Diving with hammerheads

Continuing from all the early wake-ups on the cruise, we woke around 0630 for our 0800 meet-up a the dive shop. I think the other customers had been told 0815 but were a little later.  Kim got fitted into his snorkel gear while I was taken to another shop for my dive gear.  I had expected some shops to combine their customers and boats and sure enough, it was with a shop that had a higher price.

We walked to the jetty with our gear and waited for a water taxi to take us to a small catamaran loaded with a dinghy.  It was about 30 minutes ride to the Kicker Rock area where we were dinghied to a beach.

At this point, things became a bit muddled.  We were told to rest on the beach for an hour; one person said not need to bring swim/snorkel gear but on the beach, we were told we could kill time swimming/snorkelling.

Anyway, time went quite quickly and the crew didn’t take that long to ready all the dive gear.  I suppose that beach time would have been quite nice in the hot season but not today.

Soon enough, they were ready to take us for our dives at Kicker Rock.  The snorkellers saw hammerhead sharks straight up but us divers only saw them during the second dive.  You can read about the dives and see the underwater pictures here.

As I was hungry even before starting the dives, I expected to be starving after the first dive.  But strangely, I wasn’t.  We were offered Nestle Maria biscuits (known as Marie biscuits in other parts of the world).  I was glad lunch was going to be at the end of the excursion.  The naturalist guide talked to us about the various wildlife from the bow of the catamaran during the surface interval.

After the two dives, and back on the stationary boat, I felt queasy.  I considered delaying my meal but with other hungry divers around that might be a mistake.  I grabbed my tortilla, rice, yummy fish and salad and made a wrap.  A few sips of sugary Coke (a rarity for me) was like magic in settling me queasiness and I was able to finish my meal with sips of more Coke in between.  Wow!  No wonder people say sugar is like an addictive drug.

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The dives had been a good finish to my Galapagos experience and I probably would have felt like I had missed out on something if I hadn’t done it.

Back on land, we rested for a few hours before returning to the dive centre for photos and my dive log (on a sheet of paper to be pasted into my log when I reach home).  We walked around before returning to last night’s place for dinner for lobster (again, but with a different sauce) and a Chicken Caesar.