I've been lucky in 2016. Actually I think I've been lucky my whole life but specifically this year I've had the very great fortune to have been snorkeling in two amazing locations on our planet on two completely different trips. This past February, I discovered multicolored fish in an extinct volcano off the coast of Maui just days after watching manta rays performing underwater acrobatics at night near Kona on Hawaii's Big Island. Last month, I hit the Galápagos. Along with a mask, snorkel and fins, and of course a wetsuit which is like my 2016 snorkeling security blanket.
The Galápagos Islands and Hawaii are both volcanic archipelagos located in the Pacific Ocean. The Galápagos sit right on the equator; Hawaii is a bit further north but still below the Tropic of Cancer. But below the surface of the ocean they are quite different. The Galápagos are mostly rocky outcroppings of a giant underwater shelf sitting right below the water's surface; Hawaii's seas get much deeper much quicker. What that means is that the depths of oceans to be found right off the coasts of Hawaii's islands don't exist in the Galápagos. Everything's pretty shallow and right there for us surface swimmers to see. That's a good thing. And what a lot there is to see.
In four days in the Galápagos, we got in the water and snorkeled on three of them: once at Kicker Rock off the west coast of Isla San Cristóbal; once near Isla Plazas; and finally a swim near the south coast of Isla Santiago. The pictures in this post, once again taken with my trusty GoPro, are from our first and third snorkeling adventures. Our time near Santiago provided us with the best shots and the most amazing experience.
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| Sharks circling below the surface of the water at Kicker Rock. |
I'll admit I had some hopes and some anxieties about snorkeling in the Galápagos. My number one hope was that we would find some hammerhead sharks to swim with; my number one fear was that we'd end up in the water with some different kinds of sharks, ones that looked decidedly more dangerous than hammerheads. I'd checked the statistics on hammerhead shark attacks and found no record of any fatal encounter with humans ever; I didn't bother doing a check on all other species and just feared the worst. Of course, what I wanted most didn't happen; what I wanted least did. Isn't life like that sometimes? And of course, it was all OK.
We didn't waste any time swimming with sharks of the non-hammerhead variety and our guide Lorenzo seemed thrilled to see them. In fact, he seemed to want to get as close to them as possible and to make us go with him. Hasn't this dude seen Jaws? I get that these sharks are a lot smaller than great whites or tiger sharks but they still look decidedly shark-like and dangerous. But sure enough, there we were in the shadow of the split down Kicker Rock looking down in the water watching sharks circle. And there were a lot of them. Sure, none of them came anywhere near me but there were not an insignificant number of them about 15 or 20 feet below my flippers. Kind of freaky.
Kicker Rock, which got its name for its resemblance to a giant boot (I don't see it honestly) didn't provide us with much good snorkeling and it wasn't because neither of the snorkels provided to me were working properly. It's a good distance out off the shore of Isla San Cristóbal and its sides below the surface are straight down, which means no reef near the top of the water to watch fish feeding. The only place with any wildlife is the nutrient-laden channel between the split rock and in the mid-day sun the shadows cast by the rock make seeing anything much in the water all but impossible for those of us with less than adequate eyesight. Probably better for diving, which I don't do. Let's move on.
If Kicker Rock was a disappointment, snorkeling off the shores of Isla Santiago was fantastic. Here we found enormous schools of multicolored fish of multiple species feeding in the reefs between 4 and 20 feet below the water. And they were everywhere you looked and the ocean was perfectly clear that day which allowed me to shoot some great videos and still photos. We also got a great look at some starfish in a number of different spots. This was by far the best snorkeling I'd had in my adult life, which admittedly has a small sample size.
And of course there were more sharks. And just like at Kicker Rock, our guide (different guide; Omar this time) seemed obsessed with finding us some sharks. And this guy was hard core about it. Like chasing sharks out from below rocks near the ocean floor hard core. We found at least two mini-schools of Galapagos sharks, which are about six or eight feet long and look decidedly like sharks, which is a little concerning in water that shallow. My only source of comfort here was looking around at all the other food around me which seemed to me to be a lot easier to handle for a creature that size, even if the alternative (me) was the slowest moving thing in the water for several miles.
Indeed the only time I really got nervous around these things was when I saw a school of about 40 or 50 fish suddenly scatter right in front of me. I thought this had to be evasive action from a predator and I was right. About five seconds later a smallish sized sea lion zoomed past me in the water, oblivious to my presence, which was incredibly cool. Yes, I swam with both sharks and sea lions this August, even if I wasn't really so much swimming with them as near them.
Our snorkeling trip that last day in the Galápagos occurred right near an area where some penguins had been seen nesting recently. It would have been such a thrill to see penguins swimming in the ocean with us but just like we missed out on the hammerheads at Kicker Rock, we didn't find any that day off Santiago. Instead we had to settle for sharks and sea lions. Not too shabby I think.
That last trip took about 45 minutes to an hour and we were swimming and surrounded by marine life pretty much the entire time. It was certainly a lot more convenient snorkeling off a boat that we were staying on than it was in Hawaii, where we had to get up before dawn or wait until the sun set to get to a boat to take us out to a good spot. As it turned out, 2016 is the year I swam with sharks for the first time. And actually, if it's the last time, I'm good with that too. I'm OK doing this once with some friendly ones and quitting while I'm ahead rather than seeking a bigger thrill.
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| Shark week? Maybe not. But thrilling just the same. |
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