GAL 0644
Whether or not you dive, a trip to Ecuador and the Galapagos Islands makes for an unforgettable journey. The rugged Ecuadorian countryside has many beautiful mountains including some fairly active volcanoes. The people are very friendly, for the most part, although little English is spoken in the countryside. The economy was in a tailspin when I was there, so the American dollar went a long way. I was able to hire a cab and driver (bi-lingual) for a mere sixty dollars per day, with a sumptuous lunch for two, from soup through desert, costing me only about five dollars. Dinner at one of the most expensive places in Quito cost a mere fifteen dollars per person, including several drinks each.
There are many markets where locally made merchandise can be purchased for a tiny fraction of comparable American prices. The Galapagos is another story entirely. Although part of the same country, it is like another world - in truth, like many worlds. Each island of the archipelago has its own particular character , from cactus and scrub-brush covered hills to barren, jagged, recently formed volcanic terrain. There seem to be large numbers of a relatively small variety of species. Huge schools of Hammerheads, Barracuda, Creole Fish, and others populate the waters, while on land one finds a proliferation of Booby and Frigate birds, Giant Tortoises, and various lizards -- most notably the endemic Marine Iguanas.
The diving is not for the meek! The conditions ranged from mild to wild and back again, often several times within one dive. Currents and surge are common. It was possible to hunker down against a barnacle encrusted rock to watch one's bubbles streaming down and away into the deep! More often than not, the bubbles took off at a sharp angel; rarely did they travel straight up. Safety stops could be treacherous in the swift currents.
On one open water safety stop at Wolf Island, I noticed my bubbles collecting about my head. I suspected something was going wrong and checked my wrist computer's depth gauge to find myself heading rapidly down past forty feet, caught in a dreaded down current. I quickly finned out perpendicular to the current, and had to start my safety stop all over again. I was glad I'd brought my rebreather, as it gave some radically extended bottom times, more than enough to handle an occasional extra safety stop or two.
On another occasion, I was nestled up into a crevice in the rocks when my ascent alarms started sounding. Looking at my trusty Alladin wrist computers, I watched as my "depth" kept changing from twenty nine to thirty eight feet, then back down to to thirty and up to thirty nine again, all as I was wedged motionless in the rocks. The surge was creating changes in pressure that my computers sensed as hazardous bounce diving. Leaving my perch, I was soon being rapidly swept back and forth as much as fifteen feet or more at a time as the current had its way with me. It made it a tad difficult to compose an image to photograph!
As for photography in the Galapagos Islands, topside is extremely easy. Most of the land critters seem to know no fear of humans. One can approach nesting birds to within two feet, while the tortoises and lizards are even more oblivious to one's presence. Bring a telephoto and maybe never even use it! (But, bring it anyway…)
Underwater is another story entirely. Photo opportunities abound, but the diving conditions can render them moot. Sometimes I'd raise my camera to frame a shot only to have the current garb a hold of it, and then of me, and I find myself torn from my perch and tumbling along in a two knot current. It was usually possible to fin back into the rocks to try again, but those long-armed dual strobe camera rigs I favor are a bear under those circumstances. Some divers opted to shoot available light and took only a simple Nikonos body with no strobes and a wide angle lens. The visibility was not always great, rarely more than seventy feet, but usually less, ranging from lows of twenty to thirty feet to the more usual forty to sixty feet.
The schools of Hammerheads were a constant presence on Wolf Island, but getting close enough for photography was difficult at best, even using a rebreather. The only time I made it into the middle of a thick school, completely surrounding myself with the majestic animals, I was out of film. I knew it before I ventured out into the blue to try to approach them, but I couldn't resist trying. It was one of those mental photographs I'll never forget.
After many of the dives, one would surface far from the big boat and the pangas. A siren and sausage or dive flag were essential, as the surface conditions were often really rough. Surface chop and waves could be three, four, sometime even more than six feet high. One would toot on a siren or whistle immediately upon surfacing to let the pangueras (panga drivers) know another diver was up, then put up a flag or a sausage and wait until they'd picked up whoever came up first or came up closer to them. Sometimes the wait was over ten minutes; usually it was less than that. One couldn't help realizing that not only were the surface conditions extremely rough, but one's legs were dangling in shark infested waters, with literally hundreds large Hammers, Galapagos, White Tips, and Silkies all milling about just out of sight beneath the waves. This was not diving for the weak of heart! Yet, we all arrived back on the big boat with smiles and lots of happy chatter about each dive experience.
Turtles and Eagle Rays swam by among the more commonly seen Galapagos and White Tip sharks, with clouds of Creole Fish swarming about, but the currents often made it impossible to get close or to adjust one's angle. The most approachable subjects were the Sea Lions, but the tended to be best approached in the shallow, where the surf and surge were powerful detractions to getting good images. All in all, the underwater photography was extremely challenging; some might say extremely frustrating! I left with a powerful urge to return and give it another try. I really need to get back into that school of Hammers with a loaded camera in my hands!
For those readers who would like some practical information on weather and water conditions, you should know that I was there in April and May. Although Quito and the Galapagos Islands are right on the equator, they are nowhere near as hot as you might expect.
In Quito the morning and evening were quite chilly, requiring a jacket or heavy sweater, while by midday it was hot enough for shorts and a t-shirt. Many people are affect adversly by the thinner air at Quitos altitude, which I believe is about twenty-eight hundred and fifty meters above sea level, which is roughly a bit over eight thousand feet. When I was there the weather tended to be very sunny in the morning and early afternoons, with clouds gathering later in the afternoon with some showers possible.
The Galapagos have an entirely different climate. While on the the equator, the cool ocean currents keep the temperature down. It never made it past the eighties on board our boat, while inland on the islands it could reach into the nineties by midday. The water ranged in temperature from about 65°f 75°f. I was very comfortable in a DUI CF-200 dry suit using one layer of polypropelene unerwear for warmth. Lesse suit than those made of good crushed neoprene could easily be shreaded onthe razor-sharp barnacles tha cover the rock on most of the dive sites. There were some divers using five-mil full wet suits, but I was happy to dive dry.
I used a modified Draeger Atlantis semi-closed rebreather and was glad I did. Fighting those currents could really be a drain on one's air consumtion, but a rebreather doesn't care how deep one is or how hard one breaths; the air consumption is a very slow constant at all times. On normal open-circuit SCUBA, one should be very careful to leave plenty of air for a safety stop and the surface wait for the pangas.
Iin closing, I'll recommend a trip to Ecuador and the Galapagos to anyone, but leave the diving to the more experienced and self-reliant among us. It is a powerful and beautiful place, and one I know I will return to again and again.