Archive for August, 2012

August 30
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What Darwin didn’t know was, as special as the wildlife is on the Galapagos, it is 100x more incredible below. The convergence of the cold Humboldt currents, the warm Panama currents & the deep sea Cromwell currents brings together an incredible array of marine life.

 

Trip started with a Ecuadorian road trip…Lucked out in finding Santa Marianita, an amazing coast town with GREAT kite surfing!

 

Chilly waters but isn’t crowded like the Philippines or Hawaii. And if you’re lucky, there’s an occasional whale that’ll swim by.

 

I prefer this over surfing…

 

 

The landscape of Quito.

 

Strange things happens on full moons…

 

The fog between the valleys in Quito.

 

Cangrejo! Blue crab is much better…

 

An ancient calendar.

 

You know it’s not the REAL Equator line, when one has no problems walking on it.

 

The huge monument that supposedly sits on the equator line. They missed it by about 200 yards.

THE reason why you shouldn’t pee in the amazon…

 

A real shrunken head…about the size of a miniature Poland Spring bottle…

 

An ancient clock.

 

I don’t know how to explain this…another weird phenomenon that happens on the equator line is that you lose a lot of strength…

 

The bay of San Cristobal, Galapagos. Half the boats are occupied by sleeping sea lions.

 

The Galapagos in plentiful in weird star fish.

 

And green sea turtles. It’s a bad dive if you don’t spot at least 3.

 

Got SUPER excited when we saw our first school of eagle rays.

 

Endangered fur seals!

 

This sums up how difficult underwater photography is…I got lucky on this shot.

 

Look how BIG their eyes are! Incredible!

 

STOKED to find my first Galapagos shark!

 

An injured hammerhead, swimming sideways. Nature can be cruel…didn’t think he had much left in the tank.

 

When I was still excited to see eagle rays. By the 3rd day, you just wanted them to get out of your way.

 

Most hammerheads are pretty shy…NOT this guy.

 

Getting too close for my comfort. 

 

The silhouette of a hammer still amazes me.  

 

Beautiful creatures…but they started getting in the way of things. This is the point where we were just getting spoiled.

 

Another curious shark. And no, sharks are not scary. His close cousin, the great white…different story.

 

My favorite image from the trip.

 

Yes…eagle rays again. They have very comical faces.

 

Cute little blue puffer.

 

Nature’s submarine going right under us.

 

Javier, my wing man for chasing tail.

 

A shot of the pregger whale shark. I went into video mode after this shot. Figured it’s a bit more epic with me chasing her the whole time…Video is on Facebook…

 

Orcas! I really wished we could’ve encountered them in the ocean, but they were hunting…so…not the brightest idea…

 

A massive school of hammerheads. This stream of them went on for a while…

 

A school of jacks that can rival the sardine run in South Africa.

 

Darwin’s Arch. BEST BEST single dive site in the world.

 

Darwin island…a very magical place for divers.

 

I’m all about swimming with dolphins…in the wild.

 

Due to the lack of human contact, the dolphins here aren’t quite as friendly. They keep their distance.

 

MOLA MOLA!!!! Biggest non-shark fish in the oceans. Record was 5,000+ lbs.

 

Bullhead shark.

 

 

I can’t get sick of turtles. They’re too cute.

 

MANTAS!!! Super shy…didn’t get within 10 yards of them…

 

Shark super highway.

 

Small fish are safe with these guys. Tuna…not so much.

 

Migrating somewhere…

 

Byron finally has a boy! Camillo!

 

 

Aren’t dream catchers an North American thing?

The dive team with our naturalist.

 

Turtle turtle!

 

The crabs are getting it on…

 

 

I was hoping she didn’t notice that I wasn’t a sea lion…

 

Disturbing the peace. 

 

Very cute.