"A Picture is Worth a Thousand Words"

Galapagos, August 2006

Wow, truly amazing, awe-inspiring, and magnificent!!

Words cannot begin to describe the experience of diving with 50-foot whale sharks, schooling hammerheads, countless Galapagos sharks, and families of eagle rays. And let's not forget the playful sea lions, dolphins, turtles, and eels. Some have said diving the Galapagos Islands is like being in an Imax movie or a TV episode with Jacque Cousteau. I have found few places on earth that compare.

Ok, picture arriving at Darwin's Arch after an 18-hour boat crossing. The sun is just peaking from behind the clouds. A pod of dolphins are riding the wake from the bow of the boat. Some are even jumping out of the water as if to welcome us to this remote and spectacular archipelago.

You can feel the excitement building as everyone begins donning their wetsuits and preparing for their first dive at Darwin's Arch.

We jump into the skiff and motor out a few minutes to the site. Everyone is ready. "Uno, dos, tres," yells Xavier… we all roll off the skiff simultaneously, backward into the water. We begin swimming down to the rock platform, which is situated at about 50 feet below us. It serves as a natural viewing station to watch the abundant sea life go by.

We swim through large schools of jacks and trevalles, and then we begin to see scalloped hammerheads. First, one here and one there and then more and more. We quickly lose count. They are much longer than we are tall-about 9 feet. Their eyes, on the outer edges of their flattened head, check us out as they cruise by.

The platform now comes into view and we gently descend down upon it. We take a seat on the volcanic rock. As we are checking out our surroundings, we spot several moray and spotted eels just lounging on the rocks out in the open. Schools of moorish idols, snappers, and grunts go swimming by.

A pod of four dolphins cruise by.

Then we hear a loud rapping, it is Giancarlo banging on his tank. He is pointing out into the blue. We can barely make out a large shadow in the water and then we see the white spots. We start swimming towards it, kicking as hard as we can. We can feel our hearts pounding as we suck down our precious air. There it is in front of us. It is huge, fantastically massive, the largest fish in the sea…the whale shark!

She is beautiful! We swim to the front of her and check out her wide mouth and then look at her comparatively small eyes. We can almost touch her pectoral fins. We swim over the top of her and realize her dorsal fin is larger than we are. As we kick like crazy to stay with her, we remember the cameras we have in our hands and try to take quick photos. She gently moves her enormous tail fin and is gone as quickly as she approached. And that was just the first dive…

The wildlife above the surface was equally magnificent. We saw blue-footed boobies, frigate birds, and penguins. We walked among sea lion colonies as mothers fed their velvety pups.


We photographed land iguanas and the indigenous marine iguanas. We explored the Charles Darwin Research Station and met Lonesome George, the lone survivor of his tortoise species.

We spent seven nights aboard the Galapagos Aggressor, as we cruised amongst the islands. We were treated to incredible menus-one of our favorites was an outdoor bbq on the top deck with fresh tuna steaks, shish kabobs, and authentic Ecuadorian beans & rice. We were spoiled by a most-accommodating crew. They'd help us off the skiff after each dive, lending a hand as we peeled off our wetsuits. After handing us fresh, warm towels, they served us hot cocoa and pan de yucca (a delicious local treat).

Yes, it was a truly incredible week on all levels. Some folks said it was the best trip of their lives. To be sure, the Galapagos Islands are too amazing to only experience once in a lifetime. In fact, Underwater Phantaseas will be going back in August of 2008. Are you ready to join us? The whalesharks await!

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