Galápagos Islands – Day 3: The Silver Vortex
GALÁPAGOS ISLANDS
Day 3: The Silver Vortex
October 24, 2025
We were woken at 5.45 am by AC/DC blaring through the boat, calling all the divers down to the diving platform for the start of our day. Overnight, we had sailed all the way to Santa Cruz Island.
Santa Cruz is the second-largest and most populated island in the Galápagos. Its landscapes, Jimmy explained, range from arid lowlands covered in cacti and lava fields to lush highlands filled with forests, ferns and farmland. We’d be returning to the island for a land excursion later in the cruise. For now, we’d be visiting three dive sites around its northern coast and neighbouring islets. Our guide for the day would be a local called Juan who’d be leading the dives.
A Cold Start at Punta Carrión
We started at Punta Carrión, a forgiving place to begin diving thanks to its relatively sheltered position near the eastern entrance of the Itabaca Channel. According to Juan, its generally mild currents pass over a sandy and rocky seabed teeming with marine life.
Still half asleep, it took no more than a millisecond for everyone to wake up the moment our skin touched the water, which was hovering at around 20°C. It was at moments like these that I missed the Caribbean and wished I had chosen a more comfortable hobby. Crochet, perhaps. Having said that, our descent immediately made me forget about the cold, with hundreds of damselfish swimming all around us.
The dive featured everything you’d expect from the central Galápagos, and while the visibility was miserable at best and the thermoclines had us freezing solid, we still managed to glimpse the shadows of a couple of hammerheads and what appeared to be a Galápagos shark. The real MVPs, however, were a Mulliner’s nudibranch, a giant hawkfish and a Galápagos octopus that crawled openly across the rocks, treating us to quite the show in the process.
A New Buddy at Mosquera
Frozen and trembling, we were picked up by the Zodiac and taken back to the Calipso, where a hot shower and warm towel were waiting for us – a routine I would quickly come to cherish.
At this point, we met Mitch, a British guy living in Australia who had managed to secure a last-minute place from Santa Cruz. He’d be joining our group for the remaining dives and would become my new buddy. After a quick breakfast, we headed towards our second site at Mosquera Islet. Similar in both topography and marine life to Punta Carrión, it had us entering the water with fairly high expectations.
Across the sandy bottom, thousands of Galápagos garden eels protruded from their burrows, appearing to sprout straight out of the seabed. Triggerfish, parrotfish and surgeonfish nibbled away at the sand between them. It was a relatively uneventful dive, save for a distant mobula and cownose ray that appeared towards the end.
Most people surfaced claiming that it had been boring. I, for one, was simply happy to be underwater. Mitch’s constant mumbling into his regulator did get on my nerves a little, though.
North Seymour Had Other Plans
Having dived at the same sites over the previous few days, Mitch decided to sit the next one out, with the cold and relative barrenness of Mosquera providing plenty of encouragement. The rest of us headed towards Seymour Point on North Seymour Island, a site featuring rocky reefs, sandy bottoms and shallow channels.
For the first few minutes, I thought Tom might have made the right decision. Then a hammerhead appeared a few metres away from us. Then came a fever of golden cownose rays. Then a group of mobula rays. And then a spotted eagle ray! Granted, they weren’t as close as we would have liked them to be, but it was already a pretty good outcome, especially compared with the previous site.
It was during the safety stop that our minds were truly blown. First came a school of hammerheads. There must have been at least twenty of them, leaving me floating there in complete awe as I desperately tried to keep them in sight without drifting away from the group. Back in the Red Sea, seeing only a few had left me starstruck. Imagine an entire school! Then came another group of rays – a mixture this tim – led by an enormous two-metre spotted eagle ray. They glided right past me as I floated there in disbelief, their magnificence and beauty leaving me motionless and unable to make sense of what I was witnessing. Finally, an enormous school of jacks engulfed me, swirling into a shimmering silver vortex. Man, I had missed dives like this!
Needless to say, most of us ended up prolonging our safety stops. Each time we settled back at five metres, another spectacle unfolded beneath us, tempting us to drift a little deeper before returning and restarting the clock!
Another Briefing, More Frustration
After those three dives, we immediately set sail towards our next destination, which we were due to reach early the following morning. Until then, we’d have nothing to do but chill and eat.
Except for the briefing, that is. Once again, we went over the safety equipment, including how to use the Nautilus Marine Rescue GPS and DiveAlert if we became separated from the group. Juan then took us through the following day’s dive plans. Much like the previous day, I found myself riddled with anxiety – wondering if I’d be the one to have to use such emergency services.
Brook and I bonded over the seemingly endless length of these briefing sessions, our hearts sinking when we realised that we had missed the first picture-perfect sunset the weather had granted us since arriving in the archipelago. We also compared notes on the limited amount of equipment and the poor condition of some of the gear – something that felt difficult to accept considering how much we were paying for.
At that point, I found myself wondering whether all the outspoken Americans surrounding me were beginning to rub off on me or whether I had simply become too demanding. It was a thought I quickly dismissed after remembering all the sacrifices I had made to be there. I wasn’t asking to be pampered. I wanted functional equipment, clearer communication and the programme we had been sold. Between the disappearing night dives, the crappy gear and the briefings consuming what little free time we had, I certainly wasn’t too happy with the service being provided thus far.
The diving so far had been excellent, but the Liveaboard per se, not so much. I didn’t wanna bring any negative vibes to the table, but maybe Karens do have a point sometimes, huh?