Galapagos - San Cristobal
Aurora_b
Mike and Liz Downing
Sun 21 Mar 2010 20:54
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Kicker Rock is about 15 miles up the coast and the main dive
site on this island. The right-hand side of the rock is separate and there's a
channel between it and the main rock. The dive goes down to the floor of the
channel about 20 metres down and the sea life seems to be constantly moving back
and forth through the channel. The sides of the rock are vertical and apart from
the channel just keep on going down. There's quite a lot of current and when
looking for Hammerhead sharks on the second dive, it was necessary to hold on to
the rock to stop being swept away. We did see just one hammerhead. On good days
you see lots - so we were told!
 Kicker Rock - they don't skimp on the engines of
the dive boats here. The boat was not big, but had 2
200hp outboards.
 The channel between the
rocks.
 Doing my check-dive - there were 7 divers and we
all did a basic check dive on the coast before heading
out to the rock.
 We found a huge shoal of fish when snorkeling on
the south of the island. The picture doesn't do it
justice
as there were hundreds of
thousands.
 Looking up through the
shoal.
 We also found several turtles just resting on the
rocks at the bottom of the shallows.
 Heading to the surface to
breath.
 The anchorage is open to the west, so we get good
sunsets from the boat.
This is the only one anchorage on the island and is at
Wreck Bay. Boats are not allowed to anchor anywhere else
around the island. There are quite a lot of local fishing
boats here, about 20 yachts and every day we get 3 or 4 tour boats in. They are
live-aboard tour boats for up to about 20 people and tour
the islands for 4 days or more, depending on the package you buy. They are
not cheap, 4 nights on board can cost anything from $750 to $2500 per person,
depending on the boat. All the tour boats are based at the island of
Santa Cruz and the one anchorage there is supposed to be full of them.
The anchorage there is also very rolly and every boat has bow and stern
anchors to keep the bows into the swell. The anchorage here on San
Cristobal has been pretty good - so far very little swell has come
in. We are quite a way from shore, with just the 2
boats in the photo above being behind us. Getting to shore is not a problem
as there are small water taxis running all day and are only 50 cents during the
day and $1 in the evening. No one uses their dinghy as if left it would
very quickly be taken over by sleeping sea lions!
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