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Day 8

Breakfast before diving??? Wasn't as satisfying..

Dive 19 Wolf Island

Dropped down to a ledge and hung on! The current was strong, lots of fish and Galapagos sharks and turtles and eels. As we went around on the ledge the current was less and it easier to dive. As we started our ascent, we swam out into the blue a little and there was a giant school of Hammerheads. At first they were hard to see, because they were a little out in the blue and there was a thermal cline, but as we swam closer it was obvious… there were hundreds.

Dive 20 Wolf Island

I left my camera inside before the dive, so it didn't get loaded on the Panga. So I figure we should see some really cool stuff! Antonio was our guide. He brought us to a cave at about 50 feet of water. There was an exit, but you could not see it until you'd gone long ways in. As I first entered I spooked up a big Marble Ray… and then another and another. There were about 5 in the cave, big ones and as they swam you could see their mouths and white under sides then their tops and then their undersides again. The biggest was about 5 feet across.

As we left the cave it was a beautiful site, blue water and big turtle, one of the rays left the cave shortly after I did, so did the turtle. After we left the cave we drifted along the most beautiful wall, with fissures filled with life. Such a variety of fish and eels. Squirrel fish and damsels and other bright fish. There was a pinnacle that you could swim around and explore… An Eagle ray was cruising below. Gene and I ended up at the entrance of a huge cave, much bigger than the marble ray cave, it was probably 25 feet high at the entrance, and 15 feet wide. Antonio had to leave us there since others needed to go up, so Gene and I went in. Eels on the walls and fish and then we hit a "wall" of tiny red fish. Antonio told us later they were baby squirrel fish--there were literally millions of them! We couldn't see an exit and didn't know if there was one. We had been down a while, so we came out and surfaced. Such a beautiful dive!

Hot wings and cookies for our interval. This next dive will be # 3 since breakfast and before lunch!

It will be a lot of diving in a short period of time.

Dive 21 Wolf Island --73 feet for 43 minutes

Similar landscape with many ledges and fissures, saw a very large scorpion fish. Lots of turtles as many as 6 or 7 swimming over us at one time. Gene got tired, partly due to his BCD filling up with water due to a leak we thought we had fixed earlier, and when I found him sitting on a ledge looked exhausted, we went up and took a well deserved shower and had some lunch. The Lammer Law had already started its long journey to the central islands when we started our shower, which made that challenging, and made lunch challenging as well.

A long restful afternoon of reading and writing and napping before dinner. (Napped in the room due to the toenail thing) Both Antonio and Fabian are sporting some pretty fancy toenail designs due to their habit of sleeping out in the open.

Day 9 Sunday Aug 4

The currents and weather were against us, so besides "rockin' and a rollin' all night long, we missed our 8 am arrival time by about 4 hours! So our first planned Land trip and dive were scrapped.

We had a leisurely breakfast, and dove around noon.

Dive 22 North Seymore -- 90 feet for 54 minutes

Dropped into 75 feet of sand, not that much current, bright because the sun was out. Saw 2 jeweled moray eels, several white tipped reef sharks and a big school of little shiny "bait fish".

We saw a large puffer that looked like a porcupine puffer, spotted with white frilly edges on all it's fins. I chased it since I wanted a picture not knowing what it was and went around and out cropping into the surge. Kathleen and Gene thought I'd gotten caught in the surge, and Kathleen was just about to "go in after me" when she realized I'd come full circle to be over her and behind her. Saw small bright blue nudibranches with black stripes and seahorses. The end of the dive was the strongest current I'd ever been in. (Someone said it was around 4 knots.) I couldn't hang on with my one hand (the other had the camera) and I let go. I got caught in a down current which brought me back into 30 feet of water before I could kick my way out. Meanwhile Gene had done hand over hand to get back off the ledge and his weight belt got caught on the ledge and un-done! Kathleen was close by and helped him back on with it. People were surfacing everywhere, scattered by this incredible current. Whew! What a ride!