Butterflies

Well, tomorrow I leave for Ecuador and the Galapagos Islands.

I'll be spending two days in Quito, the capitol, and then seven days aboard the dive boat Galapagos Aggressor II. We'll return to Quito for one night then fly home.

I'm diving with some folks out of South Padre Island, Texas, who have reserved the entire boat. Not all of the 14 passengers are from Texas, but everyone knows Tim. He has been leading this trip once a year for a long time, and I feel a lot better being with experienced traveller/divers that I know and trust. Still, I'm feeling butterflies and I've packed and repacked a couple of times just to make sure I've done it right.

This is the biggie: Tim calls it the "Superbowl of Diving." The water's cold, the currents are strong, and it's no simple (cheap) matter to get there. But like the Superbowl, there's a big payoff just for playing: We'll see some fantastic wildlife, dive in challenging conditions, and will visit the spot where man first began to understand the big picture of the development of life on this planet. It will be a really nice set of dives to enter into my logbook!

Do a Google search for Galapagos and dive and you'll see the phenomenal array of sea life that inhabits the waters around the islands. Sea lions, penguins, and marine iguanas can be found in the shallows, while large schools of jacks and even hammerhead sharks are present a little farther out. In the far northwest, around Darwin and Wolf Islands (a 16-hr boat trip from the main islands), huge whale sharks are often seen with schools of Galapagos and hammerhead sharks. Due to popular demand, our boat will spend most of its time up in the northwest.

There will be dives in other areas where we'll be able to see red-lipped batfish, sea horses, and other small creatures. On our land excursions we'll see the sea lions, iguanas, giant tortoises, and a wide variety of the famous Galapagos birds.

On the downside, I won't have access to the Internet for much of the trip, so I won't be able to share my observations in real-time. As I did in Australia, I'll hand-write my posts and publish them when I get to a computer.

Well, I have to re-pack my camera bag again. I'm not convinced it's perfect. So I'll sign off for now and try to post when I can get to a computer again.