Celebrate Diversity: Under the Sea in the Galapagos

In trying to write about my time in the Galapagos, I find myself at a loss for adequate words to describe what I have seen.  Both land and sea are teeming with so much life...  it's remarkable.  Since I have already shared a few of my favorite terrestiral creatures, this post is dedicated just to the diversity of life underwater. 

Before I begin, I just want to apologize for the quality of the pictures in this post.  My water camera takes terrible photos. After a dive, I usually only save about 10% of the pictures, since the rest are unrecognizable.

Fortunately, I discovered that I can upload low resolution video, like those from my cheap diving camera. So rather than struggling to describe some of my favorite underwater moments, I can show them to you

The better images came from the dive company whose guides use a camera and housing on each dive. On my to-do list this year, is to buy a nice underwater camera. So hopefully in the coming years, the images should be a lot better!

But, let's get back to the good stuff, shall we?

To start off with, I have spent 4 days diving in the Galapagos, diving a few of the more famous sites: Santa Fe, Floreana, Daphne Minor, North Seymour and Gordon Rocks.  I have never been around so many fish.  Especially when I was diving at Champion wall, near Floreana Island, at times there were so many fish around me, that I got a bit disoriented for a moment.  It was hard to tell which way was up.

 

Once the shock and awe of the sheer abundance of life wore off, and I looked more carefully at the fish, the first thing I noticed is how much the fish here resemble fish is the Carribean.  In some cases, the fish look like a mix between two different Carribean species.

 These Razor Surgeonfish are the best example.  They clearly have the typical surgeonfish shape, as well as the spine on thier cordal peduncle, but they look like a cross with a porkfish, having the typical white, black and yellow patterns on the head and tail.

Another familiar face here, was the Angelfish.  In the Carribean, we saw a lot of Queen and Grey Angelfish, but here, I saw my first King Angelfish!  Your Majesty....

 

These lobster look quite the same as their Carribean relatives: colorful, and without the classic large front claws like Maine lobster.

 

These lovely fish are called Moorish Idols.  They are slightly bigger than my hand.

One major difference here, is in the sea stars.  In all my dives previous to here, I have never seen a sea star.   Here, sea stars are everywhere.  You generally see between 50-100 in a dive.

There is some slight variation in their colors, but for the most part, they look as though they have been crocheted!

You probably can't tell from those pictures, but they are all huge!  larger than a dinner plate!

 

There are a couple other species of stars, too.  This one looks like it is a dessert!

And this one looks like a sugar decoration on a birthday cake!  But really, it's about 8" across....

One of my tried and true favorite friends in the ocean is still the sea turtle.  No surprise there, I'm sure.  I have already written a lot about their land activities, but here is just a quick shot of their marine life.  Even though they weigh hundreds of pounds, they move gracefully through the water.  Between snorkeling and diving, I have probably seen about 60 sea turtles here, all of which were Pacfic Green. The largest was maybe 3 1/2 feet across, but most are between 2-3 feet long.  They spend most of their time relaxing on the sea floor, munching on tender sea weeds.

Rays have been an interesting part of my time underwater here.  All together, I have seen 5 different species of ray.  Rays remain one of my favorite under water creatures.  They swim so smoothly through the water as if flying.  We came upon a few small stingrays, like these one whose bodies are about 18" long.

One of the crowning moments, however, were these two enormous Marbled rays.  I saw them on two different dives, and each time was so struck by their size--they are the size of a poker table.   Because they are round, they propel themselves through the water by sending a series of ripples through the edge of their fins.

 And don't worry, though it may look like I'm touching this ray, I would NEVER dare.  I'm really about 3 feet away on a rock.

Another memorable moment was this lovely school of spotted eagle rays, the largest of whom was probably about 4' long.  We saw them from a distance of about 30 feet (10 meters), but they still took my breath away.

I did have some luck with dolphins. Although to this day, I still have not been in the water any closer than maybe 40 feet, I did have a few close enounters on this trip. The first was when I went diving. Just as we arrived at our dive site, the captain spotted a pod of dolphins, so we circled around for a little while, watching them play with our wake.

The second close encounter was one night on the boat, when I couldn't sleep.  I was laying in my bed with the window open when I heard a series of about 8 blows.  A small pod of dolphins had surfaced around our boat.  It was too dark to see much, but I heard them a few more times that night.

But of course, no underwater excursion to the Galapagos would be complete without a sighting of our misunderstood fishie friends: sharks. I have had wonderful luck in that area here, having seen about 20 Hammerheads, 20 Galapagos Sharks, and 18 White Tips. Most have been 1.5 to 2 meters long, and all have been calm and relaxed, passing us by without a second thought. In fact, if I were to note any reaction to human presence, it was avoidance. Because of that, most of my interactions were fleeting, but I savored every second of them.

One of about 20 hammerheads I saw diving at Gordon Rocks.

A group of 6 young white tips we roused from thier cozy nap under a rocky overhang.

Another unexpected bucket list item was filled just yesterday.  As we dove along the sloping decline of Daphne Menor, one of the divers caught sight of a faint shadow, about 30 feet away.  Swimming closer, we were all overjoyed by what we saw.

We ran into this Manta Ray 3 more times that dive, each time getting a better and better view.  At one point, we were right above him, close enough to touch.  Absolutely remarkable dive.

While there have been many amazing underwater animals, Sea Lions are definitely at the top of the list of underwater memories.  The young ones are just so playful...  it's hard not to fall in love with them.  They are so graceful and powerful, swimming quickly through the water with what looks like little effort.  For the most part the adults notice you, give you a look as if to say, don't mess with my baby, but keep on their way, but the young sea lions twirl and twist, dive and bob, and richochet of rocks like a pinball game. 

Even when swimming my hardest I couldn't keep up with their acrobatics, and was instead left winded.

Overall, my time underwater has been incredibly fulfilling.  Around every corner there is something new to see.  I saw so much life, so much diversity, it was incredibly rejuvinating.  So often when diving, I see reefs on the decline, garbage, fading fish populations, but it is good to know there are still some places that are havens.  Diving may be an expensive hobby, but I have to say that this trip has felt well worth every penny.