I was lucky enough to spend the weekend scuba diving at a few sites in the Galapagos. I am so happy that some of the other new volunteers are scuba people too! So, it turns out that the underwater world here is just as fascinating and enthralling as the terrestrial environment. Even more so maybe! We started off our dive at Kicker Rock, a short boat ride from the town where we are staying.
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| Kicker Rock |
We descended down a wall of interesting rock covered by even more interesting creatures, like bright blue stripy nudibranchs, giant purple sea urchins, and yellow starfish that looked like they were covered with chocolate chips. Then we began to see huge schools of shiny silvery fish, and among them out of the dark depths emerged sharks... lots of sharks. They were mostly juvenile Galapagos and Black-tipped Reef sharks. There must have been about 100 of them... just gliding ever so gracefully through the schools of fish. Every once in a while a Green sea turtle would paddle his fins by, or would just be chilling out resting among the rocks seemingly oblivious to all that was going on around him. Then the super playful sea lions would come out of nowhere, and do a kind of underwater acrobatics show for us, coming sooo close to check us out, then darting away with a flourish of fins and flippers.
I didnt get any underwater pictures, but here are a few from shore.
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| A dead sea turtle, *tear* |
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| Lava Gull, one of the rarest birds in the world! Their entire population (only about 350 pairs!!) lives here on the Galapagos. |
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| The Hacienda girls and our new scuba friends, haha! |
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| Another view of Kicker Rock |
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| I heart pelicans |
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| These red crabs are everywhere and look so cool in contrast with the black lava rocks of the shoreline |
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| Yellow Warbler, just hanging at the beach |
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