Diving With Giants - The Galapagos Islands

Our last dive of the trip was done in the channel between North and South Plaza Islands. It was a shallow dive, only 22 feet, but there were a whole bunch of sea lions zipping around and playing with us on the dive. Rick even got dive bombed by a bird that was grabbing fish from the bait ball that we were swimming around and through. Back on board the crew took our gear and washed it all for us, down to the point of rinsing out our BCs! We've never had that level of luxury on a boat before!

After getting dry and switching to shorts, we all jumped in one panga and rode over to North Plaza Island where we walked around. We saw sea lions as well and land and marine iguanas all over the place. Rick really liked the iguanas.

On the north side of the island the wind was blowing against the rock face and there were hundreds of birds flying in and out with the breeze in big clouds. We saw some small finches poking around in the flower of a prickly pear cactus. The fourteen different species of finches and their various specializations were part of Darwin's basis for his theory of evolution.

After lunch the boat moved to Puerto Ayora at Santa Cruz Island. There we went on shore and saw the giant tortoises at the Charles Darwin Research Station. We ran into Stefan, who had left the boat earlier in the morning. On our way back to the dock we looked in a few shops and got some t-shirts. Rick even found one with some penguins on it!

We took a water taxi back to the Aggressor and relaxed for a while, then met the other passengers and the crew in the lounge for a farewell cocktail party. The entire crew had been absolutely wonderful all week. They were always smiling and always doing things for you, we really had a great time!

Afterwards we went ashore with the rest of the passengers for our one meal off the boat. We had a nice dinner in town and then took the panga back to the boat and went right to sleep.