang. Sadly, after two shots, my camera is out of battery.

I am low on air, and slowly ascend to the safety stop.

We return to the club for lunch and some rest. After lunch I replace the batteries in the camera and the strobes. After that, I do checks to see that the camera can be operated (sitting correctly in the housing), that the strobe synchronize and such. As I do my test shot, I head a sharp noise, as thought the strobe discharged too much. I realize that the strobes are set to max output, and I did not reduce that before test shot. I try again, and I notice that one of the strobes is not responding. The “ready” light is on, but the strobe is not flashing. To make a long story (replacing batteries, letting it rest for a while, etc) shorter, the strobe is not working.

I later found out that the flash tube shuddered and that this is a not-uncommon failure of this particular model. The good news is that changing the flash tube is much cheaper than buying a new strobe.

I dismantle one of the strobe arms, and remain with a single arm camera. Since we next are going for a wide angle location and then I a night dive, I decide to put my backup camera (older model) in one housing with the fisheye lens, and then newer camera with macro lens. I will swap the strobe arm between them.

Dive #10 Cathedral

This site is just next to the resort. And the ride is five minutes. The name is due to a cross that sits at depth of 17meter between two large walls of rock.

I roll off the boat first and go down to a shallow coral garden. I realize I forgot my dive computer on the boat (attached to the housing of the newer camera). I go up to retrieve it. By the time I secured it on my wrist, the rest of the group is down. I follow them a bit behind. As I come nearer I see Ayelet swimming after a sea turtle toward my left. This gave me the opportunity to intercept their trajectory and take pictures of the turtle swimming toward me. As I swim I turn on the camera, correct the setting and check the flash, actions I usually take when I enter the water. I was surprised that I did this semi-automatically while swimming and keeping track of the turtle and Ayelet.

After few pictures, we give up on following the turtle. I see an impressive purple sea anemone. I take one picture, but the group is impatient to continue the dive.

We go down slope and reach the cross. It paints an impressive picture against the light from the afternoon sun.

Abbet takes around the steep pillars flanking the cross. The rocks here are decorated with yellow and green corals, and is full of life.

I find that I need to work harder to use the fisheye lens (which I took for this dive) and a single strobe. I have to be careful to get proper illumination of the wide scenes.

When we return to the cross, Abbet takes us along the slope. This area is a rock garden with many stone corals. These are not as fancy as the ones we usually see, but they display multiple shapes and patterns.

We run across a small school of barracudas.

By the time we near the boat the sun is low on the horizon and provide nice background for photographs.

We sail to our next dive site. We sit on the boat waiting for the sun to go down.

Dive #11 Bosco

This area is a gentle sandy slope. We start going along the slope (and downwards) looking for small animals. There are many anemone and sea-pens that come out at night from the sand. On some of them we find small hidden crabs.

We have a short encounter with a sepia cuttlefish.

Abbet finds another shrimp on one of the colorful sea urchins. I then find a crab on another one.

I find a weird sea-star. It seems that have regenerated from a single arm.

Toward the end of the dive we run into an octopus. It is busy exploring the shallow area of the slope, and pretty much ignores us.

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Mabini Day 2

2017-02-05T22:13:00.000+02:00

I had a dreadful night, jetlag playing havoc with me. When I finally was asleep the alarm clock woke me up. We had early breakfast and assembled for diving at 7am.

The boat took us across the bay to the island and anchored across from a steep rock wall.

Dive #4: Kirby’s rock

We dove in and started following a steep wall that continued underwater. Abbet took us down toward a spot where a lonely gorgonia fan was located next to the floor of a small canyon.

Abbet started waving at it looking for pigmy seahorse. He found one with great excitement. I could barely see that there was a small part of the fan that might have been slightly different, and photographed in half blind fashion.

By that time the rest of the group crowded in, and it was hard to navigate except for going slowly up and hoping not hit any one.

We continued by circling a large rock that with steep walls. The walls were crowded with small yellow animals, that are some type of sea cucumber. When we got back to the start, I moved in on the gorgonia which by now has been left to itself. Without help I did not manage to find the pigmy horse again.

We started to return along the wall we came from. I notice a large black frog fish sitting on the wall. Abbet immediately gathered everyone to see it.

Further up the wall Abbet finds a seasnake. The snake was slowly checking different crevices in the rocks, putting its head into each one. I assume it was search for prey. It totally ignored us and didn’t care that several cameras were flashing.

We end the dive and go up.

Initially we were supposed to go a small outcrop called sombrero, for its shape. But Abbet estimated that the currents are too strong and thus we returned toward the village and dove at a closer site.

Dive #5: Eagle point

We plunge from the boat into the water just few meters from the shore. There is a steep slope from the surface down to 20-40 meters, and we go along it. Most of the wall is covered with small corals and different life forms.

There are many subjects for macro photographs. I find different types of nudibranches.

I come to a large anemone, and notice something white among the tentacles. It is a porcelain crab sitting in a nice protected position. It draws in plankton from the sea with two net-like appendices.

Ayelet, Boaz and me go slower than the rest of the group. At some point we see Abbet next to a mooring line, our exit point. He makes a signal of two capped hands that he opens and close. I am not sure what he is talking about, but then see a giant clam, maybe a meter across. Close to it there is another one. Photos are lacking since I was with a macro lens. At lunch Ofer explained that these giant clams were gone from this area, and only recently were reintroduced into marine reserves. The predetor of the clam are humans who find it to be a delicacy.

We return to resort. Noa and Iftach go with Abbet to the local market. They return after less than an hour we few fruits. We all share pineapple, which is tasty although not amazing (as we might expect in a tropical area).

After lunch we set out again. We sail out toward a small island further out than the rest. The name is self explanatory given the shape of the island.

Dive #6 – Sombrero

We moored on the further side of the island and went in at shallow area. The topography was of outcrops of rock with wide channels between them. The whole area was rich with life and color.

There are many big sponges here. I notice that a particular fish likes to perch on the edge of the sponge. This provides a great picture opportunity.

I notice a mantis shrimp running between the coral. It is a big one and moving fast from one cover to the next. I managed to barely catch it before it disappears. Later in the dive I notice another one, but this one disappeared even faster.

Mantis shrimp running for cover

A sealily that nestling inside a sponge

At the lower part of the coral garden there is a stretch of sand with garden eels. They look a bit different than the one we are used to see in Eilat, and they are (a bit) less shy.

I am running low on air and so go up to the shallows. I don’t want to get out of the water. I practice meditation on various ascidians that cover the corals.

Finally I really have to get out. I get to the boat. I notice that there is a cloud of colorful fish hanging below the boat, using it as a shelter I guess.

We all come out of the dive with a “wow” feeling. We sail back to the resort. By the time we get there it is late afternoon. We are supposed to go out for a night dive in an hour or so.

Dive #7 – Matu

Only some of us decided to join the night dive. So we all fit on one boat. As dusk sets in, we sailed along the shore and anchored in a small bay formed by a large rock extending into the sea.

We roll in next to the wall. I immediately spot a pair of nudibranchs, their position seem to suggest they are trying to mate.

We follow Abbat down along the sandy slope. We see many colorful sea-urchins relative (more like pincushions).

Zoom in on some of the pins

I see a light flashing vigorously, signing a discovery. I follow it to find Abbat next to one of these pincushions. He points his stick to two shrimps that nestle between the “pins”.

We continue exploring the area. I find a small crab hiding on a sea-lily.

On another pincushion I find a highly ornamental crab.

We continue along slope and eventually reach the rock wall again. We encounter two relatively large squids.

As I photograph them, they keep coming toward the camera – maybe they saw their own reflection. I keep backing up to get them into the frame, and they keep chasing me. This goes on for several minutes.

Along the wall we encounter different types of sea-anemones and nudibranches.

Emanuel grabs me, and points me toward an area a bit above the ground. There is a small cube fish. These tiny buggers have transparent fins, and so they appear as a tiny dice bobbing to and fro.

As I am concentrating on capturing this fellow in my focus, and suddenly a large green monster crosses between my target and me. A moray eel with bad temper.

By now we are at shallow water. There are small passages between the rocks, and we explore them. Omer and Ayelet find few specimens of a large nudibranch. It is a bit too big to capture properly with the macro lens given the lower visibility (lots of sand).

My air is almost out, and I reluctantly surface and find my way back to the boat.

pinkish hermit crab

We return to the resort, happy and tired. After dinner, Omer opens a bottle of whiskey he brought with him.

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Mabini Day 1

2017-02-04T10:00:00.000+02:00

We flew from Israel to the Philippines through Seoul. The first leg was 10 hrs, than 4hrs connection in Seoul, and then another 4hrs leg to Manila. We left Israel at 10pm and arrived in Manila at 10pm (local time). Most of the group was flying with us, except for two (Hagai and Gal) who arrived few hours before via another flight, and Omer who was supposed to land about the same time as us. Collecting everyone took much longer than expected, and so we set on our way at around midnight.

Two vans collected us and drove us to our destination, which was another 3hrs, and for some reason we stopped twice to resupply along the way. After all of this, we got to our rooms around 4am.

I woke up a bit after 7. Going outside I could finally see where we are. The whole village is built s built on the slopes of a hill rising out of the water.

I set to construct the camera and check all the components. This took almost an hour. By that time most of the others were awake. After breakfast we sorted our equipment, checked that everyone was fully geared and finally got on our way.

The diving boats here are relatively small. They are similar to the ones we had in Moalboal last year – a thin body with two outriders made of bamboo. We divided between two similar boats.

Ayelet and me joined the "family boat", with three couples of parent/child - Iftach and Noa, Hagai and Gal, and Boaz and Naim. Naim arrived sick, and so did not join us for many of the dives.

The other (slightly smaller) boat hosted the rest of our group - Ofer (our fearless leader), Meytal, Daphna, Omer, Avishai and Emanuel.

On the boat we had a chance to chat with our divemaster, Abbet. With him on the same boat were three youngsters – Jim, Jules, and Jonathan (the three Js). Abbet said that he is diving for 38 years, almost everyday.

The first dive site was around the corner from an elongated island across the bay. Crossing the bay we got sprayed by the waves. But in all in it was pleasant to finally have some wind and smell the sea.

Dive #1 – Layag Layag

I was the first to roll off from our boat. The water below was clear and I could see a gentle slope with colorful outcrops of rock.

I later learned that there was a complication on the boat, Noa’s fin straps tore when she was putting them on. So it took a while to find a solution. In the end, Noa dove with Abbet’s fins, and he dove with Noa's single fin.

Abbet diving with a single fin. He also was a believer in a minimal diving suit

Cardinal fish, probably keep eggs in his mouth

Popcorn shrimp

Anemone and a Clownfish

Sponge decorated by sea-lilies and small sea cucumbers

There was a noticeable current, and most of the dive we drifted along the slope of the reef.

Fairly early my camera stopped working (dead battery), and so there are few photographs. We saw multitude of sea lilies and many small fish.

Dive statistics: Depth 18.40 (max), 11.03 (mean), time: 34:40

After the dive we returned back to the resort for lunch (as we started late, and it took time to get organized). After lunch and some rest, we set out again. I had a chance to replace the battery in my camera.

This time our dive site was along the shore of the of the main island - just across from Arthur's Dive club.

Dive #2 - Arthur's Rock

This was a rich reef on the steep slope of the shore. There were many small overhangs and life forms. Some of the corals and fish were familiar from the Red Sea and others were quite different.

There were huge barrel sponges along the reef. These are alway dramatic, and are different than what we are used to at home.

As we hoped, the area was rich with nudibranches.

At some point we spread out quite a bit, and I was toward the back taking my time exploring the reef. Abbet appeared next to me and signaled that he wants to show me something. I thought he wanted to show something just next to me, but he took me toward the other end of the reef, where he proudly showed me two large white frogfish.

Abbet started to probe the fish with his stick to get them lined up. I stopped him. I guess this is a local practice to "arrange" the objects for the photograph. I am against it, and later talked with Abbet about it, but this type of behavior repeated itself. I usually had to either go on (so that he would not have reason to keep annoying the fish) or tap him with my stick and signal "please stop".

We continued along the reef. I liked the combination of shapes and colors around.

Sadly, my air run out quite early, and I stopped the dive much earlier than most of my group. Later I learned that Ayelet run into a colorful Mantis shrimp while I was away photographing the frogfish.

Dive statistics: Depth 16.01 (max), 9.32 (mean), time: 45:40.

From Arthur's rock we return to the club to drop off people who did not want a third dive. In the end only Ayelet, Boaz and me were interested in one. The dive site was just around the corner from the resort.

Dive #3 - Koala

We dived in to a relatively gentle slope with groups of corals. Trying my camera, I see that it is dead again. By now it is getting darker, and so most of the dive was in dusky light.

Abbet shows us a nice Mantis shrimp, but alas, I don't have my camera. We also see many small animals and nudibranches.

Dive statistics: Depth 20.31 (max), 12.18 (mean), time: 51:20.

We returned to the dive club, washed our gear and climbed back to our rooms. From the common porch between the rooms we could see the impressive sunset.

I realized that my batteries probably drained between the time I charged them at home and getting here. And so I set to recharge all of them before use.

A Day in Guayaquil

2014-10-28T20:31:00.000+02:00

After a bit more than an hour flight from San Cristobal, we land in Guayaquil. This one of the main cities of Ecuador, and sits on the banks of a wide muddy river.

Two of us, Tamar and Shmulik, run to catch their connection. The remaining three, Momi, Ilan and me, are staying overnight and flying out tomorrow. We collect our bags and go outside to the waiting hall. A very nice person picks us up and brings us to the hotel. The hotel is located in the center of the downtown, just next to the main cathedral.

View from our hotel room

Since there is still some light, we decide to go for a stroll before searching for a place to have dinner. In front of our hotel is a small park with large Ficus trees.

Strolling through it, we find the important denizens - large iguanas. They are not afraid of people. In fact, some of them come up to the visitors and wait to be fed.

It is interesting to see that similarities and differences from the iguanas we came to know in the Galapagos. These are larger and thinner in build. They have large flap of skin below their face that we didn’t see in either the land nor marine iguanas in the Galapagos.

We stroll along the street toward the river bank. There is a large well maintained garden all along the river.

We see impressive number of police that maintain order here, as well as cleaning crews that use strong water guns to keep the grounds nice and clean.

We walk toward the older part of the city. Las Penas and Cerro Santa Ana are one neighborhood situated on a steep hill on the river side. This was one of the earliest neighborhoods in the city. It is known for the colorful houses and the narrow winding streets. Apparently this was slums until the city decided to restore it to a historical monument.

View of Cerros Santa Ana from the boardwalk

There is a street with 444 stairs that heads to the summit. The stairs are numbered so you can see your progress as you go up.

The last stair!

By the time we get to the neighborhood the sun is already gone. From the summit we can see the lighted sprawl of the city around us.

We go down to the sea level, and catch a cab to a neighborhood that supposed to host many restaurants. The directions we got were not that good, and we end up in a street of shish-kabab stores. We are not too excited about the selection and start exploring about. By now all our phones are without batteries, so the internet is not available.

We finally end up in a very fancy Italian restaurant. Ilan decides that this is our best option. We look a bit out of the place in sweaty travel cloths. The dinner is excellent (and expensive). Later on we read about the restaurant and find that it is one of the best in the city.

The next morning I wake up with acute ear pain and some fever. I decide to sleep through it while Ilan and Momi go for a walk. By noon time I feel a bit better and go out for a short stroll.

At this time, the iguanas are out in full force in the park, and give me a chance to photograph them.

There is also a pool with small river(?) turtles. These for some reason aggregated to one end of their pool and piled up on each other.

And then there were more iguanas.

I take a short stroll to the boardwalk. The sky is gray and the light is a bit flat. I do go up on one of the "observation towers" built along the boardwalk and take a stock of the view.

By now I am tired. I return to hotel to meet Ilan and Momi who returned from their travels. We checkout from our rooms, and sit down in the plush lobby to wait for our driver.

San Cristobal and Departure

2014-10-27T15:51:00.000+02:00

I wake up and go upstairs. This will be the last time I see the sunrise from a boat’s deck for a long while. I guess I will miss this two-week habit.

We are moored in San Cristobal. The sunrise does not disappoint.

From the deck I see a group of sea-lions playing in the water just below me.

After breakfast, we have the last briefing. William explains the procedures for checking in for our flights. Its time to finish packing. We load the suitcases onto the deck.

Most of the passengers on our boat are staying for a day or two in San Cristobal. The few that do fly out have to wait until mid-day for the flight.

The plan is simple, we go to the port. The crew members will take our suitcases and check us in for the flight, and half an hour before the flight a minibus will take us to the airport.

We have time to kill, and Ilan suggest we take a cab to a beach outside town. The place is called Las Loberias. The cab fare is 2$ and the ride is about 15min. We ask the cab driver to pick us up in about an hour (we take a big safety margin).

The trail leads us to a rocky beach. We encounter sea lions, iguanas and crabs.

We continue along the trail and get to a sandy area. There is a large colony of sea lions living here.

In the shallow water there is a pack of sea lion pups busy playing.

We watch them for a while. By now we start worrying that we need to head back.

We get to the parking lot, but the taxi is not there. We sit and wait.

A local lizard on the asphalt provides some distraction while we wait.

After about 15 minutes two cabs show up. Neither of them is our driver, they unload passengers heading for the shore. We take a ride back with one of them.

We still have plenty of time. We are not too hungry, but this is our last chance to get local ceviche. The second time at this nice little restaurant is not disappointing.

We still have time. We stroll back to the pier and take last session of shooting the birds and crabs.

A pelican in mid-dive

The minibus comes to pick us up. The ride to the airport is 5 minutes. The terminal here is minimal. Soon we are on the airplane, and up we go above the island.

Cousins Rock and Land Turtles

2014-10-26T13:25:00.000+02:00

Oct 26th

The ship sailed throughout the night. I thought I will have trouble sleeping, but in the end woke up at 6am, after most of the other people (I am usually the first one up).

We are moored close to Santiago island next to a small rock, called Cousin Rock.

Dive #1: Cousin Rock

The plan was to swim in a clockwise manner along the edge of the rock. We entered the water in an area with rocky bottom and bad visibility. The water was cold, much colder than our dives during the last few days.

The ledge of the rock is dense of a type of soft coral. We find a turtle sleeping on a small ledge. Everyone is hogging around it to photograph it. I open some distance from the group, and then start seeing things. Small fish hiding among the corals. Quite a few of small turtles partially hidden.

I reach a “corner” of the island. Here there is a little current, and I hold on to the rock. There is a large school of fish feeding in the current. Above them there is a school of barracudas. Suddenly all the fish are swimming frantically down, and I see a sea lion zooming from above. It swims like a torpedo down among the fish.

So many fish!

While I am watching all of this, Jimmy, my group’s dive master for today, takes the group above the corner and continues on. I decide to keep ignoring him and stay few minutes longer. As I continue, I find Shay photographing a sea star. I show him that behind him there is a sea lion. Next I show him the large school of barracudas.

Barracudas blocking the sun

We continue on and catch on with the group. There is a small passage in the rock, and a sea lion is searching the floor. It seems me and does few flips and then returns to it activity.

The group find a pair of white tip sharks and try to convince them to pose for the camera. I decide to skip the party and enjoy the dive.

I ascend a bit and find myself in a huge cloud of fish. A school of barracudas swims slowly through the cloud and I enjoy photographing them.

Dive #2: Cousins Rock

The second dive repeats the plan of the first. Going down, I land on the rocky shelf. Apparently I dislodged a barnacle, and a fast acting fish caught it, and swam away with its prize.

I run into a small sea lion that was moving along the rock shelf.

The shelves here are populated by soft corals that harbor various fish and sea stars.

Note that some polyps (close to the camera) are open while the others are closed

Reaching the corner of the rock shelf I encounter many fish again. There is a school of barracudas and large turtle.

Turning the corner I run into a nice sea star.

I see movement in shadows ahead of me, and come closer to discover some of the group. There are five or six large eagle rays between us, and seeing me they turn to their right and move away from us. I barely manage to catch few shots.

Closer to the rocks I encounter a strange fish behavior, a whole school of fish all “sitting” on the bottom without movement. The whole sandy floor was landing for hundreds of fish. The problem was that once I got close to photograph they would take off…

I then decide to play a bit with a school of yellow fish.

We return to the boat. This was our last dive. The deck is full of activity as we take apart the equipment, rinse it thoroughly, and bring it all to the upper deck to dry.

As we go through this, the boat starts traveling back toward Santa Cruz.

We eat lunch, and then settle the monetary business - paying for fuel fare (which for some reason is not included in the bulk cost of the package) and for nitrox.

We reach the channel between Santa Cruz and Baltra. We new start on a land trip. The Pangas take us to the ferry station (on the Santa Cruz side), where a minibus is waiting for us. Jimmy takes on the minibus, while William and the captain go on another bus to the town (they apparently have other business to deal with).

The road toward Puerto Ayora

The plan is to go meet the large turtles. Ilan and I are wondering whether this will be the same location as the one we were on last week, or whether there will be a new place.

As we go into the hills it starts to rain. We go off the road into the dirt track toward the turtle. I realize that this place is familiar. Indeed we return to the exact same farm we visited last time.

Unlike last time, it was wet and raining and there were no other visitors. We got equipped with plastic rain gear, and off we go. Jimmy leads on the tour. It seems that he is much better guide on land than in the sea.

A small waterfowl wading through the pond

drawing lines behind it

Poison "apple" tree

We finish the tour, and return to the bus. It takes us to Puerto Ayora. We have free time until dinner, which is in a restaurant reserved for us by William.

While others visit the various stores, Ilan and I go to see if there is still action at the fishermen’s pier. It is deserted. We return toward the main pier, and look for photographic opportunities.

On the vertical wall of the pier, just of the edge, there are iguanas and a light-footed sally

After chasing some finches, we notice a school of golden rays swimming parallel to the pier. These magnificent animals are almost at the water surface and we manage to follow them for several moments.

By now the late afternoon light is low. I barely manage to photograph a very forthcoming finch that was busy trying to eat a fly.

We go to the restaurant, and meet others from the group. The restaurant is fancy (price wise at least). The food is ok, but nothing to write home about.

Toward 8pm, William comes to collect us. We meet the captain and Jimmy and go on the bus. The drive back is quite and I doze off.

We reach the ferry terminal. By now it is closed and dark. We can see the full span of the night sky above us. There is some confusion until the pangas reach us, and I enjoy the view of the sky.

We hear the pangas approaching. The crew members light up the flashlight on their phones. It is amazing how bright these seem after you acclimate to the dark. The captain points to a large ray swimming just below us in the shallow water.

Once the pangas arrive, we all board them and start the journey back to the boat. It was longer than I expected. We travel without lights. Looking back I can see how the turbulent water behind the engines light up with fluorescence plankton.

Wolf (2nd time)

2014-10-25T14:06:00.000+03:00

The boat starts sailing at 3am from Darwin to Wolf. The sea is rough and we jump up and down. I wake up and start wondering where did I leave my cameras and how secure they are. I go up to the living room and find both of them after a search. I put them in a secure location. I find it hard to sleep again, and read a bit before I fall asleep.

I wake up at 5:45am just as we stop next to Wolf. Outside the sky is totally gray and there light rain. At 6am the bell rings and we start getting ready.

Dive #1: Shark bay

We return to the same site we were in two days ago. This time the dive feels much more comfortable. Just as we go down William spots an eagle ray, but it swims away before I manage to photograph it.

There is some current and we spend time watching the flow. The visibility is worse than last time, but the sharks do close flybys.

There are amazing amounts of moray eels between the rocks. We also see some lobsters peeking from their hiding places.

William shooting a large morey eel

When we get out to the blue we do not see much, but let the current take us. As we return to the slope we encounter a large eagle ray. All the photographers jump on it, and I decide to let it be.

We get closer to the rocks. Here the swell is pronounced, taking us and the fish back and forth few meters in each direction. Few sharks pass by.

We return to the ship and eat breakfast. While we eat we see the panga driver going over toward few fishing boats that anchor in our cove. After some transactions he returns with two fish from the tuna family.

Dive #2: Landslide

We return to the water. Here the current is not as strong, and we gently drift with it over the rocks.

William points to a large sea horse hiding between the rocks.

Again we get close up with some hammerheads.

I am a bit up from the group toward the rocks, and finally get a chance to photograph an eagle ray without fighting for position.

It is almost the end of the dive, and we encounter a pair of Galapagos Sharks patrolling along the rocks.

A turtle goes by signaling the end of a nice dive. During the ascent we meet more fish.

We finish the dive in a jovial mood. The panga ride is rocky and long, as the boat moved to anchor on the other side of the island. We encourage the driver to go faster over the waves, and I lean back to taste wave as though this was a sailboat.

Usually after the dive there is some fresh fruit waiting for us. This time, however, we are greeted by a plate of fresh tuna sashimi. Yum! The crowd calls for more, and the chef sends out another plate.

Dive #3: The Caves

This is our last dive at Wolf. In the original briefing, when we arrived here three days ago, William described it as less exciting.

The dive starts with floating along a steep wall of rock. The wall is decorated with colorful algae and corals.

We reach a small “two story” cave. William takes us through the lower opening and upward to the upper opening. The cave provide setting for silhouettes.

We reach another cave. This one provide a passage through.

We continue along the wall with schools of fish above us. We are in a large concave region of the wall. Given few years (thousands?) it will become a large cave.

A sea lion passes among us. As with previous encounters, this one surprises us.

I am floating a bit further out from the rock while everyone is searching for the sea lion. Suddenly I see a large hammerhead passing almost above me. The camera settings are off, but I manage to capture few reasonable shots.

William leads us to another cave, more of a large cavern with sandy bottom. At one of the corner a white-tipped reef shark is resting. On our approach it steers up and escape to search for an undisturbed spot.

By now my air is low, and I am not the only one. We descend to safety stop level and move away from the rock wall. I conclude it was a cute dive all in all, and a great conclusion to our Wolf/Darwin dives.

Back on the boat, this is a great time to go for a hot Jacuzzi as the boat starts the long journey back toward the main islands.

We have a long afternoon ahead of us. At one point dolphins join us, surfing ahead of us. I try closeup from the stern, with limited success.

The clear sky from earlier in the day turned into a mass of gray clouds. We couldn't see the sunset, but we did see a "bar code' pattern it left in the sky.

A rainy day at Darwin

2014-10-24T23:02:00.000+03:00

I wake up just before sunrise. Going up to deck I see the light on the horizon just below a thick cloud cover.

The sunrise is brief and then the sun disappears above the clouds. The day is gray with diffused light.

We get organized for the first dive of the day. Today my group is led by Jimmy, the second dive master. Unlike William who is active underwater, Jimmy is relaxed, maybe too relaxed, and just let things happen.

Dive #1: Darwin Arch

We take the panga to the base of the arch, and dive in. Jimmy moves us toward the edge of the rock platform and the current hits us strongly. We get settled in between the rocks on the edge and watch the sea life in the open.

The light is much dimmer than yesterday and consequently the visibility is poorer. We see hammerheads coming alone to check the fish. Some get a bit closer than we had before, and I get a chance for what I hope to be a proper photo.

After about 20min we see William’s group (who went in a bit after us) leave the ledge and go down into the blue. This seems to wake Jimmy up, and he signals for us to do the same. At this stage the two groups are almost intermingled and we all drift with the current. William’s group is further from the rocks while Jimmy keeps us closer to the cliff’s shoulder.

At some point I hear William shaking hard his noise maker and see him point into the blue. His group takes off quickly after him. I look at Jimmy and he is impassive. I debate whether to join the other group and see what the fuss is about, but then decide to stick to the rules.

Tamar and Shmulik find a small turtle that just sits on the rock. Ilan snaps few pictures of it, and then I get my turn.

By now the other group disappeared, and Jimmy slowly takes into the blue. It is devoid of any life, and we slowly drift going up toward the safety stop. When we are about to be done with the safety, and some of us already at the surface, three dolphins do a quick pass by to check us out. I manage to snap a picture of one of them, but then they are gone.

In case it is not clear, the 20min flat line, is us sitting on our butt

Returning to the boat we find William’s group already there. The big excitement was a whale shark that William spotted, and they got a chance to swim with it.

Our group members are disappointed. As Tamar put it, it is not that the dive was bad, but the other group saw something we didn’t and we got to see them seeing it, which meant we had the potential to join.

A curious booby

Dive #2: Darwin Arch

We set out in light rain. Once again we dropped off toward the ledge. There was strong current and the visibility was not much better. As I got down I saw William (whose group went first this time), perched on a rock with a eagle ray passing in front of him.

We sit on the rocks and look out. A big turtle passes by. Then three or four hammerheads make a close pass. After a while, a bigger school passes over head.

As we know from the earlier dives here, after 20-25 min we take off into the blue. I see a turtle swimming with two tuna fish, and go down to photograph them.

I hear a load shaking noise from the guides, and look up to see a huge whale shark swimming above me.

It swims along and I am keeping up with it for a minute or two, and then it dives down into the blue.

On the way out, we briefly see few dolphins again.

Before lunch I feel tired and go upstairs to nap. There is a light rain and most of the beds are wet. I doze off on one. I was waked by one of the crew members, lunch is served.

Dive #3: Darwin Arch

By now we know the drill. We come down and settle on the balcony. The current is strong, but not as strong as we have seen it yesterday.

The usual “fish soup” is swimming across from us. We see turtles, travelies, and hammerheads. Few of these come relatively close to where I am holding fast.

A school of hammerheads passes above and a bit further out. But then two of them move quickly toward us. It seems like an argument between the two. They twist and turn in the water and then disappear.

When we go out in the blue, we are in the midst of a school of the brownish fish. They swim in coordination around us, forming ever changing patterns in the water.

We go a bit higher and leave them below us. A pod of dolphins passes overhead.

Few minutes in the blue, and a dark shadow appears. Another whale shark. This one is smaller than the previous one we saw. It is moving relatively fast, and so it was a brief encounter.

We continue in the blue, and then we see a group of hammerheads swimming a bit below us toward the group. I am closest to them, and give chase. I am no match to the hammerhead, but managed to get a bit closer before they swam away.

I return to the group and we slowly ascend. I am half-way through my 3-minute safety stop, when another group of hammerhead approaches. Again, I try to get closer with some success.

Due to the multiple running around, I am one of the last to finish the safety stop. Ilan and me go up last, while the rest of the group is starting to board the panga. We are relatively close to the arch, and I try to take pictures of it from the water level.

Ilan, sans camera on this dive, enjoying the safety stop

Bobbies fly just above me, and one lands in the water.

Booby peaking underwater

The panga comes to the rescue

Dive #4: Darwin Arch

It is still raining, and so few of the divers decided that they had enough for the day. We go out five instead of eight.

The dive itself is similar to the previous ones. The smaller group, however, made the experience much nicer.

Wolf & Darwin

2014-10-23T23:12:00.000+03:00

Early morning sunrise. We are moored in a circular bay surrounded by high cliffs. We are on the west side of the island, so we do not see the sunrise. But we do get to see the clouds on west color up on the horizon.

The sky is full of sea birds circling the cliffs.

The captain raises the anchor and we start getting ready for dive. It seems that everyone is looking forward as they get ready well before we reach our dive site on the other side of the island.

Dive #1: Shark Bay

We return to yesterday’s first dive site. This time there is current, and so we position ourselves on the rocks and wait. A large school of hammerheads (several dozens at least) is passing by in the blue slightly above us. They go back and forth and we get to see them several time. To our disappointment none of them come closer to investigate us. They move in slow graceful and lazy manner.

Between sights of the sharks, we also see a lone turtle going by, several travelies. There are also schools of smaller fish, with big trumpet fish moving among them.

We see few galapagos sharks passing. After 20 minutes or so, we take off from the rocks and drift a bit with the current to a new view point. Again, we see the hammerheads passing above us.

Few minutes later William takes toward the blue. Here we see much more of the school. I try to get closer to them, and the current takes me away from the group.

I swim toward the rocks to get hold of something. I am alone in the water, and actually enjoy the tranquility. Then I notice Shay few meters from me. I join him. We notice a large eagle ray swimming toward us.

By now the rest of the group appear one by one. My air is getting lower, I signal to Ilan that I am on the way up, and start ascending. William suddenly see something and points to it, and everyone rushes in his direction. I later learn that he spotted a pair of mating turtles. In the mean time I try to maintain my depth for safety stop. The huge school of hammerheads passes below me.

Hammerheads from above

Close to the surface, various fish swim by and reflect in the sunlight. I try to catch some of them, and postpone surfacing as much as I can. Finally I give in and go up. The rest of the group surfaced about 30 meters from me and the panga is busy collecting them. I enjoy floating in the water looking at the birds above me.

We have breakfast and rest for a while.

Hezi and the birds

Dive #2 Shark Bay

We return to the same site. This time the current is even stronger, and we just sit on the “ledge” and watch the sea life. The shark school is still patrolling the area.

I try to position myself on a rock and put my hand to grab it, and it moves. I almost grabbed a large scorpion fish. It was cool about it and moved slightly aside to make sure I don’t try this again.

After few minutes I get bored of this, and decide to try the reef hook. The general idea is to have a rope with a hook on one end that can be attached to one of the D-rings on the other. You hook the edge of a rock and then let go and you float like a kite in the current. In preparation for the trip, Shay manufactured several hooks that he distributed to the various group members.

At first the hook was ok, and I managed to float a bit. But then the hook started to unravel, and eventually could not catch the rock. It seems that aluminum, no matter how thick, is not the right material for such hooks.

The rest of the dive was not eventful.

We return to the boat, and after lunch, start sailing toward Darwin. As we got further from Wolf, our accompanying birds departed. Apparently they are well aware of where they are in relation to their “base”.

Marcus posing with the birds

We get closer to the island, and can see the famous arch. Suddenly, I notice a dolphin jumping. And then another one, and another one. It seemed that dolphins were converging on the boat from multiple directions. Some of them were jumping so high that they seemed to be flying. Sadly, I didn’t manage to photograph these.

As usual with dolphins, it was fun seeing their obvious joy at the boat’s presence. However, few minutes after they showed up we were called for a briefing for the next dive, and had to miss the rest of the party.

The dives in Darwin are in a single site, the Arch. This rock is sits on an underwater rock platform, at about 10-15m depth, and around it there are deeper water. This platform interferes with a strong current, which results in even a stronger current which is great for fish who want to catch food.

Dive #3 Darwin Arch

We roll of the boat, and go down. On the way in we see a small turtle cruising by.

We settle on the rock edge and watch the current. Soon, large school of fish pass across from us and block out the sun.

Next to me a pair of fish swim by, a large trumpet fish and another large fish that I do not recognize. They seem to be sticking with each others which is unexpected.

The odd couple

Suddenly, the fish in front of us all swim frantically down. It takes me a minute to realize that they are being chased by dolphins.

Dolphins on the hunt

The dolphin attack is over in a minute, and we go back to watching the fish. As in Wolf, the hammerheads appear and patrol the currents.

As we start going up for the safety stop, a large pod of dolphin pass above us. My camera settings are all off, so the picture is terrible, but at least it gives a sense of the numbers.

Dolphins (bad image quality)

We reach the surface much closer to the Arch.

We get back on board for some rest. New flocks of boobies are perched on the railing.

We notice some shadows in the water next to the boat.

Few silky sharks are patrolling the water around the boat. Apparently they learned that the boats are a source of easy food. They also clearly know where is the kitchen window.

Dive #4 Darwin Arch

We return to the Arch. This time the current is much stronger. It seems that even the fish are having hard time to keep up with the current.

The strong current brings large school of hammerheads passing above us.

Shay, heavily weighted, sitting on the ledge

Toward the end of the dive we go into the blue and ascend we see this “carpet” of hammerheads passing below us.

We return to the boat, and again, enjoy the jacuzzi with a bottle of beer to enjoy the end of the day.

Wolf

2014-10-22T23:21:00.000+03:00

The sunrise catches us sailing toward Wolf island.

The boat is tilted on its side throughout the night long trip. I asked the crewman and they say that the north-eastern wind is pushing the ship from its right side. This was a bit scary, but eventually I got used to it.

As we were getting close to the Wolf island, we can see the outline of the island and the famous “elephant rock” to its side.

Once we are close, we do a briefing and get ready to dive. As part of the preparations for dives in stronger currents we get two devices. The first is a whistle that we can use to announce our positions. The second is a more complex GPS device that can transmit our coordinates and also let us communicate with the ship. William teaches us how to operate it, but stresses that so far no one reached a situation where they needed to use it, and that he would work hard to make it stay that way.

Dive #1 Shark Bay

The plan of this dive was simple. We dive down to a rocky shelf on the side of the island and sit on it to watch the wildlife go by in the current.

We get into the water, and current is not as bad as I feared. We go a bit around the rocks and watch the local fish. I am having trouble with my camera, as the zoom gear I installed is transparent, and reflects the flash on the dome port. All flash photography in this dive must be very low level…

Continuing along the shelf we reach a point with stronger current. Out on the blue across from there are many feeding fish. A couple of Jacks do a fly by next to us.

And then, we see the first hammerheads. Most of them are too far in the water and we see their silhouettes. Few, however, do close passes, and we get a chance for closer examination.

William takes further along the rock shelf. Suddenly he points forward, and after few seconds I spot a large eagle ray going toward us and slowly position myself to capture as it approaches.

I manage to get few shots of it, and then several photographers run over toward the poor animal. It of course took off and left us. I am frustrated as to both the lack of collegiality, as I would not get into another photographer’s field of view, and also the lack of appreciation how to photograph animals, you can’t rush in, but need to give them chance to get comfortable with your presence.

We return from the dive. I replace the zoom gear with ones that work well with the flash. Now I have time to relax. Going up to the deck, we find that we have visitors. A row of boobies are sitting on deck rail and enjoying the perch. They seem to be juvenile red-footed boobies.

There is a lot of give and take between the birds. They fight each other for position on the rail, even though the other side is completely vacant. When one attempts to land on the rail the others try to stop it with their wings and beaks.

We get a lot of action from the birds. They allow me to come closer and get close portraits.

They even allow the brave to come sit next to them.

Shlomo breaks the ice with the birds

Shmulik and Tamar posing for a photo

The roof above the Jacuzzi is also crowded with birds. These even allow me to get closer.

Dive #2 Landslide

This dive site “around the corner” from our previous dive site. The plan is the same, go down, watch fish, go up.

As we enter the water, I encounter a small group (school?) of barracuda.

We perch on the rocks for a while, and there are many sharks out of photography range (very annoying). William sends on a slow drift above the rocks.

Toward the end of the dive, we go into the blue and float with the fish. Suddenly a huge school of smallish tuna engulfs us. The mass of fish is impressive and makes the whole scene flow around us. I just can’t get enough of the view.

We slowly ascend and finish dive.

We have lunch, and then rest a bit. And then go diving again.

Dive #3 Shark Bay

We return to Shark Bay. Now the current is stronger than in the morning.

As we enter the water, a large turtle passes above us. The turtle is surrounded by several large silvery fish with a trapezoid shape that seem to keep “rubbing” themselves on its shell. I am not sure if the turtle shell allows them to get rid of parasites, or whether they are eating algae off the shell. The whole situation is bizarre. This happens on the other side of the group, and I decide not to chase the other photographers that go after the turtles. I reason that we will see more turtles in this trip. And indeed we do.

We settle down on the rocks, and soon after see a huge school of hammerheads passing by in the blue. They move in slow almost lazy undulations through the water.

This impressive procession continues for several long minutes until the last one disappears from our sight.

I watch the blue water and the fish for few minutes, and then decide to try photographing some of the local fish. There is a striking puffer fish who is polka dotted white on black. There is the trumpetfish with the weird yellow tail. And there are lots of morey eels.

As I try to catch these, William catches me all excited and points to a rock. I see Robert on the other side of the rock with a camera facing in my direction. I am not sure if William wants me to be in the picture or whether I am disturbing something Robert is trying to photograph. William keeps pointing, and I then I see the large scorpion fish sitting on the rock. It is of impressive size, and since the puffer I was trying to follow is gone by now, I go and take a picture.

Big scorpion fish with Ilan in the background

I see a turtle from the start of the dive (or another one with similar entourage) in the blue. I go forward toward it, and almost run head on into a trumpetfish (of a species similar to the ones I am used to from Eilat).

The turtle eludes me again, and instead I focus on a nice group of fish that pose for us.

My air is running low, and I signal that I am starting to ascend. The rest of the group is fascinated by something below, but I can’t see what. I encounter a group of silvery fish, similar to the ones following the turtle.

As I slowly go up and maintain a shallow depth for a safety stop, I enjoy the feeling of quietly bobbing the water.

I am almost at the end of the safety stop, and suddenly I see the famous turtle swimming slowly toward me. Finally, I manage to get a proper picture of it, although the entourage is not tightly around it as the first glimpse.

We get back on deck, get out of the equipment and dry down. William announces that since it is almost sundown, we will not manage to get a fourth dive today.

I climb up to the upper deck and immerse myself in the Jacuzzi with Tamar and Smulik. We drink beer and enjoy the bubbling water. This is great way to finish the day.

Punta Carrion and North Seymour

2014-10-21T23:45:00.000+03:00

Sometime during the night we raised anchor and sailed from San Cristobal to the channel between Baltra and Santa Cruz. The boat has strong engines and they could be heard very loudly in our cabin. From midnight onward I kept waking up due to the noise.

Around 5:15 I gave up and climbed out on to the deck. It was pre-dawn with minimal light outside. I watched as we anchored next to the cliffs.

Frigate at dawn, a sign of things to come

At 6:00 the bell rang and people started to come up to the saloon. We had a short briefing and started to get ready for the dive.

Dive #1: Punta Carrion

This dive here is along the cliff wall. As we got down we saw a small white tip reef shark cruising below us. Along the wall there were many medium size “bushy” corals.

A sea lion crossed our path going quickly from one diver to another.

We continued and run into a huge marble ray between two rocks. Robert and Ilan both swam onto him very quickly. Not surprisingly, the ray started swimming away and I did not get a chance to properly photograph it.

As we came toward the end of the dive we reached a shallower area with many big rocks. William, the dive master, started to go between them searching for sharks. After a bit of search, he pointed relatively big white tip was cruising between the rocks, but again was not very conductive for photography.

After a breakfast and an hour’s rest, we organize again to dive.

Dive #2: Punta Carrion

We dive in the same area, but with somewhat different path. We start going further from the cliffs looking for pelagic animals. I am going next to William, and he signals “hummer shark”. I can barely see the silhouette in the blue depth. After a minute it disappear and I cannot see it any more.

Soon after we run across a big male sea turtle. I try to follow it a bit for a photograph, but the results leave much to be desired.

William make a sign I am not used to. He insists on pointing onto something, and then I realize this is an octopus. Apparently a big find here, but something I am used to see almost in any dive.

We suddenly run into a mild-medium current. I thought it might a temporary thing, but William signals to turn around and let it take us. We float in the current, past the rocks and schools of fish. I am low on air so move upward and float above the rest of the group.

Odd fish

I see a large conch with its body out (I thought they only come out at night) and get few shots of it.

Conch

We eat lunch while the ship is sailing toward the fueling station on Baltra island. We rest for an hour or so while the ship is fueled and some supplies are loaded on board.

Next, we move to the nearby North Seymour Island for a walk. This island is reminiscent of our trip in Genovesa. However, here there are also a lot of land iguanas, and so we get a chance to come close to some of them.

Rock star!

The area is busy with nesting birds and youngsters that still need their parent's help.

We encounter a parent feeding its child on one of the trees. It was pretty amazing to see the young bird insert its whole head into the parent’s throat. Given that the youngster has a large pointy beak, it also seemed a rather hazardous operation.

We see boobies with chicks. Few of them had a pair of chicks. It turns out that the boobies lay two eggs, mostly as an insurance policy -- incresing the chances that at least one of them will hatch. If two hatch, then the larger chick will eventually push the smaller one until it dies. The parents cannot support two chicks.

Frigate

Lava lizard

Feeding land iguana

Blue-footed booby

Another nice surprise here is to find male frigate birds in full mating display. They puff a red sack under their throat. Some of them were flying with a fully inflated sack, which seemed unwieldy.

Seeing these up close, it seems that the sacks serve the same purpose as the peacock's tail. If the male can survive and perform well with this huge handicap, than he must have good genes.

The western short has larger waves and active wind, showing us a nice display.

On the shore we meet few sea lions.

Mom & pup resting

Older female sleeping on the trail

Toward the end of the circular trail we encounter few more iguanas.

We return to the boat after what was a very nice land tour. Even for Ilan and me who spent a week of such tours. For the others’ it was flabbergasting.

Hezi and Ilan (and Williams' back) on the way back to the boat

We are supposed to sail north-west toward the remote islands of Wolf and Darwin. But, instead we sail back to Baltra, and the panga goes off with one sailor. We hypothesize that we need to get permits, but are not sure. After about half an hour he returns, and we start heading north.

Most of the crowd is sitting downstairs, but I remember that this where we saw sea life last week. And so stay on the top deck.

We do see dolphins pass us. We even see the tips of wings of a large ray (probably a manta ray). A flock of frigates accompany us for much of the afternoon and provide wonderful opportunities for photography.

Action on the water, probably fish

Daphne Major

The radar dish is a great place for perching.
Arguments about who gets to sit there.

Toward sunset the sun escapes the cloud cover, and we get a beautiful light on the birds and the boat.

Flock of shearwater

San Cristobal and the Humboldt Explorer

2014-10-20T22:59:00.000+03:00

We start the day with a breakfast in our hotel. The restaurant is on the upper level and we had a table overlooking the port. While we were eating, finches came in to see if they can get some crumbs. Ilan tried to lure some of them to come closer for a photograph by sacrificing a piece of toast.

During the planning of the trip, Ilan Vered (Wilddive) suggested a tour in the El Juno volcanic crater. Four other members of the diving cruise were to join us. They were all staying in our hotel. They were Shmulik and Tamar, a couple that we knew from Israel, and Golan and Momi, whom we didn’t meet before.

Our guide, Carlos, met us at the hotel lobby, and took us on a van with a driver. I chatted with the Carlos, and he told me his family is one of the oldest on the island, and came in with one of the first attempts to settle on the island.

We drive on a road the leaves the town and climbs up toward the mountain. As we get higher the weather deteriorates. We drive on a wet road with lush growth on all sides.

After about half and hour, the van pulls over in a dirt parking lot. With the light rain, the parking was muddy. Those of us who brought a rain coat get it out, and the others tough it out in the rain. We walk along a trail that climbs the gentle slope. The trail hacked through a brush that consists of a mix of native and invading plants. Carlos tells us that there is an ongoing competition between these, and that the invading blackberry plants are a serious threat to the native ones.

The trail is sometimes on rock, which can be slippery, or on dirt, which is muddy. We reach a wooden stairs, which are easier to walk on, but are very slippery. Our progress is slow, and by now my glasses are fogged from the inside and wet on the outside. Wiping them on my shirt has little effect.

We finally reach the end of the trail. We are standing on a patch of grass surrounded by milky fog. Carlos tells us that we are on the rim of the crater and that inner part of the crater is a fresh water lake (the only one on the archipelago). We have to take his word, as we cannot see a thing. I ask whether this weather will change. He shrugs and say that during this season it is usually like this, but that sometimes the cloud will clear up, usually for a few minutes.

Carlos asks whether we want to walk around the crater. Ilan, Tamar and Shmulik decide to skip this, and walk down the trail back to the car. Golan, Momi and me follow Carlos on the trail. The visibility is still bad, but we sometimes we see the shape of the slopes on either side.

The trails descends a bit, and we reach a small creek, apparently the outlet of water from the crater. Carlos takes us along the creek toward the crater. Here we are walking through a tropical jungle in a very muddy trail. We reach the shores of the lake, or rather the swamp like growth at the end of the lake. We can’t see much, and so turn back.

Continuing on the trail we circle around the crater. In few rare moments we get to see parts of it, and I even managed once to see the whole crater.

When we complete the circle, we are again inside a white cloud. The way down along the trail is harder than the ascent, and I almost slip several times. We reach the car wet and very muddy. The van driver was ready for this eventuality and covered the van floor and seats with newspapers.

We drive back toward the town. Once we get closer, we exit the cloud cover, and it is once again a beautiful sunny day.

Back in the sun

We have about an hour until our planned pickup by the boat crew. We decide to use it to eat ceviche in a local restaurant that Shmulik and Tamar found the previous day. We get there (just across from the Lavanderia we used yesterday) but it is closed. We continue along and get to another ceviche “restaurant” or more accurately a shack. The menu is all ceviche - fish, shrimp, octopus, or mixed.

We each order a ceviche and a drink. The woman running the place starts assembling our plates, while her helper (her daughter?) brings from the next door house small baskets with popcorn. We are not sure whether this is a pre-meal snack. Ilan asks, and we learn that we are supposed to add the popcorn to the ceviche. The ceviche arrives, with a lot of sea food, tomatoes, onions, and generous amount of citrusy marinade. Adding the popcorn to the mix gives it a nice crunchy texture. Yam!

We return to the hotel and wait to be picked up. I use the time to go around and photograph wildlife around the pier.

Taxis are not safe from the sea lions

A male gives one of his females a briefing

The rest of this group uses a staircase next to pier as a resting place

"I am the boss!"

Around noon, we are approached by a William, who introduces himself as our guide. He collects our luggage so that it can be ferried to the boat by the panga. After a while he returns and announces that now is our turn. When we go down to the platform we find a nice sea lion resting and use the opportunity to photograph it.

The Humboldt Explorer, with a pelican in the foreground

Shmulik, Tamar, and Ilan

Sleepy sea lion

We climb onto the panga, and two young fellows, Marcus and Hans, show up, and join us. The panga is much larger than the one we had on the Eden. We all climb in and take the short trip to the Humboldt Explorer, our boat for the coming week.

The Humboldt Explorer

William tells us the cabin assignment, and we start organizing our belongings. In the mean time, the rest of the passengers, who landed on a flight from the mainland arrive. These include, Shay, Robert, Hezi, Shlomo, Robby, Ayelet and two French ladies who do not speak English.

William introduces himself and the boat a short introduction, and recommend we eat some lunch. I am not too hungry after the ceviche we had earlier.

The next two hours are somewhat chaotic as everyone gets settled down, get their dive equipment assembled. Some of us rent equipment here, and so have to try on the suits. Finally, after much activity, it seems that we are all more or less ready to dive.

Waiting for dive briefing

By now it is getting late, and the sun is low. Thus, we only go for a short check dive that in the water close to the port. The plan is to go down, see that we are ok with our equipment. For me this is the first time with my thick 3mm gloves, and of course the camera is part of the check.

After getting comfortable below, I look around. A diver says hi and I photograph him. At this stage I am not good in recognizing people underwater, but later learn that this was Hezi.

Testing the camera

I see a small ray, and try to photograph it, with medicare success.

It seems that our allotted 15min are over, and so we start going up. As I reach the surface, I see two young sea lions passing below me. I decide to join them. The water is heavy with particles, and I barely manage to get one shot of the two rascals.

Playful sea lion cubs

We climb back on the pangas, and return to the boat. After a shower, dinner is served. We climb up to the upper deck, and see the lights of the town in the distance.

San Cristobal - Kickers Rock and Puerto Baquerizo Moreno

2014-10-19T22:23:00.000+03:00

Today we have an early start. I wake up as we are sailing toward Kicker’s Rock. This is a large rock spearing out of the water. From the south (our direction) it looks like a sleeping sea lion, hence its spanish name Leon Dormido.

Few people are up and ready for snorkeling at 6am. We go out on a panga with 7 people — Kevin and Andrea, Christy, Yang, Julianna, Annie, and me. The water is dark, and surprisingly, not as cold as I expected for an early morning swim. The rock goes down into the void and we cannot see the bottom. The vertical wall is covered with barnacles, small corals, and anemones and algae. There is are large schools of fish busy feeding in the water.

I see a shadow of turtle below, but after I turn around to signal that, I look and cannot find it again. False alarm? No. after few minutes two large turtles swim below us.

Someone shouts shark, and I see a large gray shark, similar to the white tip shark but without these tips, swimming just below me.

We snorkel into the a wide channel running through the rock. Here we can see a sandy bottom, maybe 8-10 meters deep (I can’t really say). Toward the end of channel Annie spots a pair of spotted eagle rays. They swim slowly, keeping their formation and ignoring us.

We turn around the corner to return along the face of the smaller pinnacle. Once again the bottom disappears.

A sea lion passes next to us and stop to check what we are doing at this hour of the morning.

We get back to the beginning of the channel. According to the plan we were support to end the snorkeling now. I was hesitating whether to suggest making another round, but then I see that the girls ahead of me already starting going through the channel.

This time around, we exit the channel toward the bigger part of the rock. For a while there is not much to see. I use the time to practice model photography.

When we turn the corner of the rock we encounter a current. It takes few determined kicks to get past the corner, and then the current weakens. The current brings fish, and we start to see more and more in the water.

I see a shadow in the deep, and after glinting at it, it is clearly a shark. The shark circles below us, and diving down I manage to picture it just below me.

We now run into a huge school of fish. They are so thick that they look like a black cloud below us.

Sadly, it is time to go, and the pangas collects us (by now more people joined the snorkeling) back to the ship.

After a quick breakfast it is time to finish packing all our staff. By the time I am done, we are back again in Puerto Baquerizo Moreno, the biggest town on the island and also the capital of the archipelago.

The panga takes us to the pier. We will be going on a bus tour, while the crew transfer the luggage to the airport (for everyone but us).

The interpretation center is on a hill just outside town. David sends us to go through it independently (some of the other groups visiting have their guide explain what they are seeing and add more).

It is a relatively nice interpretation center that touches on the geology of the islands; natural history and unique wild life; the history of human exploration/exploitation of the islands. The last hall deals with the complexity of current day situation, the drive to get sustainable resources for the population and tourists while preserving the unique nature here.

Most of the facts explained here came up in the books I read during the trip. Nonetheless, I think this is a good presentation. Probably better at the beginning of a trip rather than at the end.

On the way back from the interpretation center there is a small beach. It is overrun with sea lions. We spend a bit of time here until our bus shows up.

Andrew and a sleepy sea lion

Few minute drive into the town, and the bus stops next to the pier. David ask Ilan and me to exit the bus. This is a rather sudden departure, we wave goodbye, and thats it.

On the pier our luggage waits. We take all of it to the hotel, which is just few meters away. Although it is early morning, our room is available. It is a huge room with colonial atmosphere.

I am in desperate need of laundry, and according to Lonely Planet there is a laundry place along one of the streets next to the church. I pick up my laundry bag and we go searching for the place. The town is relatively small, and we reach our target street and starting going toward the church. The streets seem deserted, and we suspect it might be since it is Sunday. We pass the church and do not find the laundry.

Tracing our steps back we return to the hotel. We use the internet to search for laundry in the town, and it sends us to another street. We get there and do not find anything. At this point, we give up and head back to the hotel. Two blocks away from the hotel, we see in a side street a big sign Lavanderia. For 1.5$ per Kg of laundry, they will be happy to provide service. They want us to return tomorrow, but with Ilan’s spanish we manage to convey that we need it today. The laundry lady tells us to return at 6pm.

Mission accomplished, we are now free to spend time on the town. The Lonely Planet recommends a place for ceviche, again just around the corner. We come over and sit down, but are ignored. After few minutes we realize that they are closing for the day (its almost noon). We have some light snack in the next door cafe (nothing to write about).

We then spend some time walking along the promenade and photographing the abundant wildlife here. Few years ago the promenade was built out of sustainable materials and included a park for kids, benches for viewing the ocean, and terraces. The only problem is that the large sea lion population here finds all of these as very attractive.

"This bench seems nice!"

"Tourists!"

Sea side playground is off limits to humans

The town is literally sea-lion infested. I am not sure if this a permanent state, or only when the sea lions raise their pups.

Comfy

Showing off the mustache

Aside from sea lions, we see many birds, sallys, and turtles.

At the end of the promenade there is a beach which is the outlet of a small stream.

This area seems to be a boat graveyard, with boats in different stages of decay.

Between the boats are small groups of sea lions. The contrast is impressive.

On the nearby stretch of beach we get to see some sea lion actions. The dominant male is on his way to assert his authority.

After a rest back in the hotel, we return to catch the sunset.

Just as we are about to walk away (to get to the Lavanderia at 6pm), we see a group of children playing in the water. A nice image to close the day with.

Espanyola

2014-10-18T19:51:00.000+03:00

Early morning wake up hearing the anchor chain rattling. We are at Espanola, the south-eastern corner of the Galapagos. The sky is completely clouded and a drizzle is coming down. I climb to the deck and find it all wet. It probably rained during the night.

This island is supposed to be the home of many nesting birds, like Genovesa. But, the sky is almost empty. I am not sure whether it is the light, which might make it harder to fish, or our location.

Our first excursion today is a dry landing at Punto Suerez, a point along the shore with a small lighthouse (really a beacon). By the time we go out on the pangas, the drizzle is gone, and it is starting to warm up. The sky is still gray without sun.

We land on a stair case leading along a short rock pier toward the point.

The first thing I notice is that the Lightfooted Sallys seem to tolerate us much more than previously. I am not sure if this is due to the diffuse lighting or just that the local population is less cautious.

We reach a small sandy beach populated with sea lions, mothers and pups, some of them look very young. The pups make sounds like a groaning old men, which is quite entertaining, and the mothers answers with barks.

We see a mother taking her pup along the rocks toward the sea. The pup’s progress is comical, stumbling over rocks and sliding down others. But it keeps going with its mother’s encouragement.

"Mom, where are you?"

"I made it, now I need so nourishment"

All the rocks around us are covered with large marine iguanas. Here they are larger than those we saw before and have a more pronounced red coloring. The iguanas bunch up in groups on the rocks, waiting for the sun to show up.

Iguana infested shore

We continue along a rocky path and after few meters reach another beach. Here older sea lion pups play together on the beach. The sea lion version of kindergarden. I guess their mothers are out feeding, or sleeping on the sand slightly further along the beach.

Intermixed with the sea lions are iguanas. I get a chance to do some close up photography on some of them.

Birch and the iguanas

We also saw some lava lizards

After about 15 minutes, David collects us and we continue along the path. It takes us along the cliff’s edge, overlooking the sea. We encounter many blue-footed and masked boobies and seagulls.

The iguanas are also abundant and we observe one that has bright green color, indicating a mating display.

We descend with the path down to a rocky beach, and observe pairs of masked boobies. They seem to go through mating or bonding rituals. One of them (the male?) picks a small rock or a twig and after minutes of deliberation presents it to the other, who observes it and then adds it to a pile that might become the nest.

"Here is a nice stone just for you"

"Lets check this stone, is it good enough?"

While he is checking out stones, she is doing her feathers

Another pair seem to be in a different stage. Every few minutes they go into an abrupt sequence of beak fencing movement, and as abruptly, though nothing happened, return to preening their feathers until the next round.

All in all, these rituals are very lethargic and slow paced. Of course there are iguanas here as well...

Huddle

We climb back up to a rocky plateau that hosts an albatross colony. This was supposed to be the highlight of this excursion, but it seems that we are not in the right season. Instead of active mating rituals and nest building, we encounter some rather large chicks, sitting by themselves near their nests. We see two adults in the far distance and one that briefly flew above us.

Albatross!

The albatross’ chick is a rather large fluffy and drab looking bird. It is the size of a large goose.

As we walk through this rocky field, we see in the distance a hawk soaring in the wind. After few minutes it flies across the field and disappears beyond a rocky outcrop.

Galapagos hawk!

We do see other birds fly by

Flying albatross (best capture I managed)

We reach a high observation point on the edge of a cliff. the vista is impressive. Below us is a rock shelf much closer to the sea level, and we can see the cliffs far out to both sides. Below us there is a blow-hole that regularly sends up a cloud of the spray up in the air. The wind is blowing and so the spray forms a screen that expand along the rocks.

On the cliff across from us we see a pair of sea lions resting. It is hard to imagine how they climbed this high from the sea level.

Sea lions on top of a cliff

We walk along the high cliff. Across from us is an impressive pinnacle. On one of the rocks there are the dessicated remains of a large iguana. It looks like a picture from a horror scene.

As we continue on, the sun comes through the clouds. We walk away from the cliff’s edge and the breeze disappears. Suddenly feel the day’s heat is pronounced.

Abandoned? albatross egg

Along the path we encounter the hawk sitting on a rock. It seems awake, but stoically ignores the array of cameras pointing at it.

The path leads us back to the kindergarden shore, and we return to the dock. The sun is out and we see large iguanas climbing down the rock and swimming out to the sea.

During a quick lunch the boat sailed around the island to Gardner Bay. The bay has a long stretch of white sandy beach. We landed on one edge of the bay. and were asked not to leave a particular stretch. On the way in we see a large dark brown shape on the rocks to our right. According to David this is the cadaver of a young humpback whale that washed from the ocean.

Along the beach there are small groups of sea lions. Each group of females and their young is shepherded by a dominant male. The male goes back and forth along “his” beach stretch and barks to announce his territory. These males are much larger and have more pronounced foreheads.

According to the documentary we saw yesterday, other males challenge him regularly and after few weeks of defending his territory and watching over it without rest, the dominant male looses to one of his opponents. Sounds like a tough world for the males. I am not sure whether after recuperating he goes back to reclaim the same harem, or whether he is wasted for the season.

The young pups were playing along the beach in the shallows. The dominant male makes sure that they do not stray outside the territory.

The briefing suggested that it might be nice to snorkel to a nearby rock cropping in the bay. According to David and the guide book, there was a shallow cave where white tip sharks rest during the day. Most of the crowed seemed reluctant to get wet, so I went in alone. Few minutes later Hans, Ruth, Kevin and Andrea join. The white sand in the bay is so fine that the waves kept disturbing it. The area close to the shore the water was totally milky. Further out it was still whitish but there was some visibility.

On the way to the rock we encounter a sting ray cruising the bottom.

The area close to the rock on the bay side was relatively shallow and a jumble of large rocks. Schools of surgeon fish and striped salima fish moving about the rocks.

Getting closer to the main rock tower proved to be harder as waves make a back and forth swell. Just as I was swimming around in the shadow, a large sea lion passes by. It totally ignored me and continued on its way.

I try to find the rock with the cave without success. The exposed rock that we saw from the shore was a small section of a much longer ridge. Snorkeling along the ridge I checkefew places that might serve as hiding place for sharks. In one of them I found a large shark sleeping. This is relatively deep for free dive, and I doubt that this was the intended location.

I continue circling the rock. The side facing the open sea is deeper. Here the waves are more pronounced and I have to work harder to keep away from crashing into the rocks.

After going around the mini-island once, I come across what I guess was the intended cave — a large concave area just below the tip of the rock cropping. I dive along the bottom twice without finding any sharks.

I return toward the beach, and midway meet Ilan. According to him, the beach is infested with large flies, maybe due to the whale corpse, which makes it unpleasant to sit there. I decide to join him and we go back toward the rock cropping and complete a circle around it, this time keeping bigger distance from the rocks.

We decide we had enough and return to the beach. The flies are indeed annoying, and we wait for the pangas to collect us back to the boat. At some point it seems that all of us had enough, but David is sitting back chatting with the guide from another boat, and seem happy to stay there until the end of our allotted beach time.

Once we were all on board, the boat starts sailing toward our next stop - San Cristobal. As usual there are frigates tagging along. One of them even landed on the boat.

The afternoon is relatively quiet, people use the time to rest or read. Suddenly, I hear the cry "dolphins!".

dolphins surfing in front of the boat

The joy of watching dolphins is always amazing. They are so playful.

The sun is setting. Our last sunset on the Eden.

In the evening, just before dinner, we have a farewell drink with all the crew to say our goodbyes and thank you.

By now we are moored in San Cristobal. This is a smaller town than Puerto Ayora, with few fisherman boats, and two or three cruise boats.

David suggest that if we are interested, we can go for an evening in the town. Most of us decide to skip this.

Later in the evening, as some of us sit in the living room, a cry from outside. We go out and find that a large sea lion decide that the back deck is a great place for resting.

I try to photograph it, the light is very dim and so the result is very shaky. It allowed me to come close to about a meter and half from him. If I crossed that imaginary line, it growled, like a dog. I got the hint, and stayed back.

Visitor at night

Floreana - Post Office Bay, Devils' Crown and Cormorant Point

2014-10-17T22:53:00.000+03:00

I woke up early in the morning in a bay overlooking Floreana.

We are moored across from a sandy beach, known as “Post Office Bay”. I spot fresh turtle tracks — a female climbed onto the beach, dug a nest, laid eggs, covered them and returned to the sea.

We start our day with a wet landing on the beach. The plan is to go snorkeling, but first we go to the “post office”. This is a barrel located about 10 meters inland from the high water mark.

According to the story, pirates and whalers set up the barrel as an informal post office. They would deposit letters addressed to their family. A ship heading home would take letters for its destination port. In modern days this site became an experiment in social networking. Visitors to the Galapagos would leave a postcard, and collect ones they can deliver in person when they return home.

The barrel today is a modern reconstruction of the original. The postcards are kept in large ziplock bags. David recovered these from the barrel and distributed among us to go through them. There was an interesting coverage of countries represented, although the majority were US and Europe.

After finishing with the barrel, I took few pictures of the remain of a sardine canning factory that used to be here.

By now it was hot in the wetsuit, and going snorkeling is a welcome diversion. The water is a bit colder, due to the Humboldt current from the south. The current also brings nutrients, and the rocks here are covered with rich weed growth.

Someone shouts “turtle!” and we all converge on a turtle slowly eating the weed. I photograph it, and then notice another turtle. Soon we realize that the water is turtle infested. In a single glance I could see 5 or 6 turtles.

As we snorkel along we keep running into turtles. This seems to be a turtle convergence point.

Suddenly a dark shape passes my field of view. A sea lion. Unlike our previous encounter, this is an older sea lion. It zoom among the snorkelers to check us out and then disappear into beyond the visibility range.

Few minutes later it reappears, circle us, and then continues. This pattern repeats several times.

Sun star

Abstract patterns

After about an hour of snorkeling we start returning to the beach. We are all there, and David sits on the side enjoying the sun. At some point I see that he is trying to play with his walkie-talkie. It turns out that he cannot reach the ship crew to let them know we are ready for pickup.

We look toward the ship and it seems that no one is on deck. We sit on the beach and seem to be forgotten. This is weird as usually the schedule is relatively punctual. Few more minutes pass, and then David decides he will swim to the ship (about 100m-150m or so). He barrows my wetsuit for that. He swims out, and after 20min or so returns with the two pangas. I am still not sure what happened there.

The pangas do not take us to the ship, but rather we take a tour along the coast. This part of the island has many rocky outcrops along the coastline. Some are just few rocks, others are almost mini islands with a small sandy beach. Among these rocks we see marine iguanas.

We also see colonies of sea lions, with the characteristic social structure — a large male and few females with their young. The male is constantly patrolling his territory and announcing loudly his presence.

Nice and comfy on the rocks

During the ride we encounter turtles swimming around us.

Jon trying underwater photography from the panga

We pass mangroves on the water edge and large cacti slightly more inland.

David takes onto a small beach and goes out to bring a fistful of sand. He shows us that this greenish sand — to me it looks brown. It is clearly different from the white sand on most beaches we have been to.

We enter a shallow bay lined with mangroves. We spot sharks in the water. Few of them swim by. As we get closer to the mangroves, we see many white-tip reef sharks reseting among the roots in the shallow.

My feeble attempts at underwater photography from the panga

By now we see our afternoon’s site, a rock structure called “The Devil’s Crown”.

Devil's Crowns

Boobies!

Frigate flyby

The ship has moved during our panga ride and is moored here. We reach the ship and take a lunch break.

Our next activity is snorkeling at the Devil’s Crown. David draws a detailed map of the crown, including the current directions. Sadly, I did not photograph the map, but here is my reconstruction based on Google Earth images.

The plan was to drop us from the panga ~100m before the crown, and then making sure we get into the structure rather than taken away by the current. We were then to climb back into the panga, and redo this, but this time going around the outer face of the crown. David kept emphasizing the importance of staying as a group and making sure to get to the right direction at the critical splitting point at the entry to the crown.

We took the pangas and went to the planned location, even further out for safe measures. We all jumped and started puddling. After a while it was clear we are working hard but not getting anywhere. The current is non-existent, or even in the opposite direction.

We all went back onto the pangas, and it drove us to the entry to the crown. There we saw the pangas of another tour sitting calmly in the water.

We jump into the water, and go into the crown. David leads the group in a mad dash toward the other end. At this point there is some current going against us (opposite the direction in the plan). This dash is no fun, burns energy and we do not get to see anything.

We reach the other side of the crown, and I catch up to David and tell him that people are straggling to keep up with him and that there is no reason to rush. He retorts that if “you are not fit for snorkeling, you should have stayed in the boat”. I give up on the hot head, but angry inside.

The kids spot an eagle ray going below us, and I manage to capture it although it is quite deep at this point.

A young sea lion shows up and starts to play with us.

We are called to board the pangas for the second leg of the snorkeling. Now the pangas bring us to the outer side of the entry, and we go along the outer edge. Here there is a sharp cliffs and crags going into deeper water.

A large marble ray below us

Spot the fish?

About 2/3 of the way around we reach a pinnacle going up in the water. There are a lot of fish schools about. According to the plan we should have seen sleeping sharks somewhere here, but except for two sting rays, do not meet the sharks.

Again we go onto the pangas, and return to the inner side. This time around I ignore David and go exploring. There is a layer of fish carpeting the shallow bottom of the entry. They all face the current and keep low. When a bigger fish swims through the crowd open up to maintain respectable distance from it.

In one of the rocks in the middle of the structure I see a small cave. I look inside and see passage to the other side.

Our time is up and we need to continue. We return to the ship, change, and go for a trip on the shore just next to the crown.

This area is called Cormorant Point, although there are no cormorants here.

We land on a beach with many sea lions. They ignore us.

We continue inwards on trail that leads us around a large salt marsh. This is a prime flamingo territory, but sadly, we do not encounter any this time.

The trails goes on toward the other side of the small peninsula, and we reach a sandy beach.

This beach is known for the rays that come close to the water edge. Today there are waves, and we do not spot rays. Either they are not there, or the waves obscure them.

We go along the beach searching for sights. It is beautiful but barren.

We start to get a little bored, and the kids find a new way to burn energy.

By now the sun is almost down, and the golden hour is upon us. On the way back to the landing point we see beautiful sunset over the marsh.

Santa Cruz Turtles

2014-10-16T23:57:00.000+03:00

We start with an early breakfast. At 7:30 we leave with the panga toward toward the main pier. From the pier we walk to the Darwin Research Station. It is located on the other end of the town along the main street which winds around the bay.

Pelican awaiting the opening of the fish market

This is relatively early, but the streets are busy with people. Many of the locals ride bicycles and small motorbikes. Many motorbikes carry three or even four family members.

Marine Iguana on the water edge close to the Darwin Research Station entrance

Inside the station we walk to the turtle nursery, which is few hundred meters. I thought we are in early since we have an appointed tour, but it turns out that David will provide the tour. As usual, he did so in a very minimal way.

The first enclosure we see is the nursery itself. Researchers collect turtle eggs from different islands and incubate them here to ensure higher survival rates. The first three years the young turtles are roaming in a small protected box where they have water and food. There is a specific one for each species of turtle.

Young turtles in protected nursery

When they grow up they are moved outside the box to the enclosure. This enclosure simulate more realistic conditions, requiring them to search for food, climb over obstacles for water, etc. After few years in this area, when they reach sufficient size, the turtles are released back to the wild in their respective habitat.

Climbing up to reach the water source

I am stuck!

According to David, the estimated number of turtles in the islands right now is 30,000 individuals. This sounds a lot, but estimate suggest that during the 18th and 19th century, explorers, pirates, and whalers "harvested" several hundred thousands of turtles. These were used as food source for the ships. The main attraction of the Galapagos turtles was their size and the fact that they can stay alive without food and water for several months or even a year. Thus, they can be stored on board of the ship and eaten fresh long after the ship set sail.

Hans and Ruth next to a large cactus tree on the way to the big turtles

We continue along the path toward a collection of pens were different turtles are kept. These are either for protection of species whose habitat is not restored yet, or for hosting turtles that were pets and reclaimed by the national park.

A dome-backed turtle

The different species are related, but specialized for different environment. The most noticeable difference is between dome-backed and saddle-backed turtles. The dome-backed have a nice round shell, similar to what we are used to think of turtles. They live in areas that are dense with vegetation and get most of their food at ground level.

A saddle-back turtle showing his long reach

In contrast, the saddle-back turtles have a saddle-like "collar". This allows them to raise their necks much higher. These turtles live in environment where most of the food is higher up, for example the pear-cacti. These turtles also have a longer neck. The result looks like ET (or more precisely, ET maybe was inspired by these turtles).

On the way we meet some Lava Lizard courting on the rocky fences. Jon stopes everyone to observe these.

We pass a pen with land iguanas. Surprisingly, we see field mice living between the rocks. I think that they are invasive species here in Santa Cruz, although there is one type of mouse endemic to the island.

Small mouse in the iguana enclosure

Land iguana

The last two pens we see have a mix of different species. These are "reclaimed" turtles that were collected from private people. David explains that since they do not know their exact origin, they are separated to male and female turtle so they cannot breed. I am not sure why at this day and age they do not use DNA tests to find the species of the turtle. I am sure that this has been looked at by some researchers, but David is not the person to ask about this.

We finish the tour at a small kiosk that sells soft drinks and coffee. The roof of the kiosk hosts a flock of finches and provides a good opportunity to photograph them.

At the end of the trip we said good byes to Kelly who is leaving from Baltra later today.

Since we finished the tour early, we now have two and half hours to spend in the town until we are picked up. Originally, David mentions the option to go to a beach near the station, and said there will be some wild life there.

A lava lizard on the way out of the station

I am searching for the beach and walk almost all the way to town before I realized that I miss it. By now it is hot. I return along the way and find that the beach entry was just across from the kiosk where we finished the tour.

The beach is really a very small stretch of sand with a little outlet between the rocks to enter the water. I was hoping to photograph iguanas entering the water, but I do not see any on the rocks. Instead, I spend some time photographing Light-footed Sallys. Sitting still on the rock, they slowly got out to the open.

Younger crabs are black, providing good camouflage on the lava rocks

I grow tired of the beach. I start walking back toward town. Since we passed the stores last night there was not much to do.

I get to the local fish market. Few fisherman's are selling fish (very little amounts). Next to them on the floor there are two sea lions watching the transactions with interest. One pelican was inching closer on the counter, trying to get some of the fish. He was being chased away every time, but he still persist in his attempt. Other pelicans were more discrete sitting on the ground and watching from afar.

Fish transactions under the watching eyes of two sea lions...

and a pelican

These guys are not as aggressive, and wait at a slightly more respectable distance

Next to the fisherman's market there was a small walkway between mangroves. On the path large iguanas were basking, while on the tree several pelicans were resting.

Sleeping Pelican

I continued toward the pier. There were few birds fishing in the shallow part of the port just next to the pier. One of them kept repeating the same pattern, circling around, shooting into the water, and then taking off again. This was a chance to get some bird photography.

A young booby about to hit the water

The take off afterwards

Pelican taking off from the water

and stopping to rest on the pier

We got back to the boat for lunch. There we met two new passengers, Kevin and Andrea that join the trip instead of Kelly.

After lunch we got back again on the panga, and got to town. There was a small bus waiting for us. We rode the bus up to the highlands. We left Puerta Ayora and drove up the mountain. The landscape changed, and now we were in tropical area, with lush green trees growing in all directions. The houses along the road were small and dispersed from one another.

After a while, the driver went off the main road into a dirt road lined with trees on both sides.

The road took us to a farm where turtles were roaming. These farms deal with agriculture as well as turtle tourism. When were there four other groups also showed up. This felt a bit like a zoo and less like a reserve.

Turtle farm

One of the birds flying around the turtle

Many turtles were going about the area, some active and some seemed less so.

On the move

On the path to the water

Drinking

The pool surface is covered with algee

Social interactions next to the pool

On the way back from the highlands we stopped at site near the road where there are "lava tunnels". These are formed when the lava cools down on top and continues to flow below the surface. The tunnel was exposed when part of the ceiling caved in.

Lava tunnel

Ben is protesting against the light

We returned to town, and again had "free time". Ilan and I sat down for a beer, and then went back to photographing birds on the pier.

I suddenly see golden rays swimming through the shallow water.

The sun began to set and painted everything with a golden color

Black Turtle Cove and Dragon Hill

2014-10-15T21:31:00.000+03:00

According to the briefing our day starts early. At 5:40 we are on the pangas going for a ride in "Black Turtle Cove", a maze of mangroves and shallow pools.

We leave the ship before sunrise. The colors of the sky are soft pastels.

When we arrive to at the entry of the cove, we are greeted by a pelican flying across our path. Another is sitting on the front most mangroves facing the ocean.

The pangas move toward one of the shallow pools. The water is still and clear. We can clearly see the fish swimming just next to us. Hiding between the roots of the mangrove we see small sharks and few sting rays.

Small shark in the shallows

Small Sting Ray

Returning to the main cove, we see turtles on the water surface.

Turtles!

Moving closer, we see that this a pair caught "in the act".

We continue moving along the mangroves, and go through a narrow opening into a more secluded inner pool. The panga driver turns off the engine and uses a puddle to slowly move us forward. Suddenly we can realize the tranquility of this magnificent place.

We see another pair of turtles, with the male chasing the female around the pool. They swim around us and we keep trying to spot them.

Spotting turtles

We move to the next pool. Here the water is less clear, but after a while the driver spots a large white-tip reef shark.

White-tip Reef Shark

We return to the main cove, and slowly go along the mangroves. We find different sea birds using the mangrove as a resting place.

Golden warbler

When we start heading back we notice two rays swimming in the water. I am still not sure what type of ray they are, as they do not match any of the descriptions I know of.

By now the sun is up and its hot and we are happy to return to the ship.

View of Daphne Major, from this angle we can see the crater

After breakfast the ship sails toward Dragon Hill, our next stop in Santa Cruz island. When we get there, we go for snorkeling along the rocks. The water is refreshing in the hot day. We did not meet any large animal, but had nice view of the rocks and sea stars.

Sea of stars

One of the nice finds in this snorkeling is a sea cucumber of the type that almost went extinct during the rush for fishing it in the 90s. According to the books I read, divers were collecting these and selling them on the black market to be distributed in china. There each sells for thousands of dollars. During the sea cucumber boom, the divers were making fortunes and spending it in various nefarious institutes that sprang up in Puerto Ayora.

Sea Cucumber - driven almost to extinction here

Next (its a busy morning), we go for a dry landing on the beach on Dragon Hill. This place is known for its land iguanas, which were restored to the area after introduced animals were removed (mainly goats).

We land on a black rock cropping off a small beach. On the stairs there is, as usual, a sea lion. Next to it are several large sea iguanas. Much larger than the ones we saw up until now.

Landing point.

We cross the sandy beach and walk above the beach. Here there are tall cactus trees. Unlike the ones we saw in Genovesa, here the cacti have long sharp spines, an arms race against the turtles and land iguana that consume it.

Light-footed Sally crab in a tidal pool

We cross to an inward facing slope covered with various salt-resistant vegetation. The lush green with small opening of sands reminds me of a golf course close to the ocean. The slope goes down to a salt marsh. Here we see small birds, mainly sandpipers, sifting through the silt for food.

Salt bush

We follow a rocky trail next to the salt marsh, and then reach the dry inner landscape. Here there is fewer bushes, and mainly large pear cacti standing tall.

Everywhere we look there are barrows that the iguanas dig for shelter. This reminds Kelly of Darwin's description that he could not find a place for a tent due to the density of the barrows.

We also see other signs of iguana presence. Tracks on the sand, dry feces, and half eaten cactus. However, we do not spot any iguana.

The trail leads up the hill to a spot from which we can see the whole area.

Going down the other side of the hill we see finches of various kinds and the skeletal remains of a large animal, probably a wild donkey.

A Finch

David points out an iguana resting in the shade close to the trail. We all try to get a photograph of it. I do the "nature photographer" pose and go down on the ground. I slowly inch forward getting closer to the iguana. At some point David catches me and tells me I am too far from the trail. I move back, get up and try another angle.

This exercise cost me a lot later, as the sand in this area is mixed with cactus spines, and I am stung throughout my arms and legs.

We continue circling the hill and then go back to the shore. A small group of photographers lags behind to catch the views.

When we get to rocks, we see few iguanas that take to sea.

Iguana swimming

After lunch we set off to sail around Santa Cruz Island toward Puerto Verde on the south eastern side. Once again this part gets the euphemism "marine life observation". Unlike the previous afternoon, we do not get to see much on this part.

Toward sunset we get to Puerto Ayora, the main city of the island, and also the largest human settlement in the Galapagos. The port is a natural bay, and it is busy with starboards like ours, fast day-tour boats, and fishing boats. Small taxi's go from the pier to the different ship to transport passengers and their luggage.

After dinner there is an optional "night out" in Puerto Verde. The panga takes us to the public peer and will come to pick us up two hours later. I go with some of the kids, and we visit few souvenir shops. They all carry more or less the same selection of shirts, hats, animal figurines and such. I buy few t-shirts for the family.

We continue to the "artisan market", a small collection of booths. Again, they seem to have exactly the same selection, but now each booth is more specialized to a particular type of wares.

Eventually we stop at bar/restaurant/cafe/ice cream parlor to sit. Few of us order beers, and few buy ice cream. We return with the panga back to the ship, feeling that we exhausted the town.

Bartolome and Santiago

2014-10-14T20:52:00.000+03:00

I wake up early and climb to the deck. We are moored on a channel between two Island. One is small with a peaked hill and jutting rock close to us — Bartolome — and the other flatter and larger — Santiago.

There are barely any seabirds in the sky — a start contrast to yesterday’s frenzy activity. According to the briefing the island here has little vegetation and there is a population of Galapagos hawks, which limits the bird population.

After breakfast we take the panga for a dry landing on Bartolome. The island surface is very fragile and so our whole trail is a fenced wooden path leading to the lighthouse on top of the mountain.

Upon landing we encounter again a sea lion sleeping on the stairs to the sea. This one we managed to circumvent, but some of us step into bombs it left on the stairs (very smelly ones at that).

As we walk along the path up the hill we encounter different lava formation. The scenery looks alien and could have easily been backdrop for a star trek episode.

Although barren, there is life here. We encounter lava lizards, small slim lizards. The male is drab colored and the female is somewhat fancier with red throat. Their main pray is the Galapagos grasshopper. We also see some ground finches eating away at seeds.

Ground Finch

Male Lava Lizard

Grass hopper

When we get to the top we get to see the whole island below us. It has a dumbbell shape connecting two rocky hills. The connector is lower and has two sandy beaches with mangroves growing between them.

View from the top of Bartolome

Ilan in a tourist pose

Ilan mediating on the view at the top, while Devon and Ben take a selfie

From the top we can also see the remains of the ancient volcano that created the island. Now it makes a tropical looking lagoon next to our landing point.

A female Lava Lizard, keeping her feet off the warm rocks

Light-footed Sally crab

Harry/Henry with the panga

Heron getting into attentive pose

We return to the boat and get ready for snorkeling. After yesterday’s experience, few people are reluctant to go. Unlike yesterday, today we snorkel along the beach going around the pinnacle. As we jump in David points to a penguin standing on a rocky ledge above the water. We all come closer to gawk at it, but it seems oblivious to us.

The shore here is rocky and there are nice rock formations at the shallow water. We see a variety of sea life.

Someone shouts “sea lion” and we all rush toward that point. There is young sea lion going around and demonstrating its agility. Every time I think we lost it, it comes back from a surprising angle. Clearly it is eager to play and we provide a great audience.

At some point a larger sea lion approaches, probably his mother, and after brief interaction with him, she swims away.

I am watching the sea lion with few people, and the rest are ahead of us. They encounters a large sting ray. When I get there the sea lion follows us and goes to investigate the ray. After few minutes the ray had enough and swims away.

Christy and a friend

Reaching the base of the pinnacle, we see few sea lions sleeping on the rocks. They are totally oblivious of the snorkelers below them.

Surgeon fish school

I am trying to photograph the crabs at the rocks, and suddenly I hear the cry “shark” behind me. I swim over to see a white tip reef shark swimming by. The sea lion also sees the shark and starts annoying it. At this point the shark disappear from us with few tail strokes.

Birch spots a spiny lobster on one of the rocks and I stop to photograph it.

Again I hear the cry “shark”. This time the shark is much closer and in shallow water and I get a chance to capture more reasonable picture of this beautiful creature.

While we were in the water, the ship moved toward the shore of the larger Santiago island. We return to it with the pangas and have lunch and a short rest.

The pangas drop us off at the short of large lava field — the remains of a wide lava river that flowed to the sea. The lava is formed into various shapes determined by how hot it was, what cooled it, and how fast. The alien landscape is dotted with broken lava crusts, “ovens” formed by trapped water, rope-like textures and many other shapes.

Grasshoper on a lava field

At the end of the lava field there is a small shore. There is an option to snorkel. Initially only Andrew, Annie and me go for it. Its fun to explore as a smaller group. We explore the shallow area of the shore, getting a chance to see the diversity of sea creatures. We follow the shore line along the rocks that create small bays and coves.

I hear Andrew shout “turtle” and I swim over to see a large turtle cruising in the water.

With some frantic fin kicks I manage to get parallel to it and take some pictures.

Annie and a friend

After we relax from this experience we start heading back toward the sandy beach. By now our group are spread along beach, and another group is also there snorkeling. A sea lion pass by ignoring us. When we get near to the shore there is a commotion — a marine iguana took to the water just next to where all the snorkelers were. However, the sea lion came investigate it, and the iguana decided to get out of the water.

The sea lion displays a peculiar behavior, it scans the sandy bottom with its snout and whiskers. I am not sure whether it is searching for crabs, or is there a different purpose in this behavior.

I get out of the water, and get a chance to photograph some Lightfooted Sally crabs, and one iguana that posed nicely for several photographers.

Once we are back on board, the ship takes off toward Santa Cruz island. It is crossing a stretch of sea rich with large marine life. This part is labeled “marine life observation” in our daily schedule.

Shearwater

A group of us sits on the front of the boat searching for signs. Once in a while we see in the distance something jumping out of the water, but it is hard to figure out what it is.

Closer jumps show that these are rays of some sort. Everyone shouts manta ray, but Ilan suspects these are more likely to be mobila. We do see the silhouettes of manta rays passing just next to the ship.

Along this ride few frigates follow us, hovering just above us. They barely move their wings and manage to stay with us although we are going at a fast clip. They seem to enjoy riding the turbulence caused by the ship’s passage against the wind. I manage to catch few shots of them as they compete for the position.

We get closer to Daphne Major, a small island, which is essentially the tip of a volcano cone raising from the water. A large dolphin pod crosses our path, they join the ship for a bit, displaying jumps and racing us for a while. After few minutes of excitement, they return to their original trajectory, and we separated from them.

Approaching Daphne Major

The island has steep vertical walls going down to the sea. It is populated by sea birds, and we get a chance to watch them flying about and fishing. We come across another dolphin pod.

As the sun reaches the horizon we get to our destination, close to the north shore of Santa Cruz isle. The sunset paints an impressive impressionistic painting.

Hans and the sunset

Genovesa

2014-10-13T21:00:00.000+03:00

During the night the ship traveled to Genovesa, the most north-eastern island in the Galapagos. This ride of about 50 nautical miles. During the ride the ship bounced up and down and the engines worked hard. I woke up several times at night, and at one point could hear the anchor going down — we reached our destination around 3am.

I gave up in my attempt to sleep around 5:30am. I climb outside on the deck and find that we are moored inside a huge round bay - Darwin bay. This was the caldron of a volcano that where part of the wall collapsed as the island started descending down, and it was flooded. The walls of the caldron are now steep cliffs around the bay. On the rim I could see a lot of vegetation and many birds.

The early morning air was bristling with the activity of seabirds. The various seagulls flying searching for food, and the black frigates hovering above keeping an eye over them. A bird that manages to spot a fish, dive and catch it, is still not done. Now it is the target of the frigates and it has to escape their dives and chases until it reaches its nest. I got to see one or two dives, which were very abrupt.

Masked booby patroling the waves

As I watch the birds, I hear something moving in the water. A large sea lion was coming up for air just next to the boat. It seems that it was hunting below us (maybe targeting fish that took cover under the boat, or maybe just playful). It kept coming back regularly, take three or four breaths and then dive down. This was usually enough time for me to hear where it is, rush over, and miss a photo as it was diving down.

The passengers slowly woke up, and soon breakfast was announced. Quite soon after breakfast, we notice a lot of bird activity outside. Apparently a school of small fish was near the surface. The birds started diving into it with frenzy. This went on for a while, and I managed to capture few shoots that show the general mayhem. The diving birds as they strike the water look like a narrow projectile.

General mayhem as seabirds dive into the sea

Our next activity was “wet landing”, meaning that we have to get our feet into the water, on the nearby beach. As we come closer we notice that some of the dark rocks on the sand are actually sleeping sea lions. We land, and they open one eye to look at us and promptly go back to sleep.

Just above the sand we run into a nesting ground of the masked booby, the red-footed booby, seagulls and frigates. We do not see nests, but rather the younger birds were sitting here and there not with much of a nest around them.

A parent seagull feeding its young

On the rocks next to the beach David points out two marine iguanas. They are much smaller than the ones we saw briefly yesterday. He claims that on this island there are no hawks, and so the iguanas do not have selective advantage to being bigger. I am not sure if this the reason. The lack of hawks is definitely a factor in the abundance of sea birds.

Our first marine iguana

Juvenile frigate bride

Young Frigate

As we walk along the beach we reach a large mangrove with blush green leaves. The trees are dotted by red-footed booties perched on the branches. We learn that the red-footed is the only type of boobies that preserved the ability to clutch branches with their feet.

Adult red footed booby sitting on a mangrove

Red footed booby juvenile

Same bird, making a face

Beyond the mangrove, we reach a tide pool, where three sealions are playing. One is a large male, and the others are apparently females, that are about half his size. The male barks at us, apparently to show off his strength and establish his territory. When he is satisfied that we are keeping our distance, he joins the females in the pool. It seems that they are playing at chasing one another. One of the females finds a stick and they start to playfully steal it from each other. The display seems similar to what I experienced in various marine world and aquariums in the sealion pools. But here, they are free to go when they want into the ocean.

Male sea lion announcing his territory

Sea lions playing in the pool

We start heading back toward the shore.

We now have attention to smaller birds, such the ground finches, the mocking bird, and doves. We even encounter one appropriately named lava seagull.

A finch eating a pear cactus

Mocking bird

We get back to the ship, where a refreshing fruit juice is waiting for us. And soon we get ready for snorkeling. The pangas take us toward the opening of the bay, and we stop close to the cliffs. David instructs us to look for sea life and not to get too close to the cliffs, as the wave crush forcefully on them.

The water is colder than I expected, but once in I quickly adapt. Unlike most of the others, I am wearing a wetsuit, and I am grateful for taking one with me. The water is greenish with very limited visibility. I see many small planktons, including krill and other zooplankton. Clearly, the sea is living up to the reputation of being a rich source of food for fish. As I get closer to the cliffs, I start seeing the bottom, where there is a rock shelf at about 4-5 meter deep. I swim ahead of the gang along the shelf. There are many fish that are similar to the ones I am used to from the red sea. Later I check and they are different species from the same family.

Since the visibility is poor, I barely see the lower fish, but rather sketches of their outline. Suddenly my brain comprehends that one of the shapes below is too large. Then it emerges on me that there is a hammerhead shark cruising slowly below me. I try to follow it but it disappears into the depth. David who is standing on one of the pangas about 20m away. I signal to him — holding my fists to my temples to imitate the shape of head — and he shouts for the group to head in my direction. Few minutes after there is a crowd around me asking “what?, where?”. I then see the hammerhead passing again below us. I point with my hands as I try to follow it, but I believe that most of the other snorkelers missed it.

I continue snorkeling along the cliffs. Now I can start seeing the sandy bottom at points. There are many groups (too few to be schools) of fish busy eating away on the plankton.

In the water I see a plastic bag. The nemesis of sea turtles. I collect it, and then see another one. After three, I wave to the nearby panga to collect it from me. The driver waves his hand and say “muecho”, meaning that there are many plastic bags in the area and that it is futile to collect them. It sad that in such a marine sanctuary we encounter human waste floating in the water.

The snorkelers are slowly returning to the pangas, and at some point David shouts to me to go back as well. I am reluctant but understand that he is not allowed to leave me to swim by myself to the ship. As the pangas head back, the driver of the other panga shouts “turtoga” (turtle in spanish). Our driver turns around and we scan the water looking for it. Instead we see a piece of net floating in the water. David jumps overboard and collects it. I later learn that they did see a turtle that was partially entangled with the net, and when they closed in it dove down.

After a lunch break and some resting time, we go on a dry-landing. This means we take hiking shows and hopefully not get them wet while going on shore. We board the panga and go along the cliffs. As we progress we see more and more a different type of seabird the phaeton — it has very thing long tail (almost like the tail of eagle rays) and is very fast and agile in the wind.

We complete almost half-turn around the bay, and get close to our landing point. Just before it, David notices fur-seals, a relatively rare sea lion species that lives in the area. We get close to the rock it is sleeping on and get a closer look. It took me time to get my camera out of the bag, and by the time it was out we started getting away from them, so the photo is not great.

Fur Seal (actually a sea lion)

We reach our landing point, a wooden staircase going up through a crack in the rock. The lower steps are made of rock. We find that a big sea lion is sleeping on the first stair and blocking our access. Here the guide is in a dilemma, we are not supposed to disturb wildlife, yet we cannot go ashore when it is there. After mild vocal disturbing, the sea lion decides that a swim is in order. We get a chance to board, climb up the cliff.

The view from top of the stairs toward the bay

On top there is a flat plateau covered with low trees that look almost barren. There are few leaves here and there. Everywhere we look we see birds nesting. The masked booby on the ground and the red-footed booby on the branches.

This juvenile is exploring nearby branches

Some juveniles have down

This one lost most of the down and is starting to test its wings

The older chicks look larger than their parents and are constantly demanding of food. The scene reminds me of spoiled teenager.

Parent and child comparison

One way to keep the teenager in check.
According to the book the parents shade their offspring this way, although here it does not work that well.

A masked booby jouvenile playing with a stick

David shows demonstrates why the trees are named incense trees, their sap has strong pleasant and somewhat anis-like smell.

Red-footed booby on an incesnse tree

The trail continued until we reached bare rock platform above the ocean.

A pair of masked boobies looking toward the shore

The birds were all over the air going back and forth to the sea, with different arguments and fights. Trying to catch the birds in flight proved harder than expected.

Walking along the top of the cliff we see iguanas starting to gather up to enjoy the afternoon sun.

Marine iguana

We also see smaller birds

A ground finch trying to break a seed

As we head back, David spots an owl sitting on a branch. We all hush up and watch it preening itself in the late afternoon light.

Galapagos owl

We are back to the ship and go for dinner. By now I know the names of our fellow passengers, and can introduce them. Hans and Ruth are swiss couple who live outside Basel. Kelly is an American who has been living in Ecuador for some time. He is in charge of a research station in the Amazon rainforest and also teaches in a Boston University program on “tropical ecology”. John is a recent graduate of the program who was hired as a teaching fellow to help run the program. He is interested in lizards and carries a huge 300mm prime lens to photograph small animals (e.g., lizards). The students in the program are a cheerful bunch. Six are students from BU — Yang (who is from originally from China), Luca (originally from Italy), Ben, Cristy, Andrew, and Juliana. Three girls are “outside” students Annie (Tufts), Devon (Colorado College) and Birch (Brown).

Arriving in the Galapagos

2014-10-12T21:00:00.000+03:00

We had an early start.

Biki was scheduled to pick us up at 6:45. I was still jet-lagged and woke at 5am. Finished packing and went down to have breakfast at 6am.

View from my hotel room on first light

After packing three large luggages and two carry ons in to Biki’s small car, we left toward the airport. Outside the sun came out with nice clouds to punctuate its light. It seemed that Quito decided to show us that it can also be sunny.

The city was pretty empty, and the drive to the airport went smoothly. As we drove down from Quito we went into a fog bank, but then got out of it when we got to the airport.

At the airport we had to pay 10$ galapagos fee and screen our all our belonging. I am not sure what exactly they were looking for, but after we got signed document, we could go out back into the terminal and check in.

Somewhat to our surprise we learned that our flight from Quito has an intermediate stop in Guayaquil. We took off and got some nice view of the complex Quito geography.

Landing in Guayaquil we saw the broad river that the city is sitting on. The land was flat below us with many side channels and islands. It seems stark contrast to the Andes we just came from. After we landed, the passengers to Galapagos were asked to stay put. We thought this will be nice time, but they announced that the plane is fueling and thus, we need to stay in our seats without using electronic devices. This did not stop the various airline workers that came onto the plane to clean it to use walkie-talkie. We speculated that landing in Guayaquil was really about refueling, as fuel cost at the Galapagos must be much higher, and we guess that the cost in the mountains is also higher.

After take off we had a slightly longer leg, and started our descent toward Galapagos. The air crew went through the cabin and sprayed the luggage bins with insecticide. Opening the window I saw a shoreline that separated a cloud-covered island from the open ocean. It turns out that was San Cristobal. As we got lower we got to the corner of Santa Cruz, the big island next to the airport. We passed over Baltra. The old foundations of buildings from the 2nd world war were visible from the air. Other than that the island looked like a flat desert. We passed it and then did a turn and started landing. We passed over few small islands on this turn

View from the plane of Daphne Major, Santa Cruz island is in the background

During landing we could see that there are more details. The flat landscape was dotted with pear cactus, a Galapagos plant that looks like the common israeli cactus growing on a trunk above the ground.

Example of local pear cactus trees

The airport here is really small. As we deplaned and walked from the plan to the terminal, the passengers for the return flight started going the opposite direction on a parallel path. Inside the terminal, we the foreigners had to pay special fee of 100$. Unloading of luggage took a while, and then we had to queue to screen them again, and to get ok to pass the import control. The emphasis is stopping potential foreign species entering the Galapgos.

Outside was a smallish arrival hall. There were two people with signs, but none of them for us. We thought that maybe the person in charge of our pickup was running late. The locals and then backpackers got on a bus that would take them to the ferry to Santa Cruz. We were left with our luggage waiting outside.

After 10 more minutes we tried to call the contact number, and did not manage to get an answer. We tried to make contact with the Israeli tour operator and his representative in Quito (who is in charge of making the reservations). We kept losing cellular communications and had to maneuver to find a spot with reliable signal. In the mean time the two souvenir shops in the arrival halls closed, and then the people in the arrival terminal started leaving. It seemed that we were the last flight of the day, and that the airport was starting to close down.

By now were the only ones there except for various airport employees that were waiting for their transportation. We learned that the boat people did not find us and decided to go on without us. In the mean time we found a small kiosk where we bought some water, as we didn’t drink since the flight. We were told to get transportation to the ferry and there we will be picked up. We asked the Kiosk person if he can call us transportation, and were promised someone will come in 20-30 minutes.

In the mean time I tried to photograph the local finches. They seemed like birds we have in Israel, but closer inspection showed that they have very different beak.

First encounter with Darwin's finches

By now the terminal was totally closed. Our promised pickup did not show up. The last employees were leaving and getting on small vans, that seemed to be employee transportation. One of them stopped and asked if we know that after they leave there will not be any transportation. He claimed to know the owner of our boat and called him on his cell (for some reason he had reasonable signal). He arranged for one of the vans to return and do another trip to take us to the ferry.

On the way out of the airport, a large land iguana was standing on the edge of the road. Sadly, it slinked away before I got out the camera. When we got to the ferry dock, another was standing next to the road. However, there was our dinghy (panga in the local terminology) waiting. So we loaded the luggage and left the photo-op behind :-(

The driver of the panga did not know English, but we managed to coordinate loading of our luggage in a way that kept the balance. He told us to sit out front and wear life jackets. And off we go. Looking in the direction he was heading I didn’t see any ship. I tried to ask where it was, and he made signs that it was further away.

We started getting sprayed by the waves. The panga was a small zodiac with an outboard engine. Our driver took off the rain-poncho he was wearing and we tried to cover the luggage with it. We continued, leaving the channel behind and going parallel Santa Cruz shore. By now we were both quite wet, and we were getting into waves, not huge, but ones that gave us a solid spray every bump. After some time, when we were far off from our starting point, but couldn't see our target on the horizon, the boat man got out a cell phone from his pocket. Apparently he called the ship to get help since we were too heavy. He then fished a zip bag to save his phone from the water. I gave him my phone for keeping. We continued going. I tried to enjoy and watch the birds that flew overhead.

After few minutes another panga showed up. Our driver told us to move to the new panga. We took our camera bags and left the rest of the luggage with him. The new boatman introduced himself as Eliot and seemed to know some English. Now that we were off the first panga, the boatman put full gas and took off. We went in at a slower pace, apparently to save the two of us further bath by the spray. When we got to ship, our bags were already up on the deck. The first boatman was bringing another person from the nearby beach. He introduced himself as David, the tour’s nature guide. He suggested we switch to bathing suits and come to the beach, where the rest of the group was.

We quickly switched to bathing suits and went on the panga. Ilan took his camera bag, and I decide not to risk it. We got to beach and practiced “wet landing” on the beach. David told us to join him to see some birds. We walked down the beach and reached a path to a small brackish pool about 20-30m inland. The pool was surrounded by mangroves. In the pool there were two large flamingos going about searching for food. As were standing there a third one flow by and landed in the pool. It turns out that flamingo sighting is not common, and so we started with a good omen for the trip. Next to the pool stood a large heron watching the flamingos without moving.

On the pool’s edge were few of our group. We started talking with them, and learned that they were on course in ecology run by Boston University. There was an older guy who was the teacher, and several young undergraduates. They were spotting the different birds that came by.

After 10-15 minutes I decided to go back to the beach to enjoy a quick swim. On the way I passed a couple of rocks that were swarming with “Lightfooted Sally” a type of crab that has striking bright colors. On a closer look I could see the smaller crabs that were black and were hard to distinguish against the black rocks. David told me that when they grow in size they slowly, in a series of moltings, move from black to dark red, and then to bright red and yellow.

The swim in the water was refreshing. And although I was expecting the water to be cold, it was not too cold.

The two pangas came to pick us up, and we all returned to the ship. By now our bags were in the cabin, and we had to unpack and try to fit them all in the space below the bed. In the end, we gave two of the bags to the crew to store somewhere else on the boat since we didn't have enough space for the luggage.

By now the sun was setting, and I went upstairs to enjoy the view.

At 18:20 we were called for briefing. David gave us an overview of the plan for the next day. After that we had a "welcome cocktail" and he introduced the crew. The crew included the captain, two mates (who we met on the pangas), an engineer, the barman (who was in charge of the inside of the ship), and the cook.

Maldives Day 6 - last diving day

2013-03-02T20:07:00.000+02:00

I woke up on the upper deck around 6am, with the sky lighting up. I soon heard activities below, and realized that everyone was up. By now I was well versed in bundling my stuff in the bed sheet and in two minutes had everything back to the cabin. We saw the sunrise, and then sat down for morning briefing.

Dive 14 Miyaru kandu, Start 200, end 20

This was a channel dive. Unlike yesterday we were supposed to cross the channel from one shoulder and rest on the bottom in the middle of the channel mouth. We jumped in with negative entry. By now I was proficient at jumping in, taking the camera from the crewman and immediately descend. By now I would then connect with Ayelet who jumps next after me.

Friendly reception on the way down

The current was not as strong as yesterday's dive, and we swam across the channel mouth with ease.

The downside of this, was the much smaller number of sharks.

A bit after we decided to unhook and start drifting in the channel we run across a large Napoleon fish. I managed one or two shots, and was getting close to a third, when Alex came out of the left and tried to get close to it. The fish bolted and swam away.

We slowly drifted up with the current. Saar and Mor (who rejoined forces today) tried a new way of keeping contact in a buddy team.

Saar and Mor keeping in touch. Dhous watches somewhat amused

Dive 15 Mata Kandu, Start 200, end 20

We returned to the site of yesterday's afternoon dive. Unlike yesterday, today we aimed to get to "shelve" in the middle of the channel mouth.

We jumped to the north of the channel, and then crossed most of its width until we settled about 2/3 of the way across. At some point three eagle-rays passed across our path in a graceful formation. (They were too far into the blue to take a picture of them.)

A shark, and barely visible a pair of eagle rays

Similar to yesterday, we saw many sharks moving in the blue. I thought that down here we will get a closer look.

I am not sure if we didn't have as good a dive as yesterday, or maybe we have grown used to seeing sharks and its not such a big deal.

After unhooking, we came across the big Napoleon, probably the same one we saw here yesterday. This time I got a chance for a nice picture of it.

As was the routine by now, we went up while drifting with the current.

Saar and Mor with a variant on the buddy hold

Anat and David doing the more traditional version

Ayelet decided she wants a picture with Dhous.

He instead wanted to stretch his legs, leading to an interesting situation...

We returned to the boat, and started the journey from the Vaavu atoll to the Male atoll. We ate lunch while the boat was going through mild waves, and it was rocking a bit. Few people lost their appetite. I went to sleep.

Dive 16 Loshfushi Kandu. Start 200, end 20

This was the next to last dive of the safari. The plan was to go on a drift dive along an outer reef, and end with the current taking us into a wide channel.

We started a bit off in the blue parallel to the reef wall. We saw several sharks above the reef and also some below us. We crossed the mouth of a relatively narrow channel.

Right about this area we saw a small turtle that passed overhead.

One small turtle, four divers, and very dimly a shark in the background

We run into schools of coral fish, including snappers and bannerfish.

As we continued we passed a Napoleon fish in the blue, sharks, and coral outgrowths. We were picked by the current heading into the channel. We started "flying" over the reef. Ayelet spotted a turtle eat some soft corals. I held onto a rock and managed few pictures.

Notice how Saar barely holds on while the turtle calmly goes against it...

We picked up the speed and started ascending while drifting over the reef. I went up with David, and sadly finished the last day dive of the safari.

David minding the depth at the safety stop

We were resting waiting for the evening dive. I was sitting on the middle deck in the shade reading a book. A small colorful boat approached us and there was some discussion between its crew and ours.

I looked down, and saw that the boat had a huge Merlin (sailfish) on its deck. Few back and forth discussions, and the crew threw a rope to the small boat, the merlin was tied to it, and unceremoniously dropped it to the sea. Dhous pulled the line and dragged the huge fish toward our boat. He couldn't lift it by himself and needed another hand to get it on board.

Line caught Merlin

It turns out that the boat was not a fishing boat as initially I thought, but a water supply boat. They did drag a line during their trip, and caught the Merlin. Our crew bought the fish of their hands. They claimed it was 80kg fish, and they bought it for 30$.

By now everyone was gawking on the fish and examining what is going on. Dhous and the kitchen aid brought two knifes and set to work on cleaning the fish.

Ready for action

They worked for quite a while, first filleting it, then cutting large chunks, removing the skin from each, washing, and packing in bags. I guess the bags went into the freezer/cooler. Dhous said that this will give them fish supply for about a week. [I spared you the pictures of the process here]

Dive 17 Villivarn giri: night dive Start 200, end 70

The site of the night dive was around a small pinnacle, called in the local language giri. The dive plan was similar to what I am used to in night dives in Sinai. We went in in pairs and each pair did their own exploration of the site. Initially we were surrendered by quite a few people, but slowly Ayelet and I managed to disengage and find the space for exploration and photography.

The night reef life here was similar to that of the red sea, with many shrimps and crab showing up at night, and bigger reef fish resting in every nook and cranny.

There were few odd animnals. Some kind of anemone like creature but without the tentacle. It closed up like anemone after a bit of time in the light.

There was also a smallish coral or sponge that reminded me of clusters of pomegranate seeds.

We did get our share of morays of different sizes, some of them friendlier than others.

And as usual, I cannot avoid the clownfish.

We found a small cave like structure, and snuggled at the end was a sleeping turtle, who seemed oblivious to our presence.

All by all it was a very nice dive. We were the last emerge from the water ("first in, last out" is my moto for night dives :-)

Once on the Dhoni the guides climbed onto the roof. We followed up. They were sitting on a bench facing each other with two large drums between them. They were drumming and singing. The noise and light from below were hidden by the upper, and so the small group of us was separated from the world. Above we could see the stars in the pre-moon night. It was a very surrealistic moment to end this last dive with.

Maldive Day 5: South Ari Atoll and Vaavu Atoll

2013-03-01T22:44:00.000+02:00

Dive 10: Kudarah Thila. Start 210 end 40

This thila is a rather small one and considered very beautiful. The plan was to come with the current and land on the thila and explore it. We did a negative entry dive where we need to jump and immediately get below the surface to 5m or more. This way we do not get carried away by the surface current.

We quickly descended on the slope of the thila, and had to fight with the current to stay in place. Douth gathered our group and led us toward the higher ground. Once we got to the protected side, we managed to progress forward.

We passed a nice arch decorated with sea-fans and schools of yellow fish.

Past the arch we hit on a strong current.

Mor hanging on in the current

To move forward we had to cling to a rock, and then pull ourselves forward and then catch another one before the current took us back. This was really slow going, and not very healthy for the reef. It wasn't clear if where Dhous was taking us. He himself seemed to move like the fish without worrying too much about the current.

We stayed put for few minutes, and then I noticed that Dhous disappeared. There were four of us and we moved back a bit and then decided to "climb" up to the top of thila. Here the current was even stronger. There was a huge amount of fish, of all shapes, sizes and colors. Many tuna and jacks swam among the smaller fish.

I left the rock I was holding for one second, and found myself three meters away. I saw the rest of the group on the top of a small pinnacle, and decided to join them.

Lots of fish, and behind them, my group...

After a fight with the current, I was almost there. To get better hold I caught Ayelet's fin. She thought I was signaling to leave and let go of the rock. Both of us were swept away in the current. I tried to get down to hold something, and Dhous came over and dragged me back onto the reef.

I pulled my reef hook and got myself secured. The reef hook is a small hook at the end of about a meter of rope, ending with a shackle that you attach to the BCD webbing. This allows a diver to hover about the reef in strong currents. It was weird being tied this way, and I had to play with the anchor point to get it right.

Ayelet showed next to me (I thought Dhous helped her after me, but it turned out she made it back herself). She positioned herself a bit forward. We sat there for few minutes to watch the fish activity. As someone later described it, the experience was like being immerse in a large busy aquarium.

I was starting to be low on air. I signaled Dhous. He signed "ok". He banged his pointer on the tank to get the groups' attention, and marked "ascent". I was trying to get ready for the ascent and managed to unhook myself from the rock. However, I didn't hold anything else, and before I knew what was going on I was flying away in the current. I was surrounded by bubbles from all the divers in front of me so had only partial view of what was going on with the group. After few useless kicks I realized that there nothing I could do about it, except watch the thila disappear below me.

I slowly ascended, and few minutes later could see the group floating about a twenty meters behind me.

At about 10m depth I pulled out my signal marker. Once again the process of unwinding the rope and getting the thing in position was awkward. I managed to raise the signal and hung on the line. By now Saar reached me and after him the rest of the group. I realized that everyone was there, except Ayelet. Instead Matti, who was with another group found himself with us. It was clear that Mor was furious about something Anat did, and they were having an underwater heated discussion.

Once we finished our safety stop and ascended, I asked what happened. Saar said he saw me leaving and so unhooked himself to join me. Anat and David tried to get Mor and Ayelet's attention that we were all going up. When Mor didn't seem to understand, Anat unhooked her from the reef, which upset Mor very much. David who gave Ayelet the sign and then unhooked thought she was behind him, but then didn't see her. To summarize it, we had a mess, and everyone was upset about how the others behaved.

The Dhoni picked us up, and then continued to collect other divers. Among them was Ayelet with another group. I learned that she tried to leave when David signaled, but had trouble unhooking herself. When she managed, she looked around, and all of us were gone. She thought we were another group few meters away, so swam toward them. When she realized they were not us, she turned around to look for us elsewhere (we were long gone with the current by then). She disengaged from the reef, and was caught in a whirlpool caused by the thila. The current took here down with great speed. She inflated her BCD and managed to get up, but then she was too light, and started to go up very quickly. One of the other divemasters saw this happening, and caught her at 5m below the surface. She then did a safety stop with him and his group. She was pretty shaken by these events.

Several other buddy pairs got separated, and so Sigala told us that after breakfast (which was waiting on the boat) we will do a debriefing to understand what happened and how to act next time. The basic conclusion was that we had to improve communications and also stick with our buddies. Sigala also had discussions with the divemasters how to give us better briefing and also make sure we understood what they want. Another conclusion from the discussions was that Mor, who was unhappy about leaving dives with a lot of air remaining, will not be part of the group, and dive with Sigala instead. Thus, we were left with Saar as a third buddy for Ayelet and me, and then Anat and David as the other couple in the group.

Dive 11: Five Rocks Start 210, end 30

Once again we were diving to a thila. The name comes from the shape of the thila whose top is broken into five sections separated from each other by channels. We were warned again of possible currents, and prepared for negative entry and fighting the current.

It was a nice surprise that once we went below 10m there was very little current. We descended on top of the thila and started investigating. The thila was rich with big sea fans and fish.

Dhous found one of the round sea stars that we saw before, and turned it over to let me photograph its star shaped undersize. I was not very happy with the manipulation of sea creatures, but the picture came out nice. After taking the picture I made sure to turn it back to its original position.

Next to it was one of the biggest sea-cucumbers I ever saw.

Huge albino sea-cucumber

We continued our trip and found encountered even bigger sea fans, yellow sweetlips and such.

Ayelet hiding behind a sea fan

A nudibranch

Mif leading his group

There were many sea lilies all over the place. They look similar to the ones I know from the Red Sea. but their color scheme is different, with white "stems" and dark feathers.

Sea lilies decorating a sea fan

Although I tried to be relaxed in this dive, my air run down much faster than anyone else in our group.

Saar and I ascended into the blue. I tried to raise a signal again. This time the signal tube flew upwards while the line stayed in my hand. Somehow I disconnected the line when I refolded the tube after the last dive.

I sighed and let Saar raise his marker. He carefully unrolled his, and being smarter from my experience checked the line before inflating the marker. His line was also detached from the tube, so he tied it, and then raised it. We did a safety stop and then rised to the surface and onto the Dhoni.

I was happy to see that the Dhoni crew collected my signal, and so I got a chance to fix the problem.

Unlike the previous dive, everyone was very happy on the way back , On our way back we saw that the main boat unmoored and already sailing at full spead. We intercepted its route and boarded. We had lunch while sailing. The trip to our next destination, the Vaavu atoll, was over 3 hours, so we all used the time to rest and relax.

Dive 12 Mata kandu - Start 210, end -20

This dive was a channel dive. The Vaavu atoll is well known for relative narrow channels that connect the atoll with the ocean. When the current flowing inwards there is an aggregation of large pelagic fish near the channel mouth. This means that if we manage to stay there we can see many of them. The problem, of course, is that there is a strong current taking us away from that point. To avoid that, the strategy for channel dives is to drop off to one shoulder of the channel, where there is less current, and then move toward the channel mouth and hook there to some rock. In this dive the channel mouth was at 35m, and so we could not hook in the channel itself. Instead, the plan was to sit on the "corner" of the channel mouth, where the ocean-ward reef wal and the channel wall meet.

We jumped down and assembled on the wall. We then progressed toward the corner. Along the way we encountered a large Napoleon fish.

Dhous took us all the way to the corner, and there we hooked up. In front of us a large number of sharks patrolled in circles. Some came in a bit closer, and the other stayed in the blue in front of us. I was shooting without actually knowing if the pictures will come out or not.

Unlike the previous dive, this time the hook worked nicely and after a bit of fudging with the anchor point I managed to feel comfortable. So far my experience is that the higher on the body the anchor point of the line, the more comfortable I am. The only problem is that this means that I am skewed to one side, as I have to connect the hook to one of the shoulder D-rings. I guess I could have made a rig with three points (two shoulders and one waist ring) to make me more symmetrical. This is a bit like the rig of a kite.

After sitting down for about 15-20 min, Dhous signaled that we should disengage from the reef. We were all close to the non-decompression limit. I was down to 50 bar and signaled this to him. Thus, it was surprising that he started swimming against the current downward. After a minute or two he switched direction and signaled for us to drift away into the channel. Since I was low on air, I asked for some of Ayelets. We flew in the current connected by the air hose between us. We slowly ascended and returned to the Dhoni.

In the dive profile the period I was hooked to the reef is
easy to detect, as there are virtually no changes in depth.

On the boat we waited until sundown, and then had the night dive briefing.

Dive 13 Alimata faru

This was not a usual dive. The plan was to get into the water near the jetty of a local resort, which caters mostly to Italian tourists. We should go down and stay on the bottom, and the sharks will come to us.

Going into the water we already saw many headlights pointing in all directions. It felt like a scene from a sci-fi movie. There was at least one big group there before us. On the bottom I saw several large sting rays and few sharks going about.

Dhous signaled for us to follow him, and led us to the edge of a sandy area. Inside there was a frenzy of action - sting rays, sharks, and huge jackfish all trying to get to the food.

A hungry Jack fish

Apparently the resort and the dive boat bring remains of fish to feed the sharks. All the fish in the area were trying to get their share of the free food. I tried to tie myself down, and had problems with the hook. Moreover few peoples banged into my flash arms and I had to fix this. To add to the problems I had water coming into the mask. I slowly tried to regain composure and start enjoying the show. I was later told that while I was doing this a big nurse shark managed to coil itself around my mid section (I didn't feel that).

A minute or two after we settled down, Alex and Gal, who were very excited, landed on us from above. I tried to push them aside, but to no avail. Ayelet and I both realized that it is best to move away. We swam a bit to the side, to a large open sandy area, and waited there. Here there was less of a frenzied struggle, but still the various players zoomed by and came to check us out and look for food.

Few times I was looking in one direction and suddenly realize that a shark or ray was just next to me on the other side. Unlike the sharks and rays that were moving fast but in a predicted way, the jacks were flying in from above at amazing speed. I was shooting at them with the hope of catching the whole fish, but without time to compose or focus. Surprisingly some of these shots were successful in the end.

We sat there for a while, watching the action around us.

Fifteen minutes or so later, Dhous came and tried to get us back to the center of the action few meters below us. We settled down. A minute later Alex and Son crashed on us again. This time we got the message We retreated away from the group.

The underside of sting Ran,

The divemasters collected the groups and moved us away from the jetty. The current took hold (much stronger than I remembered going on. The whole group was dense together and again we got kicked inadvertently. Ayelet and I hanged back and let the group open a lead on us.

Maldives Day 4: Ari Atoll continued (large animals galore)

2013-02-28T21:00:00.000+02:00

I woke when the crew started the engines at 6. Soon after I enjoyed an impressive sunrise.

We started the day with a trip toward our next destination. This was supposed to be another Manta Point where we can sit and watch Manta Rays coming for cleaning service.

Dive 7: Madivalu Rangali Start 210 end 120.

The dive briefing was simple - that we will be on a sloping outer reef with two "cleaning stations".

We were getting ready on the boat, when suddenly the dive masters said we are going to dive and jump quickly into the water. After jumping they told us "go down". This is usually a sign of a strong current which requires getting to the bottom as quickly as possible.

We went down in a disorganized group, and immediately realized the strength of the current. On the bottom it was a fight to progress toward the first dive master. Mif showed up and tried to get our group together. Then suddenly he disengaged from the reef and signaled to go up. It wasn't clear what was his plan. When we got up he unrolled a signal marker, raised it and called us to go up to his location. I thought this meant that the dive was over, maybe because they put us down at the wrong place.

We slowly ascended, did a three minute safety stop, and got on the boat. Investigating what happened, we were told that he saw a whale shark passing above us and wanted us to be at its level. We were all a bit grumpy as this was a useless fight against currents without any need.

Two of the groups were in our situation, and the third one stayed down (and did some sort of a dive).

The divemasters told us to get ready to snorkel as there is a good chance to encounter whale-shark on the surface. We jumped quickly from the boat into a group of russian tourists who were snorkeling from a small motorboat (probably from a nearby resort). I was still partially set up for diving (suit etc), and my equipment got tangled whole I was bumped into someone. In the end when I managed to get to the action I saw the head of a whale shark pass below me, and then it was gone. Soon after the people in the front said it dived down into the deep, and we got back on the Dhoni.

We collected the third group who saw two Manta Rays, and headed to the main boat. We were told to bring our snorkeling gear with us in case we run into a whale-shark.

By now breakfast was ready, and we sat down to enjoy it. Someone shouted "whale shark" and we all rushed outside to the deck. The dive masters told us to get ready to jump from the front of the boat. One of them, Deco, jumped and swam toward the shark to mark the exact location for the captain. He brought us close, and then we all jumped in.

This time I was better prepared. I disassembled the camera from the tray and flashes and so it was smaller and easier to carry. I also wore only lycra shirt instead of a wetsuit.

The shark was swimming just below the surface. We started following, with me trying to be just a bit ahead of it.

At some point I crossed its path to take frontal picture, and it almost collided with me.

The whaleshark was moving in slow graceful movements. I had to work quite intensively to keep up with it. Below it was a small school of accompanying remoras. They kept in formation most of the time, but once in a while distributed, as if to catch some food, and then reformed.

It was getting harder and harder to get view of the shark, and it took me some minutes to realize that new snorkelers joined us. At least two boats. Apparently, once someone sights a whale-shark, all the boats in the vicinity rush over to catch the event. We were lucky to be the first ones to spot it, and so had it for ourselves for few minutes.

When the shark dove down and disappeared, the small dingy collected us and returned us to the main boat, which by now was quite far. We dried ourselves and sat down to finish breakfast.

The guides let us know that if we want to try the Manta point again, we need to do it soon otherwise the currents will change and the Manta Rays will not come. We quickly organized ourselves and return to the Dhoni.

Dive 8: Madivalu Rangali. Start 200, end 40

Before the dive, Mif let us know that our group will be guided by Dhous, another divemaster. It seems that we were reasonably easy to guide while other groups were more problematic, and so the guides rotate among the groups.

Dhous is a thin wiry fellow with a funny goaty. Among the three guides he is more on the wild side. He dives with a short stainless steel stick that he uses for pointing things and also for banging on his tank to get our attention.

Dhous underwater

Unlike the previous attempt, this dive went according to plan. We gathered down on the slope and visited some overhangs.

We then reached a location where Dhous told us to wait. It didn't take long and a Manta Ray appeared above us.

It did a slow majestic half circle and then disappeared. We all waited and after few minutes it reappeared above us.

In the water, we were joined by another group of divers. And so the water was rather crowded. Douth started us moving toward the next Manta cleaning station, when the Manta appeared for a third round. It was impressive how the large crowd did not deter it from staying in the same area.

We continued the dive, and slowly got toward the shallows. I returned to my favorite subjects.

Dhous pointed to a whitetip shark below us.

Returning to shallows, we encountered schools of fish.

Fifty shades of fish

I was getting low on air, and together with Saar, started toward a safety stop above the reef. The top of reef was about 6-7m depth.

Up on the Dhoni, one of the groups reported a sighting of a whaleshark at the end of the dive. We prepared for snorkeling if we encounter it on the surface. About a hundred meters from us were few snorkelers boats, and so it seemed that this going to be a crowded event, again. Luckily for us, the crew spotted the whaleshark very near, and we jumped into the water without the other crowd.

The whaleshark was cruising below us just above the reef. We snorkeled above it as it was moving gracefully in the water.

I continued working hard to stay above it. I realized that I am the only one still in the water. I guess the others decided it will not go up. I took it as a challenge to keep up with it, which was a good morning exercise requiring full power strokes. I continued swimming for some time (I am not sure how long). At some point the shark dipped down, and then back up.

I was hopeful it will surface, but then it descended into the deep. I stopped snorkeling and signaled the Dhoni, who was quite far behind (keeping respectable distance). They came over and picked me up.

On the boat there was general merriment. In one morning we had several amazing encounters.

After a lunch and some relaxation time, we moved toward our afternoon dive.

Dive 9: MV Kudimaa Start 200, end 30

This site was wreck dive. The medium sized cargo ship was sunk on purpose on the sand next to the "house reef" of one of the resorts.

Although the wreck was relatively fresh (sunk in 1999), it was covered by an impressive coral growth. I guess this is a testament for the richness of the sea here.

Dhous led us around the wreck. He searched for animals to show us. He pointed out a huge stonefish, that was extremely well disguised. He then pointed out a nudibranch. He was a bit disappointed that we did not take many photos of it. I did not have a macro lens, and it was below a net that made access tricky.

Toward the stern of the boat I peeked over the rail, and saw three batfish. They were sufficiently patient with me to photograph them. This reminded me similar scenes during safari's in the Red Sea. The batfish here have slightly different shape though.

Suddenly there were ringing sounds in the water -- Dhous banging on his tank. I thought something happened, but it took a while to locate where he was. He was up next to the "mast" of the boat. I came up toward him, and he pointed to a large black frogfish. These are notoriously hard to photograph (they usually come out as a dark blob with dots that look like backscatter), but I gave it a shot.

Largish frogfish, note the bait on a thin wire up on its head.

Few times I had clouds of bubbles from below entering my field of view. When I finished the photo session, I looked around and realized that there was a cloud of divers that came up to see the attraction. I returned down and from below this is how this mess looked like.

Frog fish was close to the tip of the mast.

We continued along the boat.

Ayelet posing for the camera

When I was low on air (I was clearly the weak link of our group), we swam over to the nearby reef, and slowly ascended.

We reached a contraption of hanging bar in the water. Dhous swam to it, removed his fins, and started doing a rope walk.

We had a good laugh, and then the men used the bar for its intended purpose - a safety stop.

Saar and David hanging out

We saw from above that the girls found a turtle munching on soft corals. Since we were low on air, I skipped the opportunity for close up mug shots :-(

We moored for the night next to a long island. As all the islands near here, it had white beaches and dense growth inside.

Maldives Day 3: Ari Atoll

2013-02-27T09:41:00.000+02:00

Dive 4: Rashdhoo Madivaru. Start 200, end 30

The aim of the dive was to see hammerheads. This meant diving very early. The wakeup call was at 5:30 before the dawn. We saw the sunrise as were moving on the Dohni toward the outer reef. The dive plan was to go down next to the reef and then swim outward into the blue.

Before sunrise on the Dhoni

For some reason it was decided that all of us (18+3 divers) will go as a group. As a result there was a huge mass of divers in the water. Again I had ear problems had to work my way down slowly. In the grayish water, we could see fluorescent plankton particles.

Once down the group was busy trying to see something in the marky gray water. Someone apparently saw a silhouette in the distance and then we all rushed in that direction. In the end we didn't see much.

We slowly returned to the reef wall, there the current took us along the wall. We saw several large tuna, and few sharks. Two large ones swam below us, they looked larger than white-tips, but it was hard to tell.

Toward the end of the dive we were close to the reef's top. It was about a meter or two below the surface and was rich with life. By now the sun came out and everything was vivid with color.

Mif in action

Large schools of needlefish were moving just below the surface. As usual, their color combination made them blend into the background. I saw before aggregations of needlefish, but never so many in one place.

We came back from the dive and immediately the crew raised anchor, and start us on our way toward the Ari Atoll. During breakfast someone shouted "Dolphins!" and we all came out to watch them swim next to the boat.

Dive 5: Hafusa Thila Start: 200, end: 30 (-30 from Ayelet)

This dive was on a classic Thila, with a small top and round shape. The plan was to sit on the top and watch the sharks go by.

Everyone ready to jump

Going down I noticed something was wrong. My tank was moving from side to side. I thought it was the strap but it was clearly fastened. I continued down hoping to fix it on the bottom. Ayelet and David started fussing with my equipment and signaled "ok", and so we continued. It turned out that it wasn't fixed and I continued diving with a big weight swinging back and forth on my back. We got to the edge of the top, and everyone sat down. My camera didn't work right and I also got kicked on the way down, so I was trying to fix it while not missing the action.

Few big sharks swam by. However, the mass (and mess) of divers made it hard to take pictures. At some stage the group moved down along the slope, it wasn't clear whether this was planned or not, but since they created a huge bubble screen, we followed. On the bottom, at about 30m, I saw two small white-tip sharks resting on the sand. I tried to move in closely to take a picture.

My tank was swinging wildly, and Mif and another divemaster tried to fix that. After a minute or two, I realized that they cannot solve the problem with the BCD on my back. So I removed the BCD, and found out that the anchor point for the lower tank strap managed to disconnect from the backplate. This explain why the tank was swinging around while the straps were tight and nice. Together with five hands involved, we managed to secure it to place. I put on my equipment and tried to continue with the dive.

We saw more small sharks, and few larger ones from above. At some point Ayelet pointed to the right and we saw a small eagle-ray approaching. It seemed rather oblivious to us. I took some pictures and Ayelet started to swim with it.

Right then, Mif pointed out that we are probably at the end of our no-decompression time. I tried to signal to Ayelet to get higher, but she wouldn't leave the eagle-ray alone. Once we got her to say goodbye, we started moving up toward the top of the thila.

Weird looking sea anemone

Once we moved off the current facing side, the current took hold of us and took us with it away from the thila. This was rather surprising since it didn't seem that strong before.

On the top there was somewhat of a mess again, and at some point Mif told us to start ascending as David, Ayelet and me were close to 50bar. Ayelet got so low only because she lent me her air for few minutes.

Anat at the safety stop

Back on the Dhoni everyone seemed unhappy with the dive. Mif and Sigala sat down to talk about it. After lunch, Sigala gathered us for a serious talk on how we should improve our behavior, not rush after big animals, get out of the water with 50bar etc. We all complained about the fact that all three groups are diving together creating a mess.

In addition, they swapped Doron and Omer from our group and replaced them with Saar and Mor. The reasoning was that all the girls (Ayelet, Anat and Mor) always have to leave early because of their buddies. We decided that once some of the boys finish their air, they will ascent, and leave the girls to continue together.

Dive 6: Panettone Start: 220, end: 40.

This dive was an outer reef dive in a site where there are Manta Ray cleaning stations. Our group jumped third, and moreover, I managed to loose my mask in the jump. Once again, Mif rescued it. This event caused sufficient delay for us to go down few minutes after the other groups. Once we got down we went along a mild slope at about ~15m. The water was murky and the visibility was poor. We saw some fish, moray eels, and such. Mif pointed out a large Napoleon fish, that was moving more or less at the edge of the visibility.

After few minutes, Mif pointed forward, and while we couldn't see much, we all stopped. Soon we saw out of the gloom a large Manta Ray. It was moving parallel to the slope in the opposite direction to us. We waited a bit, but it didn't return. We continued forward, and after few minutes, the scene repeated itself. I was not sure if this was the same Manta Ray or another (later one of the guides claimed these were distinct).

By the time we saw the third Manta, we reached large schools of yellow fish that were more or less stationary above the reef. David managed to swim slowly into their cloud.

A school of bluish fish passed above and created an interesting contrast with the yellow ones.

The fourth Manta passed above us and not below as the previous one. This one did a large circle around us, just at the edge of visible range. After a another circle it continued forward.

By this stage I was low on air. Mif sent Saar and me to go up. I inflated a marker and help on the line for a safety stop. It was a rather clumsy execution with me going down while unwinding the line, and then almost flew up with the marker (as the line was shorter than our depth). After this excitement, I hang on the line for a safety stop and then we slowly ascended to the surface.

On the Dhoni everyone was happy. Clearly this dive worked better than the previous ones. We embarked on the main boat, and then had a short trip to the place where we will stay the night.

This evening we are having a BBQ on the beach of the island. This is a small uninhabited island with a nice sandy shore, and surrounded by a shallow sandy lagoon. There were several boats parked next to the island, and it seems this will be a multi-boat event. We had the option to go to the short to enjoy the island, or go snorkeling. For me the choice was clear. I took my camera and went snorkeling. Ayelet joined me.

We started with the outer reef facing into the atoll.

After awhile we moved into the lagoon. The sand was very white, with small corals dotting it.

Ayelet found a large sting-ray hiding in the sand. It wasn't very cooperative and didn't stay for more than one picture.

We then swam across the barrier reef to the outer side of the lagoon wall. This part was facing a channel from the outer ocean into the atoll. The walls here were rich with table corals that went down all the way beyond our visibility range.

By now the sun was very low, and the special afternoon light was in the water.

Ayelet pointed out a sea cucumber that seemed to be standing on a table coral with most of its body upright in the water. I thought this was very peculiar, but then we saw another and another of these. I am not sure what exactly this behavior means. Usually we see such sea cucumbers on the sandy bottom, but here they were going over hard coral, which might explain the strange scene.

By sunset we made it back to the boat.

Half an hour later it was announced that we are about to depart to the BBQ party. By now it was dark, the moon didn't raise yet, and we could see the lights on the shore. Each boat crew arranged a section of the beach for their guests. Each of them had a big BBQ fire, and many small lights (we later saw these were candles in plastic bottles). It looked from afar as though a small city has sprang up.

The small dingy took us six at a time to the beach. There we saw a long dinner table set up, and large buffet table. In front of the table there was a sand sculpture of a whale-shark. It was impressively done with black sand (not sure how they painted it) and white dots.

Touring the neighboring feasts we saw the same design (exactly the same) but with different decoration. It seems that there is a template for whale shark that all the groups used. We realized that this was a BBQ island - the owners provided tables, chairs, grills, and apparently also whale shark template. The crew brought their own silverware, food containers and such.

The dinner itself was nice but not spectacularly so. Afterwards we wondered around the island. Anat and David were energetic and managed to go around (on the shoreline) at least nine times. At this stage the moon was up and the scene was illuminated by a silver light. The reflection of the moon on the ocean was on one side of the island, and the lighted boats moored inside the atoll on the other side.

Maldives Day 2: Diving at last

2013-02-26T19:15:00.000+02:00

I woke up at 5am. On the east there was a red pre-dawn haze. On the west the full moon was slowly setting down. I watched the two heavenly bodies for a bit, and then decided to try to sleep again.

At 6am, Sigala came with a wake up call. We gathered in the living room and got a short briefing from Mif, one of the three dive masters. I later found out that Mif is a shortening of his family name. The other dive masters had similar shortened names - Dos (spelled Douth) and Deco (or Deggo, I never really knew).

We got onto the dive boat and started arranging equipment. I had some problems with mine (as I had pieces gathered from different components). In the end it seemed that I am set. We were divided into three groups of six people each. Ayelet and me were with Mif. With us were David & Anat, and Doron & Omer.

Dive #1 - Velassaru beru, S. Male Atoll, Outer reef. Start 210, end 50, Time: 43min Depth: 32m

The Dhoni took us to the outer side (facing out of the atoll toward the ocean) of the island next to us. We jumped into the water, and immediately felt the current. We descended down and were immediately swept away by the current. The wall next to us was full of life, with large schools of fishes going along the wall.

It took me some time to get adjusted with my gear and biouency. I went into an overhang to take some pictures and felt very unsure of my balance. It took a minute to realize that my tank was half falling from its place. I chased the dive master, and then spent several minutes while he tried to fix it. Later after going into the boat I realized that I didn't assemble the straps properly :-(

While of this was going on, a devil ray passed us from above, and I totally missed it. At some point the current switched sides (I am not sure if this is because the depth), and we started going in the opposite direction.

All by all it was a very nice dive, some technical problems but still enjoyable. The wealth of fish and corals seems very promising for the next few days.

Going up from the dive to the Dhoni we got the equipment secured. As with previous safaris, it was great not to have to disassemble anything, just put the whole rig into its place. The Dhoni collected all of us in small groups (as some buddy pairs went up early due to air consumption).

On deck we made the second coffee of the day, and by the time it was ready we were called for breakfast. The breakfast was a combination of western food (toast and eggs) and local food (some salad from fish with a local version of flatbread, similar to nan or to a pancake, and sides of tropical fruits).

Dive 2: Bodu Hithi Thila, S. Male Atoll. Start 210, end 30, Time: 51min, Depth: 27.13m.

This dive was on a thila. Thats the local word for a pinnacle coming up from the depth. As Mif described it - a small mountain coming from the bottom. This particular thila is large enough that we only seen part of the slope on one side. This time, our group jumped last into the water.

The dive did not start that well, I had problems pumping with one ear and it took few minutes before I could clear my ears to get below 5m.

Once I passed this barrier the dive started to be very nice. The current took us along the reef wall, which was rich with life. There were large number of bluish trigger fish, similar to the ones I am used to from Sinai, but much smaller in their size. There were very peculiar starfish.

David fooling around

Much of the local corals were covered with something (algea?) that looked like moss, with very small crowded leaves. Between the corals small school of fish were positioned toward the current. Among them we saw big yellow "sweetlips". I was surprised how close I could get to them (much closer than I intended, as the current swept me toward them).

One of the benefits of having a group in front of us was that we were alerted in advance for various encounters. At some point I heard a dingling noise. Looking at Mif I saw that it wasn't him. But then he pointed forward and I saw a white tip shark going slowly along the reef, cutting diagonally with our path, but higher along the reef. A minute later another one followed more or less in the same path.

First shark encounter

Moving forward we saw few of the next group clustered around a rock. Moving closer we saw it was an eel of a type I never saw before - honeycomb eel. It was perfectly situated for photograph and so when I had my turn I took few pictures of it.

Next time we heard an alarm I was close to Mif, and immediately moved to the direction he pointed at. Initially I saw nothing in gloom, and then slowly a big Manta ray emerged.

It was moving slowly and gracefully, passing me and the rest of the group at a very short distance in front of us. For few minutes we watched to see if it will return, but it seemed that it had enough of us.

Ayelet was very happy!

When I got down to 50bar, I checked with Dov, and saw that he was in similar situation. As we pre-arranged, we signaled to Mif that he and I will ascent, leaving Ayelet and Anat as a buddy pair. This way they could continue with their half-full tanks.

Our Dhoni

All by all it was a great dive, putting a checkmark on two of the big animals on our list. Lets hope this is only the start of a rich streak.

We had a rich lunch, and then got on our way. We crossed from Male Atoll to a Rashdhoo Atoll, a smaller atoll. This was a three hour ride, and most of us used the time for a nap. I slept in the shade on the deck, with cool wind around.

I woke when we entered the Rashdhoo atoll. This one was small enough that the eye could see that the islands form a half circle (I could not see the other side of this small atoll (turns out that it is about 8km).

Dive 3: Rashdhoo Madivaru - Start 200, end 25, Time: 37min, Depth: 31.70m.

The plan for this dive was to go in the area of a channel where the current going into the atoll. From the guides I learned that this is not a tidal current, but rather a strong ocean current that hits the atoll. We had a complicated dive plan, but the dive turned out a bit different than expected.

Our group was the second to go. I jumped into the water and lost my mask. The Dohni crew member shouted something to Mif who was already in the water, and he dived down and retrieved the mask. After this debacle, the rest of the group jumped in. By now got curried away from the planned starting point.

We went down, this time without ear problems, and reached a sandy bottom at around 30m and reef wall above it.

There was a very strong current, and Mif headed against it. It took some effort but we managed to follow him, to a place where the bottom met a cliff that went down into the infinity. The current was strong and we had to hold the rocks to stay in place.

Immediately, Mif pointed to white tip sharks that were patrolling the area in front of us. It was impressive how little movement they invested in resisting the strong current we had trouble fighting. After watching few of them, we started inching our way to the left. Soon, we reached a reef wall, and the current took us with it.

The wall was rich with life and movements. Every now and then we saw sharks, mostly in the blue. Few moved higher than us in the opposite direction. Aside from sharks we saw other large open water fish, varients of tuna.

I was starting to be low on air. The fight against the current at the start of the dive has cost me dearly. Mif wanted to send me up with Doron and Omer who were already below 50bar. I pointed out that I have more than 60, so he let me stay, but asked me to drift above the group for safety stop.

We drifted by a large cloud of small fish, with larger predators that feed on them. I tried to get some pictures although they do not capture the beauty of the sight.

I started to wonder whether I am going to go up with someone or wait for the group. I saw Mif raising a signal tube with a line and thought we are all going up. Instead, he gave me the line and told me to go up. It once I was on the line the current took me away from the reef. It was weird floating in the ocean all by myself. I thought I might see some large creature but none came. Finally, I decided that my air was sufficiently low that I should ascend. On the surface I saw the Dohni from afar, collecting one of the other groups. I floated and enjoyed the view of the islands and sea birds that were flying by.

When the Dhoni picked me up, there were people from the third group who went in just after we did. After few minutes the crew spotted Mif with the rest of my group (Ayelet, David, and Anat). We picked them up and started looking for the first group. After a while I noticed that the Dohni was moving back into the atoll. We passed a small fisher boat that told the crew that the group was inside the atoll. If I understood correctly, they were swept by the strong current and "flew" with it inwards, hundreds of meters from the start point.

Back on the boat, we were told to get ready for a land trip. A short ride on the Dohni landed on a rather big island that is apparently the central settlement of the atoll.

A village elderly took the group on a tour.

The local cinema

Some of us got separated to take pictures of the sunset.

We tried to find the group, and instead found ourselves on the opposite coast of the island. We decided to return along the beach. On the way we saw seabirds, some morey eels in the shallows.

We realized that under the trees lining the beach there numerous tunnels dug by crabs. Most of them were shy, but we stumbled upon a large one that was busy feeding. Instead of running away, it froze in place allowing us to take some pictures in the falling light.

A traditional fishing skiff passed next to us in the channel. It gave an interesting contrast to the rather modern water scooter.

Today was David's birthday. The crew made him a surprise, and arranged his cabin with flowers and wrote with leaves on his bed "Happy Birthday". It was impressively done. After dinner they came out with a manta-shaped cake and we all sang happy birthday.