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.

Tiburones Ballenas--Whale Sharks

There is a lot of buzz about Whale Sharks these days.  They seem to capture our attention more than most aquatic life.  I'm not sure whether this is because of their size, their spots or merely because they aren't dangerous (they are filter feeders), or who knows what.  Also, due to their filter feeding habits, they spend a large portion of thier time close to the surface of the water, making them easier to spot than most large sea creatures.   

More and more often these days you will meet someone who has swam with whale sharks.  The challenge is that they are migratory, traveling wherever the plankton is thickest.  Depending on the time of year, they are known to congregate in India, Belize, Honduras, Australia, Indonesia, Mozambique, Phillippines, Zanzibar, and of course, off the tip of the Yucatan. 

I have always found sharks very interesting, and the sad fate of these elegant creatures quite distrressing.  There is such a high demand for shark products, and so many countries are without regulations to control the number of sharks killed, that the future doesn't look very good for many species of shark.  Lucky for the whale shark, they are seen as "cute," and have become somewhat of a spokesperson for their kind.

So, of course, when I decided to come to Mexico and work with Fernando, I planned a side trip down to Isla Mujeres to have my chance at seeing this magical creature.  The other day, I got that chance.  About a 45 minute boat ride off shore, and it was easy to see when we'd found a group of sharks.  There were already about 40 boats gathered there.

It was exhilirating to see all of their mouths, dorsal fins and tail fins sticking out of the water.

After marveling at their behavior from above the water, it came my turn to enter the water and see the sharks up close.  (Boats generally rotate groups so that not all guests are in the water at the same time, and so that each group can be supervised by a staffperson.  This is done to try to minimize human impact on their feeding ground, and to keep people from trying to touch the creatures, and many do.)

So in I hopped with my cheap waterproof camera, mask, snorkel and waistbelt lifejacket, which shall henceforth be known as bouyant, slow-me-down device.  After doing a good amount of swimming, and getting admittedly, out of breath, I ended up quite close to a whale shark that was about 15' long. 

I imagine that my eyes were probably the size of dinner plates as I watched it gracefully slide by me.  I tried to memorize every detail--their shape, their color, where they had ridges and where it seemed to be smooth, how they moved, the way thier gills gracefully ease in and out..... I could only imagine what they feel like...  something like wet rubber?  or more like sandpaper?  it was hard to tell.

But nonetheless, I probably spent about an hour in the water, seeing probably 30 sharks all told, sometimes being so close to a shark that I had to move out of thier way just so not to bother them!  For the most part, they seemed to note our presence, and subtly change direction. 

Certainly the more frantic the people around me swam, just trying to get close to one, the more evasive the fish became, so after a while I drifted off a bit by myself, preferring to keep a respectful distance and more mellow pace.  It served me well.  I was was within touching range of probably 15 sharks that day.  But, I did resist the temptation.

All the while I did try to capture these gorgeous creatures with my little camera, but none of these images really do. 

I found the experience to be overall exhilirating, humbling, and awe-inspiring.  I think that anytime we get the chance to reflect on our place in the world, it is time well spent.  I am thankful that I had that chance.  I hope you get that chance, too.  It's really quite remarkable the things that mother nature has created....

As a side note, If you want to take a small step to help protect sharks, sign this petition, by Oceana 2011.  If you want to learn more about how you can help, here are just some of the groups who are also working to help protect sharks: Global Shark Trust, Bite Back, and the Shark Research Institute.

But if you are to only click ONE link, I suggest this one.  It's a list of the victories that have been achieved by people getting involved, signing petitions, and writing letters.

Thanks for reading, now go get wet!