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Galapagos with Quasar Nautica Overview This was a tale of El Niño and two entirely different boats. My trip had been booked on the Mistral, operated by Quasar Nautica. Both fortunately and unfortunately for me the boat was overdue coming out of drydock and Quasar Nautica substituted two other boats for parts of our itinerary. The first boat was the Alta and it proved to be excellent. The second was the Diamant and it was, well, not excellent. El Niño proved to be an issue on this trip as well but not as much as it apparently was just a few months later when a friend of my visited. We saw everything we wanted to see, although perhaps not in the numbers we were hoping for. Overall, though, I left wishing I could stay another month or two. The archipeligo is an amazing place and the 11 day trip wasn't nearly long enough. The Crew While the boats changed out from underneath us there was one constant on the trip; divemaster Juan Carlos Narajo. Juan Carlos was enthusiastic and knowledgable and has a special gift for giving dive briefings. I've never seen such accurate drawings of a dive site before. He is also a trained naturalist guide and thus has an amazing knowledge of the local flora and fauna. On the Alta Juan Carlos was matched with a very good crew. While the Alta normally wasn't used as a dive boat the crew caught on fast and we had no problems with in-water pickups or short fills. On the Diamant, however, the crew was not only untrained with respect to diving but they seemed uninterested in learning either. Frequently we would go to dive and find that some of the tanks only had 1200 PSI and none of the other tanks were filled. One of the other passengers also discovered that they had the intake for the compressor right next to the boat's exhaust! The Boats The Alta is a 140' (46) motor sailor and very well appointed. The cabins were huge, air-conditioned and free of any strange smells. There was lots of space on deck and the masts allowed for some amazing views if you were brave enough to climb them. The boat is rather high off the water which made getting into the Pangas a bit tricky with your dive gear on. The food was terrific. Lunch was usually taken on the fore-deck while dinner was in the elegant dining room. The stern had adequate but not exceptional stowage space for dive gear. The Diamant is a 112' (34M) sailing vessel and might have been a nice boat 15 years ago. Time, however, has not been kind and she is in dire need of some maintenence. The cabins were hot and stuffy, the heads barely functional and the deck was literaly coming unglued in places. The engine belched thick black smoke whenever it was running which made the aft-deck unpleasant most of the time. Dive gear was stored forward. Little provision had been made for this and the gear ended up strewn all over the place. The edible but uninspired food didn't help either. Nothing about the boat seemed structurally unsound but the combination of a lack of maintenence and an indifferent crew was disconcerting after being treated to the luxury of the Alta. Diving Operations All of the diving we did was from small inflatables or pangas as they are known in Latin America. Boat rides were generally short and I found the arrangement to be quite satisfactory. Neither the Alta nor the Diamant offered Nitrox. On some dives Juan Carlos led the group but mostly we were free to explore on our own. Juan Carlos' briefings really helped here as it let adventursome people like me go off by themselves and yet not get lost or miss out on the good stuff. Since my visit was during the recent El Niño the water temperature was generally about 82F (27 degC) and my 4/3mm wetsuit was more than sufficient. This isn't normal for this area though and you should plan on taking a 7mm suit now that conditions have returned to normal. Note that Galapagos isn't a dive destination for the casual diver. Its probably easier diving than say, Monterey, but many dives are more difficult than what you might encounter in the Carribean. Don't be scared away, but do be sure to be on top of your skills before you get here. Except for the 3 days we spent at the northern islands we usually only did 2 dives a day. Afternoons were for hikes on islands. I mentioned earlier that 11 days didn't seem long enough and this is why. The Galapagos are equally amazing topside as they are underwater and you'll want to spend time seeing both environments. The Diving The diving in Galapagos is quite diverse. The northern islands are quite similar to Cocos Island in Costa Rica with big schools of jacks, hammerheads and other pelagics. The more southerly islands have more interesting macro life, especially the gobies and blennies. On my trip the warmer water from El Niño tended to move things south a bit but the difference between the various sites was still quite dramatic. Two things were constant though - sea lions and sea turtles. I think I saw a turtle on every dive and sea lions on at least two thirds. Cape Marshall: We did several dives here but one stands out. Upon jumping in our group descended to about 80 feet (26M) and was quickly greeted by the sight of a school of scalloped hammerheads. This was the only time during the trip that we saw a whole school. Later we found ourselves literally enveloped by a school of black striped salema which are an endemic sardine like fish. As if this wasn't enough we then encountered a large friendly manta ray and a school of barracuda. Pinzon Island: This was the site of both the best and worst dives that I made on this trip. On the first dive the idea was to go deep looking for red lipped batfish. This was an unmitigated disaster as we used up our nitrogen time tooling around at 100+ (30M+) on a sandy bottom with nothing to see. Upon returning to the shallows we ended up caught in a very surgy area and were bounced around quite a bit before we gave up and surfaced. Several people on the boat decided to skip the second dive here. Bad decision. The dive plan was completely different. This time we would stay shallow and circumnavigate a small islet near the main island. I counted at lest 10 sea turtles in the first 10 minutes or so of the dive. Then we turned a corner and got a front row seat to a truly extraordinary show. Right in front of us was a school of scad which were balled up and being assaulted by a small group of dorado. Back and forth the dorado slashed through the bait ball until a big manta ray cruised up and broke up the fun! The manta stuck around and several divers literaly sucked their tanks dry at their saftey stop while the big ray swam laps around them. Juan Carlos said he had only once before seen dorado and that their presence was probably the result of the El Niño. This dive along in many ways made up for the general lack of hammerheads. Gordon's Rocks: Whilst not up to the standards of Cocos with regard to white tip reef sharks this site was nonetheless quite special. The sharks were cruising up and down the side of the reef and the divers just observed where they were turning around and placed themselves just beyond that spot. The sharks would then just swim right at you and then turn around right in front of you and go back the other way. Roca Redonda: The main dive site here is called "The Washing Machine" and with good reason. The surge is tremendous and active volcanic vents add lots of bubbles coming up from the bottom. This is also the only spot that we saw the very pretty zzz wrasse. Bartholome: This is probably more of a snorkelling site rather than a dive site but it can't be beaten for encounters with sea lions and penguins. Darwin Island: Home of the arch, this is one of the fabled schooling hammerhead spots. On this trip, however, I only saw ones and twos. I did see lots of schooling jacks and some few blacktip reef sharks. Wolf Island: This is another of the famous hammerhead spots, and again I didn't see it here. Damned El Niño... Anyway there was one memorable dive here where we went along a wall, over a ridge and then to a pinnacle at the edge of the ridge. There was an amazing current going over the ridge and past the pinnacle. The plan was to descend upcurrent of the ridge, into a swim-through at 120 feet (30 M). As we were moving hand-over-hand across the ridge to avoid being swept away I was using more air than I realized. My dive buddy started descending towards the swim through right as I looked at my gauge and realized that 1200PSI wouldn't be sufficient for a stressful swim down to 120 feet. I couldn't get his attention so I decided to meet him on the other side. Once I had done this, though, the current prevented me from returning to the top of the ridge. Of course immediately after I had decided to do this my buddy turned around and didn't see me. He came back up the ridge onto the pinnacle just in time to see me get ripped off of it by the current (next time - gloves) and into the blue. Good thing for me the panga driver knew his business. We had a good laugh about it after we got back on the boat but dives like this are why Galapagos can be a tricky destination for relative beginners as I was a the time. The Land Excursions Whatever you do don't miss out on the land hikes. Large land iguanas, marine iguanas basking in the sun, huge tortises and other interesting reptiles are everywhere. The density of seabirds here is unrivaled and you can walk right up to the nests of most of them. Frequently they even nest on the nature trails! Sea lions haul out on the landings and you have to step over them to get off the boat. It would be easy to spend 3 weeks just hiking around observing and learning about the birds or reptiles alone. In an ironic twist where the diving was more or less unsupervised the land tours were strictly by the book and highly regimented. Visitors are never allowed off the trails and must always be with a naturalist guide. Of course this is for a good reason given the fragility of the enviroment here but it still felt backwards compared to most dive destinations. Normally you're told what to do underwater and left to your own devices underwater. Logistics Getting to the Galapagos isn't too awful for Americans such as myself. There are several direct flights from the USA to either Quito or Guyaquil Ecuador. From there it's a short hop of a little over an hour to Baltra in the islands. I think the biggest mistake most people make is not allocating enough time. Galapagos requires at least 11 days in the archipeligo and frankly even 2 weeks isn't really enough. Take your time and do it right. Bring LOTS of film too. Plan on shooting at least 2-3 rolls a day. Charismatic critters about here, both above and below the waves. One more thing that needs to be noted. While Ecuador probably does a better job of protecting its natural heritage than most countries (including the US) the islands are still at extreme risk. The abundance of marine life here is a magnet for commercial fishing operations and the money involved may soon overwhelm efforts to protect this magnificent enviroment. I would encourage all visitors to donate money to one of the various organizations such as the Charles Darwin Foundation that are working to protect the islands.In summary Galapagos is a destination not to be missed by any naturalist type. If you're a diver then so much the better as the underwater world is at least the equal of the more well known terrestrial life. Quasar Nautica is a reasonable way to go if you're booking a trip here but you would do well to avoid the Diamante. I've heard better things about the Mistral and Lammer Law which are the two boats most often used for dive charters. Dive Boat Info: http://www.quasarnauticatumbaco.com/ Happy Diving, Clinton |