Pom explores

Friday 4th September 2015

In the evening, we were told that Macarron was going to Gordon`s Rock again in the morning. We were keen on going to another site so were not interested. They offered to take us to Seymour in the afternoon instead. It was actually a good idea because after all those last mornings waking up at 6am, we were quite looking forward to sleep in for once!

So that morning, we overslept…until 8am or 9am maybe? Our body actually got used to waking up super early ahah.

We day before with Patrick we changed hostel because the Flamingo was not that good. Dave and Linda had changed the day before too as Linda was not diving she had moved all their stuff one night earlier to the hostel in front where we also went which was not too expensive. Funny thing is that twin rooms cost more than double rooms! Weird! Anyway! In that other hostel there was a super cool cat who loved to be around people.

Walking around the streets of Puerto Ayora. Passing the Cris`burger where we had massive burgers two evenings before.

Seafront.

Our favourite fish market, while waiting to go from Macarron to the boat. It is around 1pm.

I sat there right next to the pelicans. Can`t get closer than that? 🙂

One of the cool drawing in Macarron`s dive shop.

While waiting for the taxi, Yida had fun imitating the Galapagos animals and we had to try to guess what they were.

Flamingo?

Not sure about that one? Pelican? Iguana? Mmmm…

Crab? Oh wait no, penguin!

Ah, the fish market, my favourite place of Puerto Ayora! 😀 This time even a heron visited.

Off we are in the taxi, crossing the micro-climate rain which keeps fascinating me, a micro-climate like this on such a small island is so weird!

And every day I really really kept enjoying going through that Western Australia landscape. Could not get bored of it!

Mirage on the road

On the boat. Macarron told us that actually Seymour had a crap visibility so we would go again to Daphne Menor for the first dive. We were a bit disappointed, at the same time, going again to a site you have already been is nice because you are familiar with the place, while you notice more details and ultimately, every single dive is always unique with always different animals to see, so that was fine.

After the first dive about I will write more later, we went away from Daphne Menor, off to North Seymour to go check it out.This is Daphne in the background.

This is Macarron, an awesome dive master and incredible videographer! We were really happy to have chosen his dive centre and go dive with him.

Going closer to North Seymour, where we had seen the fregates and bobbies into mating season a few mornings before on our last day of the cruise.

I can already write about that second dive at North Seymour as I remember that particular one really clearly. It is not that we saw crazy stuff but the atmosphere of the dive was very special. When you dive in the late afternoon, the visibility is less important, the water becomes hazy and the fishes act strange. Some of the fishes were so stoned they almost looked dead. What was very cool with that dive was that the ground depth was maximum 15 meters, that meant we could take it very easy without being worried suddenly going to deep by mistake. I loved this dive because it was our 6th dive in 3 days and by that time we were super confident. With Patrick, we were doing Qi Gong movements under water that I had shown Yida and him the day before which can be a 5 minutes warm-up in the morning to warm up your back and avoid sudden back pain. Also I was swimming upside down, watching the surface with my hands below my head, pretty relaxed but my buyancy wasn`t perfect and I bumped into some rocks. He saw that and couldn`t help laughing about it, which made me laugh too. We were having a massive laugh moment under water. Having a huge laugh under water is so funny. I kept chucking through my regulator. Patrick was an amazing snorkle buddy and turned to be one of the best dive buddy I have had so far. A great dive buddy is someone you can share when you spot something under water that you want to show to someone, like sharks or other stuff, but also someone who keeps an eye every few minutes on you to make sure you are not having an issue and for who you do the same.  I think also a great dive buddy is someone who goes at the same pace as you under water. Sometimes you have a dive buddy who is going at another rythm, rather faster than you or slower than you, and it can be super annoying and frustrating. It is super reassuring and enjoyable to have a great dive buddy. Also someone you can communicate well under water. We had another laugh when I pointed to the Mexican hogfish and did a circle sign around my head and putting my hands as a triangle above my head to mimic a Mexican hat. He got it and laughed and told me later at the surface “So you are inventing new signs right?” Hell yeah.

But the best moment of the dive for me is this one: I was swimming again upside down, relaxed, just watching the surface, hands behind my head, casually moving my fins to keep going slowly, watching the surface and the fishes in between just above me and suddenly…a group of a dozen golden rays were there at the surface, passing above me!!! It was so cool, such an amazing surprise! Like if you are there lying down on the floor at night, and you would have several shooting stars passing by at once in the sky. Those incredible gifts that nature gives you! So I turned to Patrick and was waving hey hey, stop looking down, look, look the golden rays!! And we saw that Macarron saw them too when they passed near him and he filmed them. What a very cool moment.

After that dive, we were back on the boat and the boat sailed back home. As if the dive was not already perfect, we had an awesome sunset too from the boat. What is more beautiful than anything than to be on a boat moving and watching from it a perfect sunset!!

Colors in the sky.

Back on shore, night falling, the road looked like a landing strip!

Here is the camera box that Macarron was using to make his awesome videos that I hope to be able to link to at some point from these articles to share with you about the awesome things we saw underwater.

And the camera in it.

Yida pausing in front of Macarron`s store.

After that, we went for dinner, for money withdrawal and to bed. Next morning with Patrick, we were off with the boat of 6.30am to San Cristobal. Dave and Linda were staying a bit longer on Santa Cruz as they had already spent a few days on San Cristobal before the cruise. Yida was spending one more day here and then flying out of Santa Cruz-Baltra back to Quito and then spend some time in Ecuador and heading to Colombia.

Tomorrow, off to San Cristobal island!