The main attraction for all divers who want to come to the Galapagos
Archipelago is the largest fish in the world, the Whale Shark. This
attractive, tranquil, tame, impressive giant can be seen time and again
during your various dives, especially between the months of August and
October. Our itineraries include visits to the famous Darwin and Wolf
islands where you would have greater opportunities to see this beautiful
creature and in order to enjoy and spend more time with them, we have
organized a 10 day diving cruise. SWT offers 3 to 4 dives per day on all
its dive cruises. We also offer night diving if conditions are
favorable. Our Dive Masters who are well trained and very knowledgeable
about both the marine and land animal life, will keep you informed about
all the surroundings and look out for the safety of the passengers. They
will make of your diving experience unique and unforgettable.
Trip Details
- 14 days / 13 nights tour program
- 11 days / 10 nights Diving Cruise of the Galapagos Islands
- First class yacht
specially equipped for diving cruises
- Includes air tanks, compressor, weights and weight belt
- Cruise itinerary includes Darwin and Wolf islands
- 3 - 4 daily immersions and/or land visits. Night dives when
possible
- Dive Masters of the highest level of expertise
- Excellent on board meals, both international and Ecuadorian
cuisine
- 3 nights in a hotel while in Quito (2 options *)
- Welcome and Farewell Dinner
- Meals while in Quito served "a la carte" (**)
- Private tour of Quito accompanied by guide with high level
of expertise (all day)
- Special attention to traveler diet requirements
- Small group of up to 16 participants
- Private transfers, personalized attention
- Arrival / departure point: Quito
(*) Option 1:
5-Star
Swissôtel -
For the same price we upgrade your room to Junior Suite
Option 2: 3-Star Hotel
Café Cultura
(**) Welcome and farewell dinner, lunch at
the best restaurants in Quito
Warning: Even though there are places for beginners, in general, diving in
Galapagos is a somewhat dangerous activity, because of strong currents,
swell and cold waters, therefore, this activity is mostly recommended for
experienced divers.
For more information about water temperatures and what to bring, please
Contact us
We have selected our preferred yacht for this
itinerary:
M/S
Lammer Law
Day 1 -
Arrival in Quito,
private transfer to the Hotel.
Day 2 -
Morning visit to the Equatorial
monument; visit to Catequilla, where ancient Quito inhabitants
exactly pointed the "middle of the world" to render cult to the sun.
Lunch.
Quito city
tour. Visit of the colonial district, with its ancient churches,
500-year old buildings constructed over Inca ruins and its colonial
Spanish-style plazas. Optionally
we may visit a museum, depending of the interests of the group. Welcome
dinner.
Day 3 -
Morning flight to Galapagos. Arrive to Puerto Baquerizo Moreno.
Your
dive masters who are also naturalist guides of the
national park will
meet you, collect your luggage and escort you on a short bus ride to the
harbor. Motorized
"pangas" will transport you to the
yacht
and our crew will welcome you on board. Lobos Island (equipment
test)
Lobos Island
is located North of San Cristobal, 1 hour across a small
channel. It is also a nesting place for blue-footed boobies and
a good place for diving.
Check out dive is very important, you will be surprised to need
more weight in the Galapagos waters, we will take you to 50 ft
alongside a short wall.
Day 4 -
Bartolomé
Island (land visit) (Dry landing, 370 steps!!) On
the shoreline of Bartolome,
it
looks
out of place to find Penguins sitting on lava rocks under
the sun of the Equator. In fact, this is the second smallest
species of penguin in the world and they are found in very small colonies
that can be seen
from the pangas or in the best of
cases you can go snorkeling with them.
A walk through an
unusual lava landscape, and then up some wooden stairs, will take
you to the summit
of a big cone 350 ft above, from where the view is more spectacular than what
the images suggest. You
will see more than twenty spatter cones together and Pinnacle Rock. The
landscape and moonscape
make Bartolome one of the most beautiful islands of the Galapagos.
Cousins Rock (dive)
(Easy, Max depth 80 ft.) Cousins
is on the northeast
side of Santiago, this diving is done on walls, slopes, and ledges. Here
you will see a wall full of Galapagos endemic black corals with a lot of
life on it. The
largest species of hawk fish (three kinds), sleeping green see turtles and
the biggest sea horse of the Pacific (more than 10 inches long). You are
likely to encounter
small schools of hammerhead sharks, eagle rays and very often pacific barracudas,
but for
sure one of the most incredible
experiences will be to find playful see lions together with fur seals.
Día 5 -
Jervis and Albany (diving) (2 immersions,
Easy,
average depth +/- 45 ft.)
On the north east side of Isabela island and just bellow the
Equator, this magnificent dive site has a lot of pelagic fish such as
Devil's manta rays (20 ft), rainbow runners, sierra mackerels, wahoo,
barracudas, yellow fin tuna, and hammerhead sharks; the small fish life
can be outstanding; huge schools of the endemic Black stripped Salema (
small fish in polarized schools), yellow tail surgeon fish, Galapagos
grunts and small Morays.
Santiago Island (land visit) (wet landing) has several sites to visit at the western end of James
Bay. Puerto Egas is
one of the most popular sites of the islands. There is a wet
landing on a black sand beach and then the walk goes along the
shore, where black lava formations, tide pools, caves and entries
will captivate you with their shapes and colors, and so will the
wildlife you will find in this place. Big marine iguana colonies
feed from green seaweed that contrast above the black lava from
the shores, next to the red Sally light foot crabs that attract
lava herons which are their predators. At the end of the road you
will meet a colony of
fur seals, and walking to the interior you can always see
some Darwin's finches, large billed fly catchers, Galapagos
doves, Galapagos mockingbirds, dark billed cuckoos
and the Galapagos Hawk.
Día 6 -
Roca Redonda
(2 dives, Current, Ave. depth 60 ft.) This
is the only place in the Galapagos where you will see real
underwater “fumaroles“. Roca redonda is one of the best sites to find large schools of Pacific barracudas
and steel pampanos. Galapagos
sharks encounters can happen any time. The
very cold Cromwell current baths Redonda, so the fish
life is different. This is one of the few dive sites where
you will see cold-water fish swimming side by side with warm
water fish.
Punta Vicente Roca (1 or 2 dives, panga ride, Average depth 60 ft.)
Located at south-west side of the Ecuador
volcano, Isabela Is., offers a great panga ride activity where you will see two flightless
birds; the Galapagos penguin and the Galapagos flightless cormorant.
Vicente Roca is a wall dive to find an endless variety of invertebrates, sponges, corals, nudibranchs, crabs, octopus, plus red lipped bat fish,
frog fish, sea horse, and Port Jackson sharks. This will be the only chance to get a free “manicure“
given by the experts Hinge-beak prawns. Night dive can be one of the best
of the Galapagos!
Day 7 - Wolf (diving)
(3 - 4 immersions; Currents; Profundidad 27 m.)
Wolf is a very little island with very high cliffs full of bird life,
like red footed boobies, great frigate birds, swallow tailed gulls,
masked boobies, terns and the only bird in the world that is a real “
vampire “, in the dry season this bird sucks the blood of masked
boobies!!. The underwater topography are either boulder slopes or walls
that offer the most outstanding number of tropical fish of the Galapagos
waters. Wolf as Darwin island are magnets for scalloped hammerhead
sharks which normally have o lot of parasites. The little fish on the
slopes will swim up to the hammers to remove and eat all their
parasites; Wolf and Darwin are cleaning stations and feeding stations
for big and small fish. There are six different dive sites around Wolf
where you can find hundreds of Fine Spotted morays.
Day 8 -
Darwin (diving)
(3 immersions, max depth 90 ft.)
Darwin is even a much smaller island than Wolf, less than a quarter a
mile south there is a beautiful arch formation. In fact around the arch
is where diving can be the best of the best from July to December. We
could almost guarantee several encounters with the biggest fish of the
ocean “the whale shark“ ( 55 Ft long ). Darwin”s arch offers almost
everything you want to see: large schools of hammerhead sharks,
Galapagos sharks, Silky sharks, Mobula manta rays, big eye jacks, blue
spotted jacks, rainbow runners, rainbow chubs, streamer hogfish
,Indo-pacific bonito, fine spotted morays, Green sea turtles, Hawksbill
turtles, bottle nose dolphins during the dive!!, and the list goes on
Day
9 -
Darwin or Wolf (diving)
(3 immersions)
According to wildlife activity, it will be decided to stay in Darwin or
either go to Wolf. Both islands are great places to dive with dolphins;
if weather permits, a night dive is possible usually by the anchored
side of Wolf. Land visits are not allowed on these islands but we always
organize “panga rides“ to see the bird life close to shore.
Day
10 -
Darwin or Wolf (diving)
(3 immersions)
Day
11 -
Isabela Is - Punta Albemarle
(diving) (Current, max depth 88 ft.) Punta Albemarle lies
on the northern tip of Isabela Island. This are rocky volcanic cliffs
that drops down to the ocean floor as an almost vertical wall. You might
see large animals like manta rays, marbled rays, marine turtles,
hammerhead sharks, yellow fin tuna, Chevron barracuda, rainbow runners,
snappers, wahoo and groupers. Smaller fishes like creole fishes,
scrawled filefishes, parrotfishes, pacific boxfishes, tiger snake eels
and many more.
Cape
Marshall (diving) (Easy,
average depth +/- 45 ft.)
On the north east side of Isabela island and just bellow the
Equator, this magnificent dive site has a lot of pelagic fish
such as Devil's manta rays (20 ft), rainbow runners, sierra
mackerels, wahoo, barracudas, yellow fin tuna, and hammerhead
sharks; the small fish life can be outstanding; huge schools of
the endemic Black stripped Salema ( small fish in polarized
schools), yellow tail surgeon fish, Galapagos grunts and small
Morays.
Day
12 -
Santa Cruz Is.
(land visit) Charles Darwin Research Station.
In Puerto Ayora functions the National Park’s office, as well as
the Charles Darwin Research Station, where you will see the
incubation and raising of the Giant tortoises. Here you will
observe the baby tortoises before their repatriation to their
natural habitat. After touring the Station, a journey by bus
into
the highlands to Los Gemelos, the two deep pit craters situated in
the Scalesia forest with lots of interesting bird life. Go for a
walk through the giant lava tunnels, of more than a kilometer in
length. Lava tubes were
made by the solidification of the surface of a lava flow. When the flow
stops, the liquid lava inside keeps on flowing, leaving the exterior surface
solidified and forming the tunnels.
Day
13 -
San Cristóbal Island - Kicker Rock.
(dive) Current. Diving here could be like diving in a fish pool
full of life under current, if you want to see the diversity of the
Galapagos fish you will love this dive, there are sting rays and schools
of eagle rays and usually hammer head sharks. This is a shallow dive
outside of a small crater.
San Cristóbal Is. Return to Quito
Day
14 - Depart home or take a trip extension.
Note: This
is our standard Galapagos National Park approved diving itinerary.
Time spent
at each site will depend on environmental variables such as
wildlife, weather, etc. Changes will be decided upon by
captains.
All
itineraries are subject to change by the authorities of the
Galapagos National Park or acts of providence.
①
②
③
④
⑤
3 to 4 immersions per day in sites with moderate to strong currents,
cold water and some times rough seas. Occasionally low visibility.
This type of adventure is graded MODERATE to DIFFICULT, you must be an
expert diver and should be in good physical condition.
Quito is situated at 9,180 feet above sea level.
Whale Shark Islands -
14 Days / 13 Nights
With
Hotel Café Cultura in Quito
|
Yacht |
|
|
M/S Lammer Law |
$ 6,157 |
Whale Shark Islands -
14 Days / 13 Nights
|
Yacht |
|
|
M/S Lammer Law |
$ 6,478 |
Cost Includes:
-
(see Trip
Details)
- Flight Quito - Galapagos - Quito: $ 395 (subject to change)
- Galapagos National Park entrance fee: $ 100 (subject
to change)
- Personal diving gear
- Tips; imported alcoholic beverages; personal expenses.
Note:
Air tickets and park fees are subject to change without previous notification
Prices valid until December 31 / 2007 |
