Scuba Diving with Sharks in the Galapagos, Ecuador

We ended the Galapagos tour onboard Darwin Yacht before 10am in the town of Puerto Ayora on Santa Cruz Island. We had a rough plan of staying in town for a few days to go scuba diving and then wanted to head to another inhabited island for exploring on our own. While walking the main street in town, we stopped at several scuba diving shops which all seemed very similar. We decided to focus on finding a place to stay and use wifi to research the different dive companies. I’m glad we did because several of the companies have very negative online reviews stating that safety was compromised. We found the top rated company, Tip Top Dive, which turned out to just be a training center but they recommended that we dive with Scuba Iguana. We signed up for a trip to Gordon Rocks leaving the following morning.

Gordon Rocks is known for schools of hammerhead sharks and we were excited for the possibility to see some. We had about an hour ride to the dive site in a small speed boat. We first stopped at the Plaza Islands where we did a short dive to test our equipment. We were excited to learn that we would be in small groups with only four people per dive master. During the briefing for the dives, the dive masters informed us that they wanted to maximize down time so offered to share air with the first person to run low but that it was only an option, not a requirement. Neither Will or I considered this a safe practice but did not feel pressured to participate.

Our first dive started slow but we saw large black tip sharks and a few sea turtles. I ended up being the first to get low on air so the dive master asked if I wanted to share air. Feeling uneasy about the practice, I declined and we began our ascent as a group. We had better luck on the second dive with immediately spotting another large black tip shark. We swam along a rock face and found an octopus tucked in the crevices. We then found turtles being attended by cleaning fish and a playful sea lion. The dive was already so exciting when we spotted a mobula eagle ray pass overhead. As I noted my air was approaching our time to ascend, Will and I spotted a hammerhead shark. In our excitement, we lost site of the rest of our group. Keeping with normal practices, we looked for a minute and were about to begin our ascent when they suddenly came back into view. I think they spotted a school of hammerhead sharks which luckily swam our direction bringing us back together. We all watched in awe as about twenty sharks circled around below us.

I watched the rest of the group go deeper to get a better look at the sharks while I remained at a shallower depth cautious of my air intake. After only watching them for a short time, we all ascended to our precautionary safety stop at 5 meters depth. Our dive master asked the three of us how much air we had left and learned that all of us were within minutes of running out. He proceeded to share air with Will and I while the other diver in our group chose to surface without completing the safety stop. It was the one time in my short history of diving that the large margins of safety were compromised and although I knew everything would turn out fine, I was uncomfortable with the situation.

That night, we headed to a street full of tables with rows of restaurants selling fresh seafood. We picked KF William based on a recommendation from Scuba Iguana and it was excellent. We split roasted chicken with rice and beans and a plate of shrimp in cocoanut sauce with rice. It was the best meal we had in the Galapagos (other than on Darwin).

We woke refreshed the next morning excited to explore more on our own. After booking an afternoon ferry to Isabela Island, we took a water taxi to the other side of the bay in Puerto Ayora. There as a nice walkway that eventually led to a swimming hole called Las Grietas. It was basically a small canyon filled with crystal clear water. Will rented snorkel gear for a couple of dollars and searched the area only finding a few fish. Before heading back to town, we took a few more trails finding beautiful views of town and the bay.