Kicker Rock

While I was in San Cristobal, one of the main islands of Galapagos, I chose to go on a diving excursion, along with some snorkellers.

After a 30 minute ride from Puerto Baquerizo Moreno township, we were given a beach rest while the crew readied themselves for the dives.

Check dive

First up they wanted to do a check-dive.  Us divers kitted ourselves up fully with the weights the dive-masters thought we’d need.  We jumped into the water and held on to the dinghy.  We deflated the BCD and checked that we could descend.  The 10kg of weights given to me turned out right while some people needed some adjustment.

It was my first time with so much weight; I started diving with 7kg and decreased to 4kg more recently.  But here I have a thick 5mm full suit (one person said it was 7mm) and the water is supposedly quite salty.

First dive

Once we were all done, the snorkelers were brought back on board the catamaran and we continued to Kicker Rock in earnest for our first dive.

For the dive briefing, I had to familiarise myself with PSI (rather than bar) gauges and the symbols for communicating remaining air was a little different (expressing “thousands” by putting a couple of fingers on one’s forearm).

The first dive started at the Channel between the two rocky outcrops that make up Kicker Rock.  It was a stunning beginning teeming with life between the two walls.  We saw sharks, turtles, sea lions and lots of other fish.  Sea lions and turn and speed away with so much agility but I saw one that that just seemed to move at snail’s pace underwater.  It seemed frozen.

The middle of the first dive felt like deep nothingness until we reached the end when we had a good sprinkling of turtles and then an eagle ray (which I missed).

Even though the dive was only 52 minutes and 16m it felt very long and deep.  Perhaps it was the boring part in the middle and the poor visibility, respectively.

Second dive

The second dive began with nothing much bar a few turtles.  Visibility was again poor which meant that when we saw a huge school of hammerhead sharks (about ten), we couldn’t appreciate them in their full glory.  They were very distinguishable from the other sleeker sharks and at the right angles, the hammers were evident.

The hammerheads didn’t linger and we were told later that one person hadn’t stayed far away enough from them.

We did have a closer encounter later with just two hammerheads but again visibility wasn’t the best.  The dive ended with more turtles than I could count but again visibility wasn’t crystal clear.

Overall, Kicker Rock is a strong challenger to Malaysia’s Barracuda Point in Sipadan, Sabah state.

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.