Galapagos Day 3, Diving at Gordon Rocks and Exploring Tortuga Beach

Well amigos, we've had another astounding day here! We went diving at Gordon Rocks, a group of 3 impossibly jagged rock outcroppings, which are the rim of an old volcano...they are several miles away from the nearest inhabited island. All along the edge of these magnificent rocks were sleeping sea lions and hundreds of birds flying just above the water. Then we got in the water....I will summarize the follow two dives into one account.

We saw a school of at least 13 hammerhead sharks.....yes, you read that correctly, a SCHOOL of hammerhead sharks! They are so strange and surreal looking with their eyes like 2 ft apart on either side of their "hammer". They swam about 20ft below us (At a depth of about 120ft below the surface) and we just couldn't believe how silently and gracefully the just swam around. If you weren't looking down  you would never know these crazy sharks were down there! We saw a number of smaller groups of them as well, some where over 8ft long and some were little babies...like 4ft long.

We saw 4 or 5 white tipped reef sharks, and my favorite---several sea lions! There were again MASSIVE schools of fish and there was A LOT of current. It was physically demanding and sometimes a little unnerving to be swept around by several different currents at once. The visibility is about 45 ft (which is not awesome but certainly not a quarry in Pennsylvania) and the reason that the visibility is so average is because the water is constantly getting stirred up and is filled with plankton that the fish are all eating. It is no wonder that this place attracts both small and large creatures. The rock outcroppings were really wild, several of them were completely below the surface and we got to swim around them.

We discovered that the best way to spot a sea lion underwater (since they are so dynamic and fast) is to watch for a large school of fish to shoot apart as they are dodging the sea lions attack. We got to see a sea lion hunting today. They race through a school of fish and try to grab one, and if they miss the lay very still and wait for the school to re-assemble. When the fish are no longer alert, the sea lion rushes back at the school of fish! Then as we were just finishing our final dive of the day, we spotted a Marble Ray which is a sting ray that is much bigger than your average ray, but not as large as a manta ray. The Marble Ray was 6ft across and so bizarre and flat that I just couldn't believe my eyes! Of course we also saw several eels, large bumphead parrot fish, and some nice orange coral. The current was whipping us around so much it was hard to look for really small creatures.

When we got back to the dive center, we bought the dive master's video (since we were too deep to take our own camera along), and raced back to our hotel. We changed quickly and headed off to Tortuga Beach.  Tortuga means turtle in spanish and this beach is a very popular day excursion, but we had less than half a day so we had to move. We walked 15 minutes to beach trail head and through a cactus forest (yes, FOREST, these are the only cacti in the world that grow into trees) for another 30 minutes before finally arriving at the beach.

When we first arrived at the beach, the initial area has a wicked rip tide and enormous waves...only surfers use that side of the beach. So we walked another 15 minutes to the quieter area and saw like 100 marine iguanas (the only iguana in the world that swims in saltwater and eats coral). These marine iguanas are so funny looking, you might be tempted to laugh out loud. They have the prickly spikes down their back that go all the way across their head like a mohawk and they were just laying on the beach in these ridiculously casual positions, completely oblivious to the many people walking all around them. These iguanas have a filtration system inside which lets them "filter" out the salt they accumulate while eating algae off rocks in the ocean. They get rid of all the salt they intake by shooting it out of their noses! You could see wet streaked sand all around where they we laying as evidence of this process. We saw (and heard) them shoot it out many times and it was really impressive how far they could blow it! A few times jeremy was worried about his camera getting splashed!

We explored all around the beach, saw a bunch of sea lions playing in the surf, a dive bombing boobie, and at least one sea turtle. Then we saw a baby shark (like 10 inches long) and 3 other white tipped reef sharks just laying in the sand by the mangroves. We saw all of those animals within 100 yards of each other! The wild life here is truly spectacular!

Tonight we are TIRED. Grabbing a quick bite to eat for dinner then going directly to bed. Tomorrow is our last day of diving and our last full day on Santa Cruz.

Hope you are well!