Galápagos an Archipelago of Enchantment: PART II – My Favorite Sights Sub Aqua

Exploring above land was pretty amazing, but my true adoration for the Galápagos definitely lies beneath the oceans’ surface where we spent most of our time.  We did five days of diving, discovering Gordon’s Rocks, Seymour, Floreana, Mosquera, Daphne, Punta Cormorant, and Champion.  Every dive was unique, exceptional in its own right, and irreplaceable in my memory bank. 

Sea Lions

Sea Lions are extremely charming little creatures, they captured my heart and may just hold the top slot for my favorite animal in the Galápagos.  Diving with them is incredible, at both Daphne and Champion there were dozens of Sea Lions frolicking with us.  
They are very curious, and definitely a little mischievous.  They would bite our flippers, swim up and push their nose into our camera lens…and I’m serious here, literally pose for the camera. 
Their graceful bodies would spin and maneuver through our bubbles, often three or four are twirling around entwined with one another, playfully nuzzling and biting.  Incredible to watch, their favorite game was tossing rocks up and chasing them, catching them and tossing them up again and again.

Sharks & Rays

Perhaps the most sought after sea life in the Galápagos, Sharks and Rays - I’ll bite, it was extremely thrilling!  We saw lots of White and Black Tip Reef Sharks, a Galápagos Shark, tons of Hammerhead Sharks, Eagle Rays, Diamond Rays, Marble Rays, and a Manta Ray.  Unfortunately we weren’t graced with the presence of a Whale Shark.

I think the most thrilling was the Hammerheads.  We had a number of sightings; the largest shiver we saw was about 15 cruising a few meters below us.  There were also lots of times that they swam very close to us (within a couple meters) it was amazing to see their detail up close. 
The Galápagos Shark we saw from a bit of a distance, but it was large at around three meters.  Reef Sharks, particularly the White Tip were everywhere.  Looking at them straight on they appear to have a smile on their face, almost cartoon like.  We saw many sleeping (good chance to look at their face straight on), prowling, and my favorite was a little baby I spotted less than a meter long.

Diamond Rays were also abundant in our dives.  They are kind of eerie creatures, giving the impression they are watching your every move.  We saw them feeding on the bottom a number of times, and also saw them at cleaning stations where little fish eat the parasites off of them (we also saw lots of Sea Turtles at cleaning stations). 

One Marble Ray we saw was quite large, one meter in diameter; he was fantastic to watch swimming as he ripped his edges to move.  Eagle Rays were my favorite ray, their movement through the water was so graceful.  On our dive at Seymour we saw a school of 12 Eagle Rays elegantly voyaging past us, it was stunning.  Lastly was the Manta Ray, he showed up on our last day of diving at Gordon’s Rocks…just in time!    

Huge Schools of Fish

Another thing that is absolutely incredible in the Galápagos is its huge schools of fish; I am talking thousands and thousands here.  During most dives you are constantly surrounded by fish, but when you run into a solid moving mass, 10 times the size of yourself, it is pretty breathtaking. 
We had two striking encounters; the first was with a school of thousands of small Barracuda.  We slowly swam into the middle of the school and they formed a dome around us.  Looking up and to both sides they were encasing us within inches, as if we were swallowed by this massive sink hole. 

The second encounter was with a large school of Black Stripped Salema.  In these schools the fish were packed so tightly it looked like a giant black cloud moving through the deep blue.  As we swam into the nucleus the fish would part to let us in, and break at the top where our bubbles rose, revealing the sunlight high above their swarm.  Simply Beautiful.  It was also an incredibly cool experience because there were Sea Lions playing in the school of fish with us.

Octopus Mating

Last but not least, we saw two Octopuses mating.  Actually we saw three Octopus, two where mating and one was under the rock next to them…take what you will from that!  Male Octopuses have one tentacle that is shorter than the rest, this is their penis.  They entwine together and do the deed, it was a pretty incredible sight to see all these tentacles mingled and glommed together.  After the female Octopus has her babies she dies on top of them, in order to protect them.  I love our Divemaster Keke who pointed this out to us, something I would never even dream of seeing.