We just finished one of the best weeks of our lives.

Diving the Galapagos was always one of the things we were most excited about for this whole trip. It was also (by far) the most expensive thing we booked.

Having just finished the week, I can tell you it was worth every penny and more.

The Galapagos are a bunch of volcanic islands sitting right on the equator. Due to its location it gets a number of different winds and currents which result in a unique ecological site and a mecca for divers.

After meeting up with Scott’s sister Brooke and Brooke’s friend Tamsin, we all flew from Guayaquil to The Galapagos and stayed a night on Santa Cruz island. (Great sandwiches at the Galapagos Deli by the way). The next morning we were greeted by Jimmy and taken to get all our gear and board the boat.

We were on board the Nortada and had two dive gides – both called Jimmy – and six other crew for eight guests.
We were on the boat for 8 days but the first day was just the check dive and the last we visited the Darwin centre on land. So overall there were 20 dives over 6 days.

Day 1 we boarded, did a check dive to make sure our gear was all good, were welcomed that evening by the crew and some pina coladas, and settled into our cabins.
I won’t go into mega detail about the dives themselves but more on the animals we saw – ‘give the people what they want’ and all that.
The days generally went like this:

6am wake up
Dive #1
8:30am Breakfast
Dive #2
Snack
Dive #3
1pm Lunch
Dive #4
But on day 2 we just had two dives and the second to last day we had three.

Day 2 we did a couple of dives at the Northern end of Santa Cruz where we saw reef sharks, turtles, sting rays, moray eels, parrotfish (which are hilarious and look like absolute goobers), and after the dives we saw mantarays jumping out of the water to catch their fish.

That night we sailed 15 hours through the night to get to Wolf and Darwin Islands which have the very best diving. During the months of August – October this stretch of sea can be extremely rough so we/I was very lucky we weren’t there then. We spent two days at Wolf and one at Darwin and the diving was insane.

Day 3 was at Wolf, and we had four dives. We saw over 30 hammerheads, Galapagos sharks, Eagle Rays, massive schools of all different kinds of fish, morays, stonefish, and lots of swimming turtles. The dives were all about 30 metres and about 50 minutes long. They were so fun and interesting I recorded in my dive log as ‘the best dives I have done to date.’ That night I did my first ever night dive. It was a bit more chilly and we didn’t see as much but it was a cool experience and is pretty crazy looking at everyone suspended in what looks like mid air. The stars when we surfaced were some of the best I have ever seen. Very magical.

Day 4 was Darwin, named obviously after Charles Darwin who came up with his theory of evolution after visiting and studying species that live in The Galapagos. Again we had four dives at the Darwin Arch. On our first dive we descended straight into a school of large silver fish which was really cool. During the four dives we saw lots of hammerheads, tropical fish, and morays. We had a sea lion dive for fish right infront of us which was awesome.

…Oh, and we saw a WHALE SHARK. Yep, dreams do come true people. It was our third dive of the day and we hadn’t even got to our meeting point at the bottom when YOURS TRULY spotted the spotted legend. I turned to my right and honestly didn’t know if I was seeing things. It was like ‘ís it real if no one else sees it?’ So i powered over to Scotty pretty much whacked him on the arm and pointed. We both gunned for the big fella. Well actually it was a wee fella in Whale Shark terms but big for us. We all spent the next 15 minutes (!!) swimming with it, watching it get cleaned by other little fishies and generally just looking at each other and shaking our heads in disbelief. This is not the season for whale sharks, and even when it is you’re lucky to see one. To have stumbled upon a baby (which again we were told it’s very rare to see babies) and have it stay with us for 15 minutes was an experience I will never forget. Needless to say we were buzzing…kind of still are.

Day 5 was back at Wolf and over the four dives there we had lots of Hammerheads swim close to us, a school of Galapagos sharks, and red lipped batfish which look like characters from that TV show Real Monsters. Also I had a moment with a very cute little fish who was chasing its own tail and then it looked at me and swam away – very cute. One of the dives also had a few caves and swim-throughs which were fun.

Day 6 was Puerto Vicente and over the three dives here we had sea lions playing with us while we descended, bullhead sharks, and lots of fish. We also had two other highlights. The first dive we went looking for the Sunfish, which we were told was quite rare. Not even 10 minutes into our first dive, and there it was! One time one of them came right through the middle of our group. The Sunfish was something I really wanted to see – I like how it looks unfinished – so I was stoked. The second highlight was dive three, which was all about Marine Iguanas. These are one of the attractions of Galapagos as they are native to the area and are quite frankly just so weird. We spent 45 minutes watching them swim, dive, and eat algae underwater. It was also quite funny watching them get swept off their little rocks by the surges… The last dive of that day was supposed to be looking for Sunfish again but since we had seen them we asked if instead it could be a snorkelling trip with the seal lions. We also had a Panga (a runabout) ride around and saw the Blue-footed Boobies, Iguanas, Penguins, and a bunch of other cool birds. Seriously, I don’t really like birds but Galapagos has some goodies.

Day 7 was two dives, both of which I skipped because of infections in both my ears. Classic me. Quietly relieved though because the group saw absolutely nothing. The goal was to look for Mantarays but they didn’t find any. Scott did see some White Tip Reef Sharks sleeping under a rock. After the dive though they went snorkelling with a baby sea lion which everyone raved about 🙂

Day 8 was a visit to the Darwin Centre which was ok. Massive tortoises. Often having sex with each other. Standard.

So yeh, an insane week. The boat itself was perfect for 8 people; clean, spacious, with a deck on top and loungers out the front. The food was fantastic and plentiful (nearly had to chuck an extra weight on the weight belt) and the service was pretty faultless. It is expensive, but if you can do it, do it. And we highly recommend Nortada. On a persoanl note I am very proud of myself as boats and their tendency to rock isn’t really my jam, also I had a touch of anxiety on the first couple of dives but pushed through and I can comfortably say it was one of the best things i’ve ever done and I will never forget it.

The day after the dive charter ended we took a two hour ride to Isabela Island where we spent two nights. Isabela is a very relaxed beachy little town. One of the days we did a hike up a volcano whose crater has the second largest diameter in the world. It wasn’t overly spectacular but was satisfying and felt good to do some exercise. That arvo and the next day we swam at the beach and chilled with the roaming iguanas.

From Isabela we went back to Santa Cruz for one more night and then boated to the island of San Cristobal where we had breakfast, went to the airport, and left the Galapagos as very satisfied customers.