The boat arrives at Isla Santa Fe just as we need to begin to get ready for our diving. We suit up - it is always tough in the morning as it is cool and windy and the gear is still damp. But we are looking forward to the diving. We jump into the zodiac and head to our dive site.
Dive #3: Santa Fe Caves, Isla Santa Fe: This turns out to be a fun dive, but one of the coldest - the temperature varies from as low as 18 to 22°C. And the cold changed very quickly as we swam from one area to another. We dove along the cliff face, which sloped out below us. We swam up a sand slope to a semi-cavern/tunnel. The effect was dramatic with the light streaming through from a small hole on the other side. We swam in under the overhang to see what we could find. It was filled with surgeon fish cruising around. The school was so thick that we could not see through them. We had to break-up the school to swim in. The cavern was only 2-3 meters high and the effect was real cool with all the fish swimming in, out and around. While we were inside, a white-tipped shark cruised by outside the opening and a couple of very large jacks swam in and checked us out. We found quite a few sting rays as we explored the rock face further, a couple of which cruised by only a foot or so under Jacqui. We saw golden ray and also a few turtles that swam up to us to check us out and then turned away.
We were back on the boat by 7:20AM, had a quick shower and the headed down for breakfast. We had to get ready for the next shore excursion at 8AM. We head ashore at Santa Fe - it is a wet landing. We have our usual sea lion welcoming committee on the beach. The male bull is barking and announcing our arrival as we drift in and get out onto the beach. There are quite a a few cactus trees. Some are huge - over ten feet. When we touch their needles, we are for a surprise - they are soft. As they have no predators here, their needles have evolved over time to be soft rather than hard to conserve energy.
We see quite a few land iguanas - they feed on the fruit of the cactus tree. They will sit under the trees and wait for the fruit to fall down. When they do, they scurry over and then roll the fruit on the ground with their front paws. They do this to break off all the needles, which then allows them to stick the complete fruit in their mouth and eat it whole.
There is the usual mockingbird that follows us around. We see a few Galapagos doves, but they are now much more shy as they were hunted by some of the early settlers - another sign of how humans can quickly alter animal behavior.
As we head back on to the beach, we find the skeleton of a a large sea lion bull. It is laid out almost perfectly on the beach. It might have been wounded by a shark and then succumbed to its wounds on the beach.
We spend some time hanging out at the beach and watch the sea lions just lazing there. A number of the pups come and check us out. They are curious, but at the same time a bit shy. The big bull continues to patrol his stretch of the beach.
As we head back to the boat in the pangas, we notice some find breaking the surface of the water just near the beach - some white-tipped sharks have arrived. We turn around to see what happens. The bull gives out a warning and seems to be keeping the pups away from the water. The sharks continue to circle in the shallows. After a while, a few of the larger sea lions enter the water and chase off the sharks. We also see one turtle and a sting ray in the water.
The rest of the morning we spend working on our journals as the boat moves to the next island - Isla Plazas Sur. We arrive at the island while we are eating our lunch - it is good the seas are calm. We anchor in the channel between the north and south Plazas islands - they were separated by some shifting of the land.
Dive #4: Gordon's Rock: This is an exciting and wild dive. We dive inside an old volcanic crater - about three-quarters of the outer wall is visible above water. We rolled back into the water from the zodiac and made an immediate descent - the sea was rough and there was a strong current and surge as the waves broke on the nearby rocks. When we descended, we found that the current was extremely strong and that it went in the opposite direction from what we expected, so we decided to change directions and go with the current. This meant that we drifted right across the crater bottom, but in open water as the bottom is too deep. We made it to the other side of the crater wall and cruised with the current on that side. We had to hold on to rocks most of the time as in addition to the current, which kept changing directions, there was a strong surge. We saw lots of fish - they were everywhere in the water. We also saw quite a few turtles, a shark and two large sting rays. The dive master left us as he had to escort another diver to the surface. We drifted along for a while, and then, when we decided to ascend, swam away from the wall as far as we could. We did not want to ascend near the rocks with the high waves breaking on them. we then did our safety stop in blue water, not quite sure where we were drifting. we were entertained by a large group of silver marlins that swam around us. As we were coming up, the water was full of bubbles and we were not sure if we were near the rocks where the waves were breaking. But it just turned out to be from the waves breaking on their own.
We get back on to the boat and have a quick shower before getting ready to go ashore at Plazas Sur. It turns out to be quite an interesting island. It is shaped like a wedge, and we walk up one side of the wedge, wander along the cliff face on the other side and then down the wedge on the other end. We came ashore in the middle of another sea lion colony. As we were standing there looking at them, we saw that a male was trying to sneak into the harem. The bull saw him and jumped in and chased him in the water. There was a short but harsh battle - water was sprayed far - and the intruder slunk off to train and bulk up for another attempt. There were also the usual collection of Sally light foot crabs.
The island is covered on one side by hundreds of huge cactus trees - the trees on the other side were killed during the last El Nino years. There was so much water that they soaked up so much that they literally exploded. Nothing is left today - they have rotted and blown away. We found dozens of land iguanas patiently waiting under the cactus trees for the fruit to fall. It was quite amusing seeing them scurry after the fruit and roll it on the ground to knock off the needles.
We observed some of the swallow tail gulls. They are nocturnal and have the most amazing eyes with a bright red circle surrounding them. We walked along the top of the cliff and observed the birds below as they flew along the cliff and occasionally dived into the water to catch some fish. We never tired of watching this spectacle, where the birds would hit the water at great speed with a small splash to mark the spot where they hit.
At the other end of the cliff we found the bachelor colony. All the male pups are kicked out of the harem by the bull when they turn around one year old as they become a threat. They need to find somewhere else to stay while they prepare to challenge the bull one day. They basically eat and exercise and rest while the bull tires himself out constantly patrolling his harem. He will get weaker as he cannot sleep and feed as much. But the bachelors do not have the choice location on the island. They literally have to drag themselves up a gully that cuts into the cliff to get to the top of the cliff where they will sleep. Looking at a sea lion, we would never have thought they could make the climb up that cliff over the large rocks and boulders.
We had a pleasant walk back down to the beach. Along the way we saw a cactus tree that was badly mauled by the El Nino effect, but seemed to be hanging on. We also found a dead pup. Mortality can be high amongst the pups. We return to the boat and have another enjoyable dinner and evening aboard the Tip Top III.
The boat leaves some time in the night for a cruise much farther north up to Isla Genovesa (Tower). Along the way we will cross the equator.