Galapagos Aggressor - Captain's Logs

[Aggressor Adventures]

Captain's Log - Galapagos Aggressor II December 29 2011-January 5 2012
by Aggressor Fleet on Thursday, January 19, 2012 at 6:10pm
CAPTAIN´S LOG
GALAPAGOS AGGRESSOR II

CRUISING DATE: December 29th 2011 to January 5th 2012

GUESTS: Bennie and Tania (South Africa), Michel, Alexia, Claude and Marie (France), Caroline, Kevin, Michael and Andy (USA), William and Paula (Ireland) and Tobias (Germany).
CREW: Rufino (Capitan), Ruben and Lenin (Dive masters), Andres (Cruise director), Jose (Chef), Erick (Barman), Boris (Mechanic), Jason and Omar (Panga drivers). Joselito (Chef assistant).

CONDITIONS:
South: water temp.:66-68 °F. Visibility: 30 Ft. Current: 0, 5 Knots.
North: water temp.: 75-77 °F. Visibility: 30 Ft. Current: 1, 5 Knots
West: water temp.: 60-64 °F. Visibility: 20 Ft. No current

RECOMMENDATIONS: Bring your 7 mm wetsuit or dry suit, hood is recommended.


Last week of the year have arrived and Galapagos is always offering its best to our guests.
This week we enjoyed the presence of Big schools of Jacks, Barracudas, Hammerheads, White tip sharks, Galapagos sharks, Eagle rays, Sea lions, Buffer fish, Yellow trumpet fish, Morel eels, Dolphins, Yellow fin tunas, Green sea turtles, Scorpion fish, Angel fish everywhere, Mola molas, Penguins, Marine Iguanas, Fly less cormorants, Bat fish, and many more incredible creatures.

On Saturday the celebration for new year’s was really fun, we had colorful masks, lots of champagne and really nice presents for our guests, they received from the crew members, handcrafted hammerheads made out of tagua, and they come in nice balsa wood boxes, after the celebration our guests and crew enjoyed a nice roasted pork dinner. This week the temperature of the water was wormer than the previous weeks, in Santa Cruz Island in the highlands there were a lot of Galapagos giant tortoises, and the lava tunnels are always fun to go.

Galapagos never let us down, one more time, the best diving destination in the world

Eat, Sleep, and Dive safe.

See you next time and thank you very much for joining us.

Happy New Year!!! To all the diving community…

Andres (cruise director)
Galapagos Aggressor

 

[Aggressor Adventures]

Galapagos Aggressor II
Captain´s Log
January 19th to 26th 2012

Hi there! Welcome to Galapagos Islands!

This week we had awesome dives!, our journal started in the Southern Islands, San Cristobal Island (Isla Lobos). What do we do in the check out dive? We figure up how much weight to use, practice your buoyancy, and know well your new gear , like your dive computer, Bcd, cameras, video cameras...etc, with the playful sea lions.

Santa Cruz Island (Punta Carrion), Cousin's Rock close to Santiago Island here we can find a lot of black coral. Temperature of the water is changing this time of the year. We had temperature like 70*F/21*C to 77*F/25*C more or less ,but we had thermo clines that reached 63*F.

The Northern Islands, Wolf and Darwin, water temperature much better 77*F/25*C to 81*F/28*C , with some temperature variations by thermo cline 71*F/20*C, current yes!

Day one (Thursday 19/01/12) the checkout dive in Isla Lobos, water temperature 70*F/21*C, max. depth in this area is 21 feet/6 or 7 meter, sandy bottom, here you can dive with Galapagos sea lions, some sting rays.
Day two (Friday 20/01/12) Three Dives in the south, the visibility was not to bad like 60 feet/18m, current yes!! not strong "mild", we saw Movula rays, green sea turtle, sea lions, big area of black coral(greenish color).

Two days Wolf and Darwin (Saturday 21, Sunday 22/12) Northern Islands, fantastic dives where the big animals live, like school of hammer head sharks, Galapagos sharks surrounded us , groups of 13 eagle rays close to us but avoiding the bubbles that we make, schools of pacific bonito, big eye jacks, we were so lucky admiring the most amassing creature passing by. Great and memorable moments.

Day five, Punta Vicente Roca it is in the north west part of Isabella Island close to the cero line,(Equator Line). I can feel how cold the water is(Cromwell current)63*F/ to 72*F-17*C/22*C, here it's the time to put thicker wet suit, hood 3mm fine, 3mm gloves extra liner in between the suit add more weight, current yes, anyway the dive over here is wonderful for small creatures like Galapagos bulkhead shark 60cm. long they were everywhere I was surprise because they are hard to find and they were pregnant. Red lipped batfish, sea horse, the green sea turtle everywhere, flight less cormorant hunting underwater, sting rays moving the sand in order to get some food, was hard to find out the Sun fish because the visibility was 1m/3 feet, greenish water but we found the mola mola stationed with the mouth up cleaned by the king angel fish one of the largest fish his main diet consist of jellyfish.

On surface marine iguana swimming, marine iguana resting in a vertical wall, green sea turtle taking a breath, flightless cormorant, Penguins swimming around the boat like if they wanted to come on board, blue footed booby standing up on the rocks, frigate birds, noddy tern, sea lions, there is a big community that lives in harmony together.

Day six Cabo Marshall (south east side of Isabella Island) we did two dives and we saw 10 manta rays in the first dive, 4 in the second, big school of barracuda, black stripped salema fish, Mobula rays, eagle rays, white tipped reef sharks, zebra moray eel, Hammer head sharks, marbled ray, diamond sting ray, we were lucky with the water conditions with a temperature of 77*F/25*C, good visibility 80feet/24m no too much current.

Wednesday land visit Santa Cruz Island. Great view of the Galapagos giant tortoises in the wild, lava tunnels, Charles Darwin Research station.

Thank you each of you that choose our hospitality in Galapagos Aggressor II and thanks for giving us the opportunity to make real your dreams about Galapagos!

The Galapagos Aggressor II crew members had a great time with all of you great divers, we hope you come back again!

Nelson Martinez
Galapagos Aggressor Instructor

 

[Aggressor Adventures]

Galapagos Aggressor II
Captain Log Book :
January 26th to February 02nd , 2012

Hi divers around the world welcome to Galapagos Islands! . The Galapagos Islands are situated on the confluence of three of the earth’s tectonic plates. Tectonic plates are huge pieces of earth’s crust, bearing either continents or ocean floor, or both, which are floating on a bed of liquid rock or magma, Galapagos archipelago , sitting on the Nazca plate, is drifting in a southeasterly direction at the rate of about seven centimeters a year. The nearest mainland is ECUADOR (600 miles away).

We had awesome dives our journal started in the Southern Islands , San Cristobal Island (Isla Lobos), what do we do in the check out dive? figure up how much weight do we use , practice your buoyancy, knowing well your new dive gear , as your dive computer, BCD, cameras, video cameras...etc, at this time the playful sea lions join us. Santa Cruz Island (Punta Carrion), Cousin's Rock close to Santiago Island where we can find a lot of black coral. Temperature of the water is changing this time of the year. We had temperature like 73*F/22*C to 77*F/25*C more or less but thermo clines came up.

The Northern Islands Wolf and Darwin, water temperature 77*F/25*C, with some temperature variations by thermo cline 71*F/20*C, current yes!

Day one (Thursday 26/01/12) Checkout dive in Isla Lobos, water temperature 70*F/21*C. max. depth in this area it's 21 feet/6 or 7 meter, sandy bottom here you can dive with Galapagos sea lions, some sting rays.

Day two(Friday 27/01/12) Two dives in Punta Carrion, the visibility like 60 feet/18m, current yes!! not strong "mild", we saw Mobula rays, green sea turtle, dusky chub, black striped salema fish, white tipped reef shark. One dive in Cousin’s Rock where we saw green sea turtle, sea lion, school of yellow scad, school of barracudas.

Day three and four, Wolf and Darwin (Saturday 28, Sunday 29/12) these are the Northern Islands of the archipelago, we saw school of hammer head sharks, Galapagos sharks , group of 8 eagle rays close to us avoiding our bubbles, schools of pacific bonito, big eye jacks, we were so lucky admiring the most amazing creature passing by. Great moments...

Day five Punta Vicente Roca (1/30/12) it is in the north west part of Isabella Island close to the cero line,(Equator). I can feel how cold the water it is(Cromwell current)63*F/ to 66*F - 17*C/19*C, here it's the time to put thicker wet suit, hood 3mm fine, 3mm gloves extra liner in between the suit add more weight, “mild” current, anyway the dive over here is wonderful for small creatures like Galapagos bulkhead shark 60cm. long, last week we saw them pregnant but now we saw the eggs greenish spiral formation hiding in between the small rocks covered by algae, the Red lipped batfish, sea horse, green sea turtle everywhere, flightless cormorant and penguins hunting underwater, sting rays, flounders, babe sea lions playing and the adult sea lion watching them.

On surface marine iguana swimming, marine iguana resting in a vertical wall, green sea turtle taking a breath, flightless cormorant, Penguins swimming around the boat like if they wanted to come on board, blue footed booby standing up on the rocks, frigate birds, noddy tern,there is a big community that lives in harmony together.

Day six Cabo Marshall 1/31/12 (south east side of Isabella Island) we did three dives and we saw total 7 or 8 times the manta rays, great school of Movula rays or Devil rays, school of barracuda, black stripped salema fish,, eagle ray, withe tipped reef sharks, zebra moray eel, tiger snake eel, diamond sting ray, water temperature of 71*F /21*C to 76*F/24*C, poor visibility 30feet/9m no too much current.

Day seven, Wednesday, land visit Santa Cruz Island. Great view of the Galapagos Giant tortoises in the wild, lava tunnels, Charles Darwin Research station.

Thank you all of you that choose our hospitality in Galapagos Aggressor II !

All the crew members of the Galapagos Aggressor II had a great time with all of you great divers, we hope to have you onboard soon!

Nelson Martinez
Galapagos Aggressor Instructor

 

[Aggressor Adventures]

Galapagos Aggressor II Captain's Report Feb 2 - 9, 2012

This was an amazing week! We had the opportunity to dive and share experiences with Survivorman Les Stroud!

Thursday 02nd. - San Cristobal Island. Onboard, we had a welcome briefing and after a snack we headed the boat to Isla Lobos, where we normally do our check-out dive which was satisfactory because the guests were all professional divers. No current, we had the chance to play with some sea lions , after that we had a welcome cocktail on board ,shared our experiences and met the rest of crewmembers , then a BBQ dinner. At night, we started the navigation to the next destination.

Friday 03rd .- Punta Carrion, Santa Cruz Island, after breakfast and dive briefing we had our first dive there, which was nice, the water temperature was warm 78F and visibility was around 45ft,and a very mild current, we saw small school of mobula rays, a couple of white tip reef sharks, and some sea turtles and many fish, one hour interval surface and then we repeat our first dive, we had an inconvenient because three bags of our guests were lost, fortunately we recovered the bags on Friday and we continued our trip without any problems, next dive was at Cousin’s rock in the afternoon, where the water temperature was 78F and the visibility 30ft we saw some sea lions ,sea turtles, and a big school of barracudas and fish, right after that we started our navigation to Wolf Island.

Saturday 04th .-Wolf Island, the conditions in this Island were good , specially in the morning during the first dive we saw a school of eagle rays (9) big school of hammerhead sharks and another small school of Galapagos sharks plus a big school of tuna fish the temperature was 78F and a visibility of 60 ft with a mild current, the second dive was as excellent as the first one ,and in the afternoon the third dive we saw the shadows of school of hammerheads and some Galapagos sharks.

Sunday 05th .- Darwin’s Arch, we arrived early in the morning to Darwin Island a sunny day , water temperature 80F , visibility 45 feet, the current was mild, we could see some hammerhead sharks , sea turtles and some dolphins during the two morning dives , in the afternoon the visibility dropped and saw the silhouettes of sharks ,we also we did a snorkeling session with the dolphins.

Monday 06th .- Punta Vicente Roca ,Isabela Island. After a long journey from north and a spectacular view of the sunrise, we had a good breakfast, then the briefing for the dives ,we had a visibility of 60ft a temperature of 63F and almost no current, the dives were spectacular Mola-molas, horn shark, sea horses, sea lions, penguins, flightless cormorants, octopuses ,etc. no places in the earth like this!, we did our three dives in this area and late in the afternoon we started our navigation to the next dive site at the eastern side of Isabela while we were moving Les Stroud gave us a fabulous presentation about his live and work plus a video.

Tuesday 07th .-Cabo Marshall the eastern side of Isabela Island, we had two dives here very good ones, visibility was good and temperature was around 78F, we saw manta rays, hammerhead sharks, white tip sharks sea turtles and lots of fish, big school of salemas , we saw mantas playing after that we tried Cowley Islet which is pretty famous for the sea lions. We celebrated Carmina’s birthday!

Wednesday 08th .-Baltra Island , our guests went for a land visit , we saw many giant tortoises in the wild plus a hike in the lava tunnel the temperature was pleasant in the highlands and at night we departure a dinner in the town of Puerto Ayora and late at night we started our navigation to San Cristobal Island back to the beginning, concluding with a new group of friends.

Thanks for sharing this new adventure onboard the Galapagos Aggressor: Carmina, Anke, Sebastian, Marcelo, Rod, Scott, Jill, Dean, Dmitri, Chris, Laura & Les.



JAIME CARRILLO

GUSTABO BARBA

GALAPAGOS AGGRESSOR I & II INSTRUCTORS

 

[Aggressor Adventures]

Galapagos Aggressor II Captain's Log: February 9-16 2012
by Aggressor Fleet on Sunday, March 11, 2012 at 2:10pm ·
Trip report
February 09th -16th, 2012

Hello Everybody!

This week right after we arrived to the Galapagos Aggressor II from the airport, we gave some information about the fleet and our dive system, then we got ready for our first contact with the Galapagos water.

Day one – (Thursday) Our check out dive was in Isla Lobos – San Cristobal, this is a very calm and nice place, the current was very Mild, visibility about 12m/38f and temperature 24C/76F , here we had the opportunities to see a few sea lion, we also saw sting ray, and few tropic fish.

Day two–(Friday) We made three dives in the Central Island, one in Pta. Carrion-Sta. Cruz and two in Cousin’s Rock it means diving in water temp normally 24C/ 76F, low visibility, we saw a few juvenile Galapagos Shark, a few Sting ray, marble ray, and cow-noise golden ray, with tip reef shark, a few of pacific green sea turtle, small school of barracudas, a lot of small coral fishes in a big area of black coral greenish color, in between the first and the second dive, we were surprised by a school of killer whale “Orca” and we were on the pangas (zodiac) to follow them, that was amazing..!

Day three, four, the further northern Islands, Wolf and Darwin Islands this diving sites are amazing, here we were diving with the big animals like big school of hammer head sharks, Galapagos sharks, eagle rays close to us very curios approached us in a fantastic way, during the safety stop silky sharks, school of bottle nose dolphins with theirs babes protecting them, and one more time we had the chance to see a juvenile whale sharks, Water temperature was 24C /74F, the visibility 18mt/ 56f.

Day fifth- Punta Vicente Roca-Isabela it is in the North West part of Isabella Island close to the cero line,(Equator Line). We made three dives in this diving site, this part of the Island. Is mostly of the time cold because of the Cromwell current 16C/ 60F come from the west very depth on the water, but at the same time bringing all of the upwelling and nutrition to the surface, that is way there’s so many activity, here it's the time to put thicker wet suit, hood 5mm fine, 3mm gloves extra liner in between the suit, add more weight, current low but a little surge, anyway the dive over here is wonderful for small but also big creatures like Mola Mola, we had time to see them on the last dives, but the second was the best, great..! the temp was 18C-65F and the visibility was about 8mt in the surface because of the plankton, but 15mt/ 45f down was very good 15m/ 45f also we saw Galapagos bulkhead shark 60cm. long, sea horse, big school of black striped salemas fish, well the green sea turtle they are everywhere but in this place they are old once with a dirty carapace ready to be cleaned by the king angel fish, Mexican hog fish, for them is protected area where they can hide between the big volcanic rocks, we also had the opportunity to see penguin fishing with sea lion –which was playing for a while with us- of the same school of fish, suddenly a flight less cormorant joined the party hunting underwater. Water temp was cool 14C during whole dive, and last dive visibility drop at 6mt during the whole dive.

Day sixth .Cabo Marshal The temperature was 21C/ 62F, visibility 15mt /45f, and very currently, we saw huge school of different types of fishes everywhere, school of yellow fin tunas, we were surprised by school of hammerhead, also there're school of up to 5 white tip reef shark fishing against the current, huge school of barracudas, big eye fish, black stripe salemas, and several of one of the big of Galapagos, “the amazing Mantas”, they were swimming, rolling with their open wings, they were feeding, and display socials behavior.. that was amazing..!

Day seventh Puerto Ayora-Sta. Cruz once on land we went to the highlands on Sta. Cruz in order to visit “los Gemelos”, two big collapse of a lava chamber, like a crater shape, we also visit the famous Giant tortoises in the wild, in a private farm, and we visited the lava tube, remain of activity of volcano eruption on the Galapagos, after we visited the farm we went to Pto. Ayora to visited visit the Charles Darwin research station with famous program of breeding center of giant tortoises, we saw also “lonesome George”, last remain of whole one species of Giant tortoise, we also saw the land Iguanas, after that our guests had plenty of time to visit nice town of Pto. Ayora, and bought some souvenirs in the local shops. Late in the afternoon for dinner we recommended one of the most popular restaurant in town, where they serve fresh food, the house special is sea food, after that we back on board and rest for the last day.

Day eight airport- We prepared everything for the check out of our guests; luggage was sent to the airport first with a guide, and after our guests disembark. We generally recommend shopping at the airport or get internet connection “Wifi” until the plane arrives.

During this week we had the opportunity to see four of the “Giant of Galapagos.”
Thanks for joining us Essi, Laurence, Blaine, David, Susan & Steve, Tracy and Janet.

by:
Gustavo Barba
Galapagos Aggressor Instructor

 

[Aggressor Adventures]

Galapagos Aggressor II Captain's Log: March 1-8 2012

Right after we arrived to the Galapagos Aggressor from the airport, we gave some information about the fleet and our dive system, then we got ready for our first contact with the Galapagos water!

Day one - (Thursday) check out dive in Isla Lobos - San Cristobal Island, this is a very calm and nice place, the current was very Mild, visibility about 7mt /20 ft and temperature 84F , here we had the opportunity to see few sea lions.

Day two-(Friday) we made three dives in the Central Island, two in Pta. Carrion-Sta. Cruz and one in Cousin’s Rock it means diving in water temperature around 27c/ 80f, we saw white tip sharks, few Sting ray, marble ray, and cow-noise golden ray, sea turtles, a small school of barracudas, a lot of small coral fish in a big area of black coral greenish color.

Day three, four, the further northern Islands, Wolf and Darwin Islands the dive here was good we saw some hammerheads, one eagle ray an a lot of tropical fish, king angeles, morish idolos, many moray eals , Water temperature was 24C /74F, the visibility 18mt /56ft.

Day fifth Punta Vicente Roca-Isabela it is in the North West part of Isabella Island close to the cero line,(Equator Line). We made three dives in this diving site, this part of the Island. Is mostly of the time cold because of the Cromwell current 16C/ 60f come from the west very deep, but at the same time bringing all of the upwelling and nutrition to the surface, that is why there’s so many activity, here it's the time to put thicker wet suit, hood 5mm fine, 3mm gloves extra liner in between the suit add more weight, current low but a little surge, anyway the dive over here is wonderful for small but also big creatures like Mola Mola, we had time to see them, but the second was the best, great..! the temp was 73-82F and the visibility was about 50 ft ,we also saw Galapagos buklhead shark 60cm. long, sea horse, big school of black striped salemas, Mexican hog fish, for them is protected area where they can hide between the big volcanic rocks, we also had the opportunity to see penguin fishing with sea lion -which was playing for a while with us- of the same school of fish, suddenly a flight less cormorant join to the party hunting.

Day sixth .Cabo Marshall and Cowly Islot, the temperature was 75C/ 62F, visibility 15mt /45f, and very currently, we saw huge school of different types of fish everywhere, school of yellow fin tunas, we were surprised by school of hammerhead, also there're school of up to 5 white tip reef shark fishing against the current, huge school of barracudas, big eye fish, black stripe salemas, and several of one of the big of Galapagos, “the amazing Mantas”, twenty at least swimming, rolling with their open wings, they were feeding, and display socials behavior.. that was amazing..!

Day seventh, Puerto Ayora- Sta. Cruz once on land we went to the highlands in order to visit “los Gemelos”, two big collapse of a lava chamber, like a crater shape, we also visited the famous Giant tortoises in the wild, in a private farm, and we visit the lava tube, remain of activity of volcano eruption on the Galapagos, after we visited the farm we went to Pto. Ayora to visited visit the Charles Darwin research station with famous program of breeding center of giant tortoises, we saw “lonesome George”, land Iguanas, after that our guests had plenty of time to visit the nice town of Pto. Ayora, and bought some souvenirs in the local shops. We had dinner in one of the most popular restaurant in town.

Day eight airport- San Cristobal

Thanks for a great week Stephen, Barbara, James, Bob, Chris, Marco, Pavel, Gregor and Jurg .

Walter Torres
Galapagos Aggressor II

 

[Aggressor Adventures]

Galapagos Aggressor II Captain's Log: March 15-22 2012

Trip Report
March 15th – 22nd, 2012

Welcome onboard the Galapagos Aggressor II!

Day one – (Thursday) Check out dive was in Isla Lobos – San Cristobal Is, this is a very calm and nice place, the current was very Mild, visibility about 12m/38f and temperature 24c/76F ,we saw few sea lion, sting rays , and few tropic fish.

Day two–(Friday) we made three dives in the Central Island, one in Pta. Carrion-Sta. Cruz and two in Cousin’s Rock, water temp 26c/80f. the visibility was Ok mild current, we saw juvenile Galapagos Sharks, few Sting rays, marble rays, and cow-noise golden ray, white tip reef shark, few pacific green sea turtle, small school of barracudas, a lot of small coral fishes in a big area of black coral greenish color, in the last dive we were playing with juveniles sea lions.

Day three & four, the further northern Islands, Wolf and Darwin Islands, this diving sites are amazing, here we were diving with the big animals like big school of hammer head sharks, Galapagos sharks, eagle rays close to us very curios approached us in a fantastic way, during the safety stop silky sharks, just in the last dive a school of bottle nose dolphins came to play with us they were with theirs babes protecting them, in Darwin in the second dive the biggest of Galapagos appeared , the great whale shark, it was an amazing animal..! We had a great time, Water temperature was 64c/ 80F, little current but visibility was about 15mt .

Day five, Punta Vicente Roca-Isabela it is in the North West part of Isabella Island close to the cero line(Equator Line). We made three dives in this diving site, this part of the Island is mostly of the time cold because of the Cromwell current 16C/ 60F come from the west very depth, but at the same time bringing all of the upwelling and nutrition to the surface, that is why there’s so many activity, here it's the time to put thicker wet suit, hood 5mm fine, 3mm gloves extra liner in between the suit add more weight, current low but a little surge, the dive here is wonderful for small animals, the temp was 18C/65F and the visibility was about 10 m. in the surface because of the plankton, but 15mt/ 45f down was very good , we saw Galapagos bulkhead shark 60cm. long, sea horse, big school of black striped salemas fish, green sea turtle they are everywhere but in this place they are old once with a dirty carapace ready to be cleaned by the king angel fish, Mexican hog fish, for them is protected area where they can hide between the big volcanic rocks, we also had the opportunity to see penguin fishing with sea lion –which was playing for a while with us. Water temp was cool 14C during whole dive, and last dive visibility drop at 6mt during whole the dive.

Day six .Cabo Marshall there’s no doubt that those dives were good!, the temperature was 24C/80F, visibility 15mt /45f, and medium current, we saw huge school of different types of fish everywhere, school of yellow fin tunas, we were surprised by school of hammerhead, also there're school of up to 5 white tip reef shark fishing against the current, huge school of barracudas, big eye fish, black stripe salemas, and several of one of the big of Galapagos, “the amazing Mantas”, they were, swimming, rolling with their open wings, they were feeding, and display socials behavior.. Amazing..!

Day seven, Puerto Ayora-Sta. Cruz once on land we went to the highlands in order to visit the “los Gemelos”, two big collapse of a lava chamber, like a crater shape, we also visit the famous Giant tortoises in the wild, in a private farm, and we visited the lava tube, remain of activity of volcano eruption on the Galapagos, after we visited the farm we went to Pto. Ayora to visit the Charles Darwin research station with famous program of breeding center of giant tortoises, we saw “lonesome George”, land Iguanas, after that our guests had time to visit nice town of Pto. Ayora, and bought some souvenirs in the local shops. We had dinner in a popular local restaurant in town.

Day eight - Airport

Thanks for a great week Michael & Beate, Hanspeter, Stefan, Craig, Jonathan& Rene, Teresa, Kristen & Brian!


Thanks for choosing Galapagos Aggressor!

Gustavo Barba
Instructor

 

[Shasta_man]

I never knew any Galapagos diving was 80F. Thanks.

 

[Jungho Kim]

Wow, a whale shark in 3rd week of March! I'm heading there in 3 weeks, I can't wait! Perhaps I will be lucky and see one also!

 

[Aggressor Adventures]

Galapagos Aggressor II Captain's Log: May 3-10, 2012

GALAPAGOS AGGRESSOR II

Captain Log
MAY 3rd - 10th, 2012


Thanks for joining us: Klaus Dieter, Klaus, Alexander, Alexey, Konstantin, Mikhail K., Mikhail A., Alexey K. from Russia.

During this week:

Day one – (Thursday) check out dive was at Tijeretas, near to San Cristobal Island. this is a very calm and good place.
Visibility was about 4mt or 12ft
Temperature: 26C/80F
Current: very mild
We saw few sea lion, school of salemas, sea turtle, sting rays, and few tropic fish.

Day two–(Friday) Pta. Carrion-Sta. Cruz and Cousin’s Rock
Water temp: 26C/ 80F.
Visibility was 8mt /24ft
Current: mild.
We saw big school of golden ray ,few Sting ray, marble ray, white tip reef shark, Pacific green sea turtle, coral fish in a big area of black coral greenish color, juveniles sea lions.

Day three, four and five, the further northern Islands, Wolf and Darwin Islands
Water Temp: 24C/ 76F
Visibility about 12mt/ 40ft
Current: medium-strong
We saw big school of hammer head sharks, school of Galapagos sharks, couple eagle rays, big school of silky sharks, we dove with big school of bottle nose dolphins and Whale sharks, one big about 12mt and juvenile, it was very in contact with divers, getting close and it seems like he wants to play with us, it was so tame and stayed with us for long time, we had the opportunity to see it in every dive!

Day six Punta Vicente Roca- Isabella it is in the North West part of Isabella Island close to the cero line,(Equator Line).
Water temp: 21 C
Visibility: 15mt /45ft
Current: very mild
We saw Mola Mola, sea horse, big school of black striped salema fish, a lot of pacific green sea turtle they are everywhere, many sea lion very curious, we saw the famous flight less cormorant, and marine iguana swimming in the surface, we also saw penguins at the end of the dive resting on the rock.

Day seven Puerto Ayora - Sta. Cruz once on land we went to the highlands on Sta. Cruz in order to visit the “los Gemelos, the famous Giant tortoises in the wild, and we visited lava tube, remain of activity of volcano eruption on the Galapagos.
We visited the Charles Darwin research station with famous program of breeding center of giant tortoises, we saw also “lonesome George”, last remain of his species of Giant tortoise, we also saw the land Iguanas. Dinner was in town.

Day eight airport- Santa Cruz Guests checkout, luggage was sent to the airport with a guide, and then our guests disembark. While the plane arrives, we had time to make the last shop at the airport, or get internet connection “WiFi”.

During this week we had the opportunity to see 2 of the “giant of Galapagos.” Whaleshark, Mola Mola (oceanfish), definitively a great week..!

Gustavo Barba
Galapagos Aggressor II instructor