We're suited up and ready to backflip off the boat and into the water. Matthias gave us our dive briefing on the short ride over. We were ready. On the count of three we leave the safety of the boat. Check our buoyancy and down we go. Not too deep. Only about 20 meters or so. And there they are.
It's all about the shark. Whitetip reef shark, silvertip shark, long nose shark, black tip reef shark and the magnificent grey shark. They estimate the shark population in this area to be about 400 or so. The sharks love to hang out in the pass, holding their position and letting the water flow by.
And the seven strangely clad creatures with bubbles flowing up from their heads are lined up on the edge of the pass clinging to a ridge, watching. It is an awesome sight. The sharks are truly beautiful. And so many. Serenely swimming by, sometimes a little too close for comfort, their steely eyes looking you over. And when you have sharks in front, behind and over you, it is all you can do to just keep breathing, calmly and slowly. No panic, no drama.
We did two dives observing the sharks. It was a great experience and leaves you just a little bit more in awe of the life below the surface of the water than you already were.
THE SHARKS
Black Fin or Long Nose Shark. Carcharhinus Limbatus - max 275 cm (9')
Whitetip Reef Shark. Triaenodon Obesus - max 210 cm (6'11")
Blacktip Reef Shark. Carcharhinus melanopterus - max 200 cm (6'6")
Grey Reef Shark. Carcharhinus amblyrhynchos - max 225 cm (7'4")
Silvertip Shark . Carcharhinus albimarginatus - max 300 cm (9'10")
Showing posts with label Diving. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Diving. Show all posts
Friday, June 7, 2013
Tuesday, March 19, 2013
Three Adventures on San Isabel
Diving Quatros Hermanos and Isla Tortugas
We jumped on a speed boat at 7:30 am. 280 horsepowers and an hour later and we were pulling on the wet suits getting ready to 'swim with the fishes' as they say. Quatros Hermanos means four brothers and is a group of four small islands near the coast of San Isabela. We passed Isla Tortuga on our way from Floreana and it is a crescent shaped rock which looks like it may have been the rim of a volcanic crater. Both Quatro Hermanos and Tortuga are popular dive spots where they often see hammerhead sharks, whale sharks and manta rays.
On the wall of one of the islands is a grotto which our dive boat slowly backed into. We could hear sea lions and see birds nesting on the walls. We came back out and did our back flips into the sea. The water was a lovely 21.5 degrees Celsius and visibility was about 15 meters. The sea lions jumped in the water and entertained us with their underwater acrobatics. But, pay attention because just there is a small bull tailed ray and look at that school of fish just ahead, there are so many of them! Oh, wow. Look at the rock formations. It is easy to see that this was formed by a volcanic eruption hundreds of thousands of years ago. Oh, and there is a white tipped reef shark resting on the bottom. How cool is that. Oops, too close now and off he goes. I guess we interrupted his nap. Check my depth...we are at about 13 meters. That's a good depth, still a lot of light. And here comes a turtle, oops, there goes the turtle. Yes, I see a beautiful star fish. Oh and another one, oh wait there's two more, no six, no it looks like maybe a dozen or more here. Wow, nice designs on these ones. Oh, there's a baby one. I love star fish. I wonder if there are as many stars in the sea as there are in the sky. We saw a lot of star fish in San Blas. Paco, our dive master is trying to get my attention .... Darn, there goes a hammerhead. Missed that one. But that's ok, cause I am suddenly surrounded by a school of barracuda. Nice. Time to check our air levels. All is good. Ok, now we have a little current here and we are all just drifting along. Another turtle. I must learn to differentiate between the green turtle and the sea turtle. Next time we are on the Internet, I need to look that up. My, it is so peaceful under here. Look at those damselfish. They are really pretty. And there's a parrotfish. What is that thing that just floated by. It's so small. Oh my. It looks like a baby jelly fish. Oh, now I see more of them. Bigger ones now. With long threads hanging down. I am sure they sting. Glad to have a wetsuit with a built in hood. The only thing exposed is my face not covered by my mask. Gosh, there is actually a huge mess of these jellyfish. They are everywhere around us. Look at how they move so gracefully. We're getting a little deeper now. Got to equalize my ears again. The water is looking a little wavy under here. Uhuh. It's a thermocline and the temperature has dropped suddenly. Brrr. Man that is a cold one. I think I'll go up a meter and try to find the warmer water. Ok, now Paco is signaling us. It is time to do our decompression stop. Seems we have reached our time limit. We make our way up to five meters and hang there for three minutes before getting to the surface and back to the boat. A great dive. Lots and lots of life in this ocean. Even without seeing 'the big three', it has been an excellent dive.
Los Tunneles
The next day we were off again with Paco and Julio, our boat captain. And they brought another crew member. Whiskey is his name. He'll help out the Captain when it comes to navigating through the maze of lava. This time we are headed west. Los Tunneles is a lava flow that has reached the ocean with the lava hardening on the surface more quickly due to the cold water of the sea while the hot molten lava continues to flow underneath. Over time, these tunnels collapse and erode creating interesting formations and many pools of water where the aquatic life is plentiful. The tricky part of this journey is getting through the surf.
Julio waits for the right moment, riding the waves in and hitting the entry point perfectly between two rocky areas. It is a narrow gap and he has to watch that the wave behind us doesn't swamp us or knock us into a rock. He is extremely skilled, managing those two horses well and once over the surf he guides us through the rock formations. We have an opportunity to walk along the tops of some of the tunnels, where the blue footed boobies have their nests. We see large turtles swimming, cactus growing on the tops of these tunnels and many small finches. And, as with every bit of rocky coastline here in the Galapagos, there are many crabs running about.
We do a bit of snorkeling in and around and through the tunnels swimming with the turtles and small rays. Back in the boat again and Julio has to get us out of this bay through the waves that are five to six meters high now. He powers through and after a few tense seconds we are safely on the other side.
We head to another great snorkeling spot where we see white tip reef sharks hiding in small caves. I just love exploring these waters and although there isn't so much coral, the lava rocks make it quite interesting.
Penguins, Flightless Cormorant, Whales and Yellow Finned Tuna
We spent a third day with Paco, Julio and Whiskey in their speedboat Rafael. This time we headed up the west coast of San Isabel looking for penguins. Zipping along the coast we see huge great lava fields, cone vents and craters. On this side, it is clearly an active island.
Whiskey spots a school of Albacore (tuna) and we slow down to get the fishing rods out. Within five minutes we had caught a beautiful yellow finned tuna. In anticipation of such a catch, they brought all the makings of Ceviche (onion, lime, salt, tomato and green pepper) and that was to be the treat of the day.
We motored for four hours covering about 80 nautical miles, far enough north that we could see Isla Fernandina in the distance. We saw the flightless cormorants in the water and nesting on the shore. Julio took us into a small bay where we swam with sea lions and turtles and got quite close to the flightless cormorants. Their wings are very short and stubby and I wonder if they look at the frigate birds swooping and diving around them with a bit of envy. Mind you, the frigate birds can not go in the water as their feathers don't have the coating of oil that is necessary to protect them and keep them afloat. They can only dive down and scoop up fish near the surface of the water. Or, they steal the catch of other birds, giving them the nickname of pirates of the sea.
While we were snorkeling, Chef Whiskey started preparing the tune for the ceviche. The frigate birds were circling around as he would toss the scraps in the air. They would get snapped up before even touching the water. What a show that was.
After lunch and ceviche we headed off to another small cove. Remember, we still hadn't seen the penguins! And, of course, Paco would not let us down. The penguins were patiently waiting for us on the rocks. They were so cute standing tall ready to have their photo taken before showing us how they can dive into the surf and then scramble out again. We also jumped in for some snorkeling. The water on the west side of the island is very cold, probably 17 degrees c at best. But, I can say it was worth it. The turtles and the rays love this cove. We saw so many I couldn't keep track. They were just lovely to be with.
On the way back we spotted a couple of whales, saw lots of manta rays and swung by Union Island for a few beauty shots. Another fantastic day!
We jumped on a speed boat at 7:30 am. 280 horsepowers and an hour later and we were pulling on the wet suits getting ready to 'swim with the fishes' as they say. Quatros Hermanos means four brothers and is a group of four small islands near the coast of San Isabela. We passed Isla Tortuga on our way from Floreana and it is a crescent shaped rock which looks like it may have been the rim of a volcanic crater. Both Quatro Hermanos and Tortuga are popular dive spots where they often see hammerhead sharks, whale sharks and manta rays.
On the wall of one of the islands is a grotto which our dive boat slowly backed into. We could hear sea lions and see birds nesting on the walls. We came back out and did our back flips into the sea. The water was a lovely 21.5 degrees Celsius and visibility was about 15 meters. The sea lions jumped in the water and entertained us with their underwater acrobatics. But, pay attention because just there is a small bull tailed ray and look at that school of fish just ahead, there are so many of them! Oh, wow. Look at the rock formations. It is easy to see that this was formed by a volcanic eruption hundreds of thousands of years ago. Oh, and there is a white tipped reef shark resting on the bottom. How cool is that. Oops, too close now and off he goes. I guess we interrupted his nap. Check my depth...we are at about 13 meters. That's a good depth, still a lot of light. And here comes a turtle, oops, there goes the turtle. Yes, I see a beautiful star fish. Oh and another one, oh wait there's two more, no six, no it looks like maybe a dozen or more here. Wow, nice designs on these ones. Oh, there's a baby one. I love star fish. I wonder if there are as many stars in the sea as there are in the sky. We saw a lot of star fish in San Blas. Paco, our dive master is trying to get my attention .... Darn, there goes a hammerhead. Missed that one. But that's ok, cause I am suddenly surrounded by a school of barracuda. Nice. Time to check our air levels. All is good. Ok, now we have a little current here and we are all just drifting along. Another turtle. I must learn to differentiate between the green turtle and the sea turtle. Next time we are on the Internet, I need to look that up. My, it is so peaceful under here. Look at those damselfish. They are really pretty. And there's a parrotfish. What is that thing that just floated by. It's so small. Oh my. It looks like a baby jelly fish. Oh, now I see more of them. Bigger ones now. With long threads hanging down. I am sure they sting. Glad to have a wetsuit with a built in hood. The only thing exposed is my face not covered by my mask. Gosh, there is actually a huge mess of these jellyfish. They are everywhere around us. Look at how they move so gracefully. We're getting a little deeper now. Got to equalize my ears again. The water is looking a little wavy under here. Uhuh. It's a thermocline and the temperature has dropped suddenly. Brrr. Man that is a cold one. I think I'll go up a meter and try to find the warmer water. Ok, now Paco is signaling us. It is time to do our decompression stop. Seems we have reached our time limit. We make our way up to five meters and hang there for three minutes before getting to the surface and back to the boat. A great dive. Lots and lots of life in this ocean. Even without seeing 'the big three', it has been an excellent dive.
Los Tunneles
The next day we were off again with Paco and Julio, our boat captain. And they brought another crew member. Whiskey is his name. He'll help out the Captain when it comes to navigating through the maze of lava. This time we are headed west. Los Tunneles is a lava flow that has reached the ocean with the lava hardening on the surface more quickly due to the cold water of the sea while the hot molten lava continues to flow underneath. Over time, these tunnels collapse and erode creating interesting formations and many pools of water where the aquatic life is plentiful. The tricky part of this journey is getting through the surf.
Julio waits for the right moment, riding the waves in and hitting the entry point perfectly between two rocky areas. It is a narrow gap and he has to watch that the wave behind us doesn't swamp us or knock us into a rock. He is extremely skilled, managing those two horses well and once over the surf he guides us through the rock formations. We have an opportunity to walk along the tops of some of the tunnels, where the blue footed boobies have their nests. We see large turtles swimming, cactus growing on the tops of these tunnels and many small finches. And, as with every bit of rocky coastline here in the Galapagos, there are many crabs running about.
We do a bit of snorkeling in and around and through the tunnels swimming with the turtles and small rays. Back in the boat again and Julio has to get us out of this bay through the waves that are five to six meters high now. He powers through and after a few tense seconds we are safely on the other side.
We head to another great snorkeling spot where we see white tip reef sharks hiding in small caves. I just love exploring these waters and although there isn't so much coral, the lava rocks make it quite interesting.
Penguins, Flightless Cormorant, Whales and Yellow Finned Tuna
We spent a third day with Paco, Julio and Whiskey in their speedboat Rafael. This time we headed up the west coast of San Isabel looking for penguins. Zipping along the coast we see huge great lava fields, cone vents and craters. On this side, it is clearly an active island.
Whiskey spots a school of Albacore (tuna) and we slow down to get the fishing rods out. Within five minutes we had caught a beautiful yellow finned tuna. In anticipation of such a catch, they brought all the makings of Ceviche (onion, lime, salt, tomato and green pepper) and that was to be the treat of the day.
We motored for four hours covering about 80 nautical miles, far enough north that we could see Isla Fernandina in the distance. We saw the flightless cormorants in the water and nesting on the shore. Julio took us into a small bay where we swam with sea lions and turtles and got quite close to the flightless cormorants. Their wings are very short and stubby and I wonder if they look at the frigate birds swooping and diving around them with a bit of envy. Mind you, the frigate birds can not go in the water as their feathers don't have the coating of oil that is necessary to protect them and keep them afloat. They can only dive down and scoop up fish near the surface of the water. Or, they steal the catch of other birds, giving them the nickname of pirates of the sea.
While we were snorkeling, Chef Whiskey started preparing the tune for the ceviche. The frigate birds were circling around as he would toss the scraps in the air. They would get snapped up before even touching the water. What a show that was.
After lunch and ceviche we headed off to another small cove. Remember, we still hadn't seen the penguins! And, of course, Paco would not let us down. The penguins were patiently waiting for us on the rocks. They were so cute standing tall ready to have their photo taken before showing us how they can dive into the surf and then scramble out again. We also jumped in for some snorkeling. The water on the west side of the island is very cold, probably 17 degrees c at best. But, I can say it was worth it. The turtles and the rays love this cove. We saw so many I couldn't keep track. They were just lovely to be with.
On the way back we spotted a couple of whales, saw lots of manta rays and swung by Union Island for a few beauty shots. Another fantastic day!
Tuesday, March 6, 2012
Picture of the day
Had a great day diving in Bonaire yesterday. Today we are packing up and setting sail to Curaçao. Can't wait to see Michelle!
Sunday, March 4, 2012
Diving in Bonaire
There are more than 50 dive sites along the coast of the island of Bonaire. We had booked a dive trip to the island of Klein for Saturday morning, but when we arrived at the dive shop they informed us that they did not have enough divers to warrant taking the boat out. It seemed it was just Jens and I. They couldn't get hold of us to tell us. This is the problem with not having a local phone and now that we have decided to stay in one location for longer than a day or so, I will start investigating how to get some kind of phone service.
Since we had nothing else planned for the day, and I was desperate to get in the water, we decided to do some dinghy dives. Well, snorkeling actually. We could rent dive gear and go along the coast with our dinghy and may still do that, so we thought we would check it out first. We wanted to see if we could get in and out of the dinghy from the water and with gear on, and whether or not the dive site moorings were safe and easy to use.
We set off with snorkels, mask, flippers and our dive flag. Jens tied the dive flag to one of the oars and hoisted it using the engine handle. That worked perfectly. The dive moorings are easy to find. They are like a string of pearls along the coastline. The southern coast of Bonaire has a short and shallow beach which is mostly rough rock and coral, with some sand beaches. After about 20 meters, the sea drops off suddenly creating a wall which makes for great diving. Shore diving is popular and many tourists rent a small truck and dive gear and spend the week exploring the dive sites.
Bonaire is also popular for wind surfing and kite surfing. There always seems to be a nice breeze. If you are into water sports and activities, this is a good place to visit. Also, because much of the island has been designated as a nature reserve, there has not been the influx of the big hotel chains. Mind you, tourist prices are finding their way here nonetheless.
The other tourists to Bonaire arrive on the cruise ships. This week, there was a new ship in port every day. They usually arrive at night and come into port in the morning. The passengers have the day to explore the island before heading off to their next destination. Hardly enough time to get a feel for the place. We notice that some of them come off the boat in the morning, find the closest bar, sit with a view to their ship and have a few, head back to their boat for lunch (I guess because these cruises are all inclusive) and then walk along the harbor front in the afternoon heat before they have to be back on the boat for a 6 pm departure. Some are smart and take the option of an island tour, but they still only really skim the surface of what there is to see.
We set off with snorkels, mask, flippers and our dive flag. Jens tied the dive flag to one of the oars and hoisted it using the engine handle. That worked perfectly. The dive moorings are easy to find. They are like a string of pearls along the coastline. The southern coast of Bonaire has a short and shallow beach which is mostly rough rock and coral, with some sand beaches. After about 20 meters, the sea drops off suddenly creating a wall which makes for great diving. Shore diving is popular and many tourists rent a small truck and dive gear and spend the week exploring the dive sites.
Bonaire is also popular for wind surfing and kite surfing. There always seems to be a nice breeze. If you are into water sports and activities, this is a good place to visit. Also, because much of the island has been designated as a nature reserve, there has not been the influx of the big hotel chains. Mind you, tourist prices are finding their way here nonetheless.
Tuesday, January 24, 2012
Diving off West Caicos
Jens and I headed out for a bit of diving today. Liz and Eric went with Jason for a snorkelling adventure. We all saw lots of great marine life and coral. They almost got a lobster. Imagine- we could have had fresh lobster for dinner. I guess we'll have to settle for some Wahoo and the Sugar Pie for dessert.
I brought my trusty Sony with the marine housing and got a few good shots of the sharks. Yes, Sharks! At one point we had about three of them around us - circling, circling, circling. A girl from Kansas was diving with us and she said she felt "terrorized" by them. Maybe she's suffering from a bit of a 9/11 hangover. I thought they looked quite friendly.
I brought my trusty Sony with the marine housing and got a few good shots of the sharks. Yes, Sharks! At one point we had about three of them around us - circling, circling, circling. A girl from Kansas was diving with us and she said she felt "terrorized" by them. Maybe she's suffering from a bit of a 9/11 hangover. I thought they looked quite friendly.
 |
| Ok - maybe this one scared me a little. |
 |
| No - not a shark - a turtle :-) |
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| Jens is the one on the right. |
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