Pink Eye, Penguins, Sharks, Sharks, Sharks, Tsunami

I am currently in Quito, Ecuador, I overnight here before the last week of my journies which will take me into the Amazon for a few days to feed the local mosquito's, then a few days in Quito before heading back to Vancouver on March 7th.

A not so well known managerial policy at the Hotel San Francisco de Quito is that Internet is turned of at 10:30. My personal guess is the manager wants the bandwidth to himself to surf after 10:30, I'll be sure to leave a note to this effect on travel sites warning people. This is important as I had my blog post and email telling people about my Carnival experience all typed and saved, just waiting on a few more photos, when bam, off it went. My flight left the next morning at 7am, before its turned back on, thus the double update this week. Those of you still reading, ensure you've read the blog posting down below about Carnival before reading this one.

Important Stuff: No damage/impact to Galapagos due to the Tsunami, I may or may not have felt it on the boat, I was passing time in my state room. A few larger waves came through, I'll pretend it was the Tsunami. Essentially our last full day of activities, was cancelled and we were sent out to deeper sea until they had further info, at the same time the to towns where evacuated to higher grounds. The alert was lifted without incident, however we did unfortunatly miss out on 2 dives and more importantly our visit to Santa Cruz Island, the Island with the biggest turtles and the blue footed boobies. The blue footed boobies are the local very attractive women that wear blue sandals while your take your ride on the local turtles (just kidding). I still am looking for the right I love boobies t-shirt.

Once cleared to re-enter port we proceeded to our final port, San Cristobal, where we did a tour of a local turtle sanctuary which although was better than nothing was a bit disappointing.

Oh right, so the other important note, my eye, its doing just fine, it cleared up fairly quickly with some more advanced medicine, meaning I only missed 1 dive, but my above water eye sight still suffers from dry eye and vision is slowly returning to 20/20-ish. Everyday brings a bit better, less eye drops.

So, the awesome-ness of Galapagos! First activity for me was snorkeling, this allowed me to see how my eyes would react to the mask and prepare for the next days dives. Mask was super comfy and swimming with Penguins I went!! Also in the water was many white tip reef sharks, smaller ones that couldn't eat me if they tried ;) So we swam with them and watched as a few penguins swam by above them, seemingly taughting them, na-na-na you can't eat me yet. Only saw maybe 6 penguins in total, but was great experience none the less. Like a dozen sharks.

Next we went onto the main attraction, Wolf and Darwin Islands far to the north. At this point I am working on little sleep as although I did not seem to get sea sick, the rocking and rolling of the night boating meant I just couldnt get to sleep.

Oh yes, my room, shared a room with a good guy from Alaska, but all of us stuck on the lower deck suffered through some early sewage smells, not so great when I am trying to heal my eye and spending most of the time in the room.

So into the water we go for Wolf and Darwin, although not as plenty as I imagined, I am still amazed by the experiences here. So yes, lots of Hammer Head sharks, Galapagos Sharks, Black Tip, White Tip Reef sharks, there was another one that us is alluding me. Beyond the shark-sharks we also had a few encouters with a whale shark, which you get to swim along for as long as you can keep up, which isn't long for these giant majestic creatures. 

Dolphins all around us, when on the surface or down below, having fun, checking us out!

Some Rays, I swam my little heart out to get a good photo of a spotted eagle ray, but alas its blurry, but you'll get the idea I think in the photo how great an experience it was.

Many eals trying to munchy munchy. A few different "bait balls" giant schools of fishing swimming together for protection, you get lost in this sea of fish unable to see a foot in front of you, preying that no tuna fish comes screaming into the ball and isn't fast enough to see your not dinner.

Alot of our dives were between 60 and 80, sometimes 90 and 100 ft. Unfortunatly El Nino is being blamed on warm water here which is why we did not see 100's of hammer heads at a single go, and max I saw at any one time was perhaps a dozen or shy of a dozen, in view. They prefer ir merky and so who knows how many other ones were hiding out there, I did not venture a look into the deep blue sea.

I was the newbie of the group, so I usually had to come up for air the soonest, my first dive I think I only made it 30 out of 60 minutes, but I am happy to say near the end I was in the game making it a full 60 minutes (albiet that day was a shallower dive). Many of those I dove with had 200, 300 or more dives in their life times and this was their best experience, so I feel very luckily with my measily 30 dives to have experienced this.

So my eye did damper my Dapper'ness on board, most nights retiring early. A few of us near the end also seemingly had a bad lunch, a visit the the white bowl clearned that up. And then wow, I've never had an experience coming back ashore as I did with this trip, the Island of San Cristobal was rocking and rolling as if it was floating for many many hours today and last night at dinner, talk about sea legs staying with me, freakily experience I've not had the joy of in my boating adventures this far.

So my underwater photographiness is lacking, so enjoy the shadows of sharks and blurry fish, I will take up a collection for a second trip so I can do better next time ;) Lots more photos that these at Flickr via the link in the top right.