From
The Sunday Times Travel Magazine
Dismemberment insurance: two words you don't really want to hear when booking
a holiday. But that's what I've been recommended for my diving trip to the
Galapagos. Just in case. Most people have heard about the exotic menagerie
that has been busy evolving in the Galapagos for the past few thousand
years. Cast adrift on a raft of lonely volcanic islands are tortoises half
the size of Volkswagen Beetles, sooty-black marine iguanas and comical
blue-footed boobies. Then there are the deceptively drab-looking finches
that fired Charles Darwin's imagination. Their uniquely adapted beaks helped
him form his theory of evolution, changing perceptions of nature for ever.
The number of visitors who make the long journey out to this incredible
Pacific archipelago has grown steadily in recent years. Well-equipped tour
boats are a common sighting, as they disgorge orderly files of novice
naturalists in khaki shorts, sensible sandals and sunblock. How many of them
realise that below the blue swell is another multicoloured world every bit
as extraordinary? A swirling world of tropical fish, pint-sized penguins,
and the world's largest fish. That's the whale shark, incidentally, which
trawls perpetually, mouth open wide, filtering the depths for its diet of
microscopic plankton.
This innocuous beast is not to be confused with some of the other finned
creatures of the deep. The Galapagos teems with silvery hammerheads, which
are easy to identify by their cartoonish T-silhouettes, as well as slim,
agile Silky sharks. Then there's the thick-bodied Galapagos member of the
family, which means business, ranking number three on the
world's-most-dangerous list. Fortunately for those of us about to get down
deep, the cold waters of the Humboldt current provide them with a constant
all-you-can-eat fish banquet, so they couldn't care less about human snacks
in neoprene. Which is good news for this keen-as-Cousteau diver, since I
also happen to have a bit of a shark phobia. Reassured somewhat, I've
travelled 10,000km from England to plunge into the Pacific and meet the
beasts. No cage provided.
There were iguanas basking on the Tarmac as the plane touched down on the
island of San Cristobal, but I was busy trying to guess who, among the
passengers, might also be in possession of dismemberment insurance. My
co-travellers, it turned out, had one thing in common as well as diving:
macho dive slogans on their T-shirts. It was certainly T-shirt weather by
the time we reached the Pacific. The sun was merciless but the ocean was
calm as we clambered over dozing sea lions to reach our dinghy (or panga,
its name across the islands.) Out in the harbour, our floating home for the
next week lay at anchor: 28m of polished fibreglass and chrome, the
Aggressor II wouldn't shame a billionaire cruising the French Riviera, with
her whirlpool tub on the bow and her immaculately uniformed crew. But the
swanky-looking live-aboard was built for tougher challenges: strong Pacific
swells between here and the far-flung specks to the north. Other tour boats
rarely glimpse the forbidding-sounding Wolf and Darwin Islands, 'Where the
really big stuff lives,' in the words of a grinning Nelson. A stocky, cheery
Ecuadorian, he and Walter will be our two sub-aquatic escorts, accompanying
us on every dive and keeping us out of trouble. They've got a high-tech
underwater camera and promise to take lots of impress-the-mates-back-home
shots. Here's hoping they won't end up treasured mementos of life before
dismemberment.
There's no time for nerves, for we're straight into the water. The 'wet' deck
is bristling with tanks and equipment required for the check-out dive, a
chance to prove to the others you're not a complete wimp beneath the waves.
The Galapagos aren't prime territory for beginners - with cyclonic currents,
most people need a degree of experience under their weight-belt before
taking the plunge. That said, you don't need to be an expert. You just need
a thick rubber suit, a special hood and a pair of sturdy gloves. There's
very little of the Ursula Andress about the look, it must be said.
The Aggressor glides into a sheltered cove and it's time to don neoprene
wetsuits, into which we contort ourselves like a pack of yoga enthusiasts.
The blue water is particularly chilly, fed by the currents that sweep up
from the Antarctic, but these suits are designed to keep you warm as toast.
'Yummy yellow? That's brave,' says Hamish, a fearless Australian, as I pull
on my canary-coloured hood. 'Sharks love yellow, but I'm sure that's just a
tall story,' he adds, not entirely convincingly.
Walter flippers ahead of us, down to a sandy sea-bed scattered with glossy
black urchins. I'm trying to avoid skewering my knee on a particularly
vicious-looking specimen when he begins signalling vigorously, which looks
like sign language for 'behind you!'. Pirouetting, I glimpse some sort of
rocket-propelled boulder racing from the gloom. It's a sea-lion pup, its
silky fur rippling as it makes its fly-by. Suddenly dozens more dive-bomb us
from the rocks above, swerving away at the very last minute, just
centimetres from our masks. It's a one-sided game of chicken. Clumsy on
land, the sea lions move like torpedoes in the water, somersaulting and
nibbling our fins, imitating us with long streams of bubbles. They scatter
when an enormous bull male, with telltale bulbous head, swims up to check on
his harem, baring alarmingly sharp-looking teeth and eyeing us grouchily. We
leave him to his ladies and swim back to the boat, where crew member
Francisco is waiting with mugs of steaming hot chocolate and fluffy towels.
'It only takes one good dive to change your mood for a month,' reckons
Hamish, leaning over as we peel off our gear. And suddenly I'm not scared.
That night we departed under a full moon for the long dark voyage north to
Darwin and Wolf Islands, the star attractions of the trip. The mood changed,
and nervous anticipation seemed to crackle through conversations like an
electric charge as we settled into the main cabin for one of our nightly
three-course dinners. I noticed the wine being rationed carefully, which was
a good thing, since sharks and hangovers don't mix. Besides, it didn't
suppress talk among what was a diverse bunch. There was an effervescent
blonde dive instructor on something of a busman's holiday, a Japanese
wildlife documentary-maker, a mother-and-daughter combo from North Carolina
with matching Southern drawls, a boisterous beer-drinking Aussie and a
grown-up gapper on a break from a high-powered IT career. All were united in
the same mission: an up-close-and-personal encounter with schooling sharks.
I'm woken at 6.30am by the breakfast bell. The sea is mirror-still, reflecting
the pink dawn. 'El lago Pacifico' (the Pacific lake), murmurs Nelson,
pointing to the horizon, where Wolf Island juts from the cobalt water, a
bleak grey hulk of a rock. Guano-spattered cliffs render the island utterly
inaccessible, and even if you were mad enough to want to scramble ashore,
you'd be breaking the law, as it's a protected National Park. Whirling
Frigate birds and Nazca boobies ride the air currents, swooping and diving
at our approach. It's about as far as you can get from humanity. Around
these parts, nature rules the roost.
For centuries, the only humans to set foot on the Galapagos were buccaneers
and whalers, who stopped off to stock up on giant tortoises. Stacked in the
hold they could survive on air for a year, providing a valuable source of
fresh meat during long voyages. Now around 18,000 people make a livelihood
from fishing and tourism on the main islands of Santa Cruz, San Cristobal
and Isabela. Eco-tourism means more visitors every year, yet the Galapagos
still have an edge-of-the-world wildness to them. Theirs is a raw beauty -
barren, lava-encrusted slopes on which scrubby vegetation grows. This comes
as a surprise to some visitors, who arrive expecting lush tropicality. Up
here at Wolf Island, there's not a soul to be seen, just navy-blue Pacific
to the horizon.
The loud exhalations of a fin whale and her calf interrupt the dive briefing
on the top deck - the leviathans circle the boat curiously as Walter fleshes
out unnerving scenarios. There's something alarming about his variation on
the conditional tense: instead of 'if you get swept out to sea, turn on your
emergency radio beacon', we are told 'when you get swept out to sea…', 'when
you get carried off in a current…' and 'when you run low on air…'. By the
end, I am clutching my retractable emergency flag and radio beacon as if my
life depends on them. Which it does.
