Tuesday 23 May 2017

Scuba Diving Mosquera/Seymoor El Canal, Galapagos. 19th May 2017


Friday 19th May 2017

Mosquera/Seymoor El Canal, Galapagos

Diving with Scuba Iguana

Very good briefing, then efficient transfer via taxis to Baltra channel. Dive boat waiting with 3x dive masters for 10x people (2x doing open water course). Sebastian our dive master.  Took Iain and crew to bounce me into a 7mm full wet suit which took ages. All of us completely dressed and sorted by the crew – only thing we had to do for ourselves was put on a mask and backward roll from boat.  Visibility not great due to changes in current and Humboult affect – down to about 7 metres. 

First dive Mosquera – became surrounded by Galapagos shark bigger than me, circling us. Sebastian motioned for us all to stay together (making us look like one huge inedible fish!) and hold on to the rocks.  Some good go-pro footage taken.  Interesting field of garden eels like long fingers sticking up from the sand. As we approached they slowly pulled back into the sand.  Nice Golden Ray and lots of trumpet fish, as well as large colourful starfish. 

Second dive Seymoor El Canal.  Water temperature a bit warmer – 24degrees.  Saw my first Hammerhead Shark, so very happy. Lots of white-tipped reef shark relaxing on the sandy bottom, two moray eel (one about 30cm width), sting ray and an interesting cleaning station with Angel Fish nibbling the parasites off the big fish queuing for attention.

Very difficult waves at end of dives so I gave my BCD to the crew to assist getting up the ladder. Both dives about one hour long. On way back we were served a tray of chicken, rice and green beans which we had to eat with a fork. Very choppy seas.

Met up in evening with Ed and Jude, Diane and Terry. Returned to the blocked-off road and this time had red scorpion fish – 1x fish between 2x people due to their size. Ours was stuffed with vegetables and herbs and steamed. The others had theirs roasted on the BBQ. This time the service was very slow and ad hoc, so we ended up in a bar and had some Caipirinhas with Ed and Jude to end our tour together the way we had started in Rio!

Bye byes but will see them again in December!

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