It seemed like forever before we finally got to see land. Last night, after we set sail and were getting our breifing after dinner about today´s plans, Wolf was still in the background, and it was already 2 HOURS after we set off...
Ok, todays plans entailed an early afternoon dive, a tour of Santiago Island and then an optional night dive... I´m sooo there. I missed the last night dive, so i want to get at least one in on this trip.
Dive 1
Dive Site: El Basurero (aka... Garbage Can)
Max Depth: 100ft
Max Time: 60 minutes
Temp: 79
Details: Interesting name for a dive sight, i wondered what we´d find here. This dive ended up being 56 minutes, max depth 53ft, visibility 50-60ft. This turned out to be a very gentle drift dive. We stayed closer to the rock wall and the sandy bottom watching and taking pictures of sea life. We saw several HUGE manta´s swimming above our heads. There was a small school of them, about 3-4. they looked magnificant and we were just in awe looking at them. At one point, i must have been busy doing something other than watching what was around me, probably taking a picture, that Mark spotted a white tip shark close to me. He said it was close enough to bite my fin... Now i don´t know if i should believe that, cuz this boy does tend to exaggerate on certain things... At one point Mark decided to head off into the blue, and Don followed him along, I didn´t feel like baby sitting him so i buddied up with David and started to take pictures and check other stuff out. Then out of no where a little sealion came out to check out what we were doing. Before we knew it, he was gone. Next we spotted a ray in the sandy bottom, which i pointed out to Miguel (who had the camcorder this dive) and he chased it to get a shot of it swimming. Unfortunately my camera battery died, so i was done with pictures for the dive.
Land Trip -- Santiago Island
This land stop was a fun one. Santiago Island was a wet landing where we were going to get the chance to see marine iguana´s and fur sealions. It was a long walk, but at least no stairs. Right when we landed, we spotted an iguana and we all go camera happy. Then in the side of rocks on the beach was a sealions just sleeping away... awww how cute... Little did we know what we had instore. We followed Edwin, who is also the naturalist on board, thru the marked path. We eventually hit another shoreline, filled with petrified ash, and found the mecca of marine iguana´s. From what we were told, these were all males, the the females are the one´s that come and go more. We were also told that the difference in cold had to do with where the males were in their process of mating season. The more color the male had, the more ready he was to mate. As we walked along the rocks/ash we heard this little cry... It was a baby sealion looking for him mommy... i wanted to just go and pick him up, he was so cute... It seems like it was baby season. So many little one and there mom´s on the rock. there was one little guy that was just feasting on his mothers milk and mom just laid there, sleeping... As we walked further on, we finally met the fur sealions. They kind of looked the same as the other ones, but Edwin picked out the differences. They had a pointer nose, bigger eyes, and a little fatter. From what we were told, unlike other sealions that just like to lay down where ever to sleep, these guys have a larger layer of fat, and so they look for closed off ledges where they could be away from the sun. After all was seen, Edwin had us all, stand on the rocks, as a group, for our good-bye shot...
Dive 2
Dive Site: Puerto Egas
Max Depth: 60ft
Max Time: 60 minutes
Temp: 79
Details: So here was my first night dive on the trip. It was a sandy bottom, so we really had no problem with going over the sides of the rocks. This dive ended up being 40 minutes, max depth 56ft, visibility NIGHT!!! Mark had decided to sit this dive out, so I teamed up with David. As with all the other dives, we suited up and headed for the zodiac. Right as we get seated, Miguel starts off, everyone ready. We were like no way, they started the motor, took us a few feet off the boat and we were ready to enter... we all started to scream... WHY DIDN´T WE DO A GIANT STRIDE IN FROM THE BACK... Everyone on the boat was laughing too... it was just soo wrong to have to take the zodiac out for that. Picking us up was another thing, but entry... UGH!!! Only 6 of us decided to head out on this trip, and it turned out to be fun. The objective was to find one species of fish. NOTHING!!! What we did see was a ray, eels, small scorpion fish, and little itty bitty fish that David and I would put our flashlights on hoping something bigger would come along (and eat him... hehe). There was also this other funky looking thing that looked like a milliped, which i was later told was a ¨gusano de fuego¨, fire bug. This truly was a very comfortable dive and it helped to take my mind off things and when i returned i was all smiles and happy. I do have to say, one of the fun parts of the dive was chasing the tiny shrimps and crabs and eels with my flash light and watch them scurry into the sand, then all you´d see would be little orange eyes in the sand. The hard part of the dive was getting a good safety stop. It was so dark, i kept on going deep or at one point almost shot up.
Dinner time... I´m STARVING!!!! but at least i got a night dive in
Friday, January 12, 2007
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