Facing My Fear of Scuba Diving

If you asked me at the beginning of our trip, I would have said that I would probably never go scuba diving. The thought of having a huge tank on my back so far under the water and breathing through a small tube was too much for me to consider. Fast forward three months, and Sam had talked me into considering taking a PADI course while we were in the Galapagos. For those of you who don't know, the PADI course takes 3-4 days, and after completing it, you have the ability to go scuba diving on your own without a certified guide. The Galapagos Islands have many amazing places to go scuba diving, but because of strong currents, your choices are limited for scuba diving here without the PADI license.

Once we arrived in the Galapagos, we explored all of our options, and settled on something we both could be happy with, the beginner's Discovery Dive. We had talked to some of the other volunteers after they dove at the beginner's site in North Seymour, and they had a great time. They got to see rays and hammerhead sharks, which we had yet to see in the water. The entire PADI course is very expensive to take in the Galapagos compared to other locations, such as in the Caribbean. We decided that if we really loved it, we could always invest in the PADI license on our next trip (I can't tell you how many ideas for more trips we have made already!).

I had willingly agreed to go on the beginner's dive, but my nerves were still running on high. The night before our dive, I even had a dream that I was bitten by a shark! (Funny enough, the possibility of swimming with sharks again wasn't my fear at all). We woke up early that morning to meet just before 6am. We found out we would be diving with another couple from The Netherlands. We also met our guide for the day, Oscar.  We gladly boarded the boat to start the day. Then, Oscar mentioned that we had a choice of where we wanted to dive, but never mentioned North Seymour, which is where we had booked when we scheduled the dive. Apparently my angry face came out (Sam says I can be good at this, but I just wanted to do what I signed up for! Wouldn't you?) and Oscar called the manager to verify we would now be going to North Seymour. Whew! We were back on track.

This is Oscar, our guide for the day.

We rode for about an hour before stopping to learn about all the equipment and start our introductory dive in the shallow water. Once all geared up and in the water practicing with our gear, he took each of us down 5 or 6 meters, one at a time. Considering each one of us stayed at the bottom to wait for the others, I volunteered to go last. All the others did great, and as I watched them disappear, I only knew they were below from the bubbles coming to the surface. Oscar looked at me and said, "Ready?" "No!" I answered with nervous laughter, but there was no putting it off. All I had to do was hold on to Oscar and equalize the pressure in my ears as he took us down. I didn't get very far though, and I had unbearable pain in my right ear. No matter how hard I tried, I could not get the pressure to equalize. After several attempts of going up and down again in the water to try to make it down to where the others waited, we finally went back to the surface. We hadn't done the real dive yet, but I already felt like I had failed.

Sam got used to being so far under water right away....

.....but it took me a little longer before I felt comfortable.

When we were all finally back on the boat and ready to go to the actual diving site, Oscar said he planned on staying with me at around 6 meters down (about 20 feet) while the others went with the second instructor to about 12 meters (almost 40 feet).  But as soon as we started sinking, the pressure in my right ear started equalizing just fine! I guess I just needed the trial run first. We all went down together for about 45 minutes. I found that breathing through the tube wasn't difficult at all, and you don't even think about all of the gear once you see the first animal.

Can you see the sea turtle right in the middle? Our underwater camera wouldn't go this deep under the water, so Oscar was taking all of the pictures.

Two hammerhead sharks in the distance.

There are signs for each animal that you can make underwater to tell everyone else what you see (since it's just a little difficult to talk). We first saw sea turtles, and then came the hammerhead sharks.  I couldn't tell you how big they were exactly, but they are much larger than the white-tipped reef sharks we swam with earlier at Isabela Island. Just a little further, and we ran into at least five different rays. The last one we saw was probably about 6 feet wide. Finally, we saw more of the reef sharks toward the end. They usually sleep during the day, so they seemed pretty docile, not paying any attention to us or all the other fish hanging around.

Behind all the fish, there is another hammerhead shark lurking.

We saw about five rays in total.  They usually swam by with their fins up like this one.

Hard to see in this picture, but when their fins are down, you can see the spots glowing on their backside.

Another reef shark sleeping on the at the bottom.  

Before we knew it, our tanks were low on air and we were all heading back up to the surface. I'm so thankful that Oscar was willing to work with me, and that I was able to go down with everyone else. We decided that diving was one of our favorite activities we have tried over the past 5 1/2 months (definitely up there with white-water rafting in Zambia). On the hour long ride back to Peurto Ayora, we promised each other that we will complete the PADI course (sometime soon hopefully!). The day was a great way to end our time in the Galapagos, and I would love to come back here some day.

(Written April 16th)

Another World - The Galapagos Islands Part 2

After two weeks on the islands, we felt like we had seen an incredible amount. We had traveled to Isabela Island and explored a lot of Santa Cruz. We have paced our time here to make sure we enough time to work with Galapagos ICE and the community while still being able to see the islands. The next island on our list after Isabela was Floreana, but after a mediocre review from the other volunteers and advice to do Bartolome Island instead, we changed our schedule. The second weekend of our stay here, we decided to do a tour of San Cristobal Island followed by Bartolome later that next week.

San Cristobal is known for it's large colony of sea lions who congregate around the marina and shore of the capital of the Galapagos, Puerto Baquerizo Moreno. We arrived after quite a rough ferry ride from Santa Cruz and started off on the day tour to Kicker Rock and several beaches on the north side of the island. The snorkeling along the beaches was decent, but the stop at a nearly deserted beach was better. The landscape was great and we got some pictures that could have looked fake. Unfortunately, our camera had somewhat of a brain fart and these pictures for the first half of the day weren't saved. We didn't know this until it was too late and we were already back in Puerto Ayora.

Kicker Rock off the coast of San Cristobal Island.

After the beach and a small repair on one of the boat motors, we made it to Kicker Rock or Leon Dormido as known by the locals. This is a rock formation that juts out of the ocean several thousand feet off the coast. We were able to snorkel through a channel between two of the towers and saw a shark or two and several sea turtles. It was a bit unnerving for both of us since this was the first time we had been snorkeling and not been able to see the bottom. This, along with the 6-10 ft rise in water near the rock formation made it a rather difficult area to snorkel in, but it definitely helped prepare us for our first scuba dive in a week or two.

The pier on San Cristobal where is isn't hard to see sea lions and rays.

We made it back to land and explored the town with sea lions the rest of the day. The next morning, we set out for Frigatebird Hill, Cerro Tijeretas, for a bit of snorkeling. It was too rough so we ended up going to La Loberia on the other side of the island a bit early. This was more a rocky beach and we had had enough snorkeling for a weekend so we just relaxed by the beach. On the way there, I asked Erin how long she thought I could go without a shirt on and no sunblock without getting burned. I have always worn a small Underarmor shirt when swimming on this trip so I didn't have to wear sunblock. I hate the stuff. She said about 10 minutes so I told her I would go 15. When we got to La Loberia and relaxed, I started the experiment. Ten minutes on my back and stomach each. I timed it. After getting back to Santa Cruz with a better ferry ride than last time, we relaxed in our room. My chest started itching and that's when I saw I had a pretty good burn. Ten minutes on the Equator is apparently all it takes...

The channel through Kicker Rock where we managed to see some sharks and sea turtles while snorkeling.

The bay below Frigatebird Hill. It was too rough and cloudy for snorkeling which is one of the only times the conditions weren't perfect.

The day tour to Bartolome later in the week was a long day. It took 3 hours to get to the island, but it wasn't bad because the boat we were on was pretty awesome. It had an entire inside cabin with a full kitchen where the entire group had breakfast and lunch. On the way to the island, we saw sea lions, plenty of birds, and rays that would jump out of the water almost like whales or dolphins. We also managed to see a glimpse of a whale directly beside our boat. Bartolome is a very small island near Santiago Island. It is quite barren but it has spectacular views over the nearby bay and Pinnacle Rock. We also saw a 120 year old eruption that nearly made it to Bartolome through the water from Santiago.

Erin living up the breeze on the boat on the way to Bartolome Island.

This boat was the most advanced and largest we had taken yet.

We saw this whale beside the boat on the way to Bartolome.

After the hike to the top of the island, we went snorkeling in a couple different areas. We managed to get within a couple feet of a Galapagos Penguin on the rocks and saw tons and tons of starfish. Each one seemed to be different. It also never seemed hard to see another fish we hadn't seen yet, even after a dozen or so times of snorkeling. After a quick stop on a beach to relax, we headed back to Santa Cruz. We were back in time for dinner.

This fish had some awesome color and serious set of chompers.

Two of the hundreds of starfish we saw in about 30 minutes of snorkeling near Bartolome.

A Galapagos penguin hanging out on the rocks.

We didn't actually take this picture, although ours looks almost exactly the same. I just swiped it from somewhere online. Pinnacle Rock is to the right.

Unfortunately, in this week or so after we went to San Cristobal and Bartolome, two (TWO!) of our memory cards crapped out in one day. I have been a little OCD when it comes to backing up our pictures on this trip, but even that didn't protect everything. Luckily (I guess....), we only lost some of the pictures of each of these islands and not much more. It would not be so bad, but we know some of those pictures were AWESOME. We only have about 2 weeks before we are home so we are hoping we can avoid any more loss of pictures.

San Cristobal and Bartolome were great. We enjoyed San Cristobal, but Bartolome was better. Don't get me wrong, San Cristobal was still insane, but some of the other islands are just out of this world. If we ever come back, I would definitely still visit it again. Bartolome was an awesome little island with great snorkeling and views, and the penguins are amazing. Another plus was that the boat ride there was very calm and the boat was first class. If we ever come back to the Galapagos, we have decided we can do a cruise and have a totally different experience. Since some of the islands are only visited by cruise, it might be worth it to come back and see even more islands and how they have changed.

(Written April 11th)

Our Galapagos Family

When we arrived in the Galapagos Islands three weeks ago, we didn't really know what to expect as far as where we were staying. All we knew was that our host mom's name was Dora, and we had a map to find her home in the small town of Puerto Ayora (which is actually the largest town in the Galapagos Islands at about 12,000 people). We arrived in the afternoon and were able to walk along the main road and see the harbor before we got settled in at Dora's.

Dora and us on one of our last days in the Galapagos.

We weren't given an address, just a corner where two streets intersected. We were lucky because the first home we asked was Dora's house! She quickly ushered us to our own bedroom with an attached bathroom. Dinner was ready for us within an hour, and she made us feel right at home. Her home isn't large, but the area surrounding is almost like a compound. All of her kids are grown, but it is easy to see that family is very important here as two of her daughters live with us. Her third daughter lives in a building just adjacent from our back door. Her only son doesn't live with us, but he visits almost daily for lunch and sometimes dinner. Along with her own children, she has three grandchildren, Hillary, Brianna, and Jostin, who all live in our little"compound" as well.

Brianna and me playing around with our camera.  She was fascinated with both our
Kindle and our camera!

Jostin being silly with our snorkel gear.

Cooling down in the kid pool in our back yard area.

We also two furry friends to spoil. Vino is a little kitten who loves to whine when she's hungry, sleep on our bed, and climb up in our laps when we're eating to beg. She gets thrown around by the kids quite a bit, so she's become a biter, but she can be so sweet when she's sleeping. Celeste is their puppy, a little white-haired hyper dog. She's not allowed in the house, but loves attention whenever we go outside and gives hugs when you try to walk away.

Vino liked to sleep in our room and she curled up in Sam´s shorts one day.

This is Celeste.  She got a bath almost every other day because she liked to roll in the mud.

Life in the Galapagos is in many ways like it was when we stayed in Kenya. We are still doing our laundry by hand. There is no air conditioning even though the temperature is often in the upper 80's. We only have cold water in our shower, but with the hot weather, neither of us are complaining. At least there is running water, most of the time. We can count on the electricity and even have wireless internet, which is a huge luxury. All of our meals are cooked by Dora's daughter, Angela. No one has cars here, but takes taxis, scooters, or bikes around town (or just walks like we do).

The girls..Angela (on the left) was one of Dora's daughters that cooked for us and  invited me to go to her workout classes.

We practiced Spanish for months before we arrived, but our conversations are still pretty basic. None-the-less, the Santanas always make us feel at home. In our second week, Angela asked me if I wanted to go to her work out class with her (a mixture of zumba and turbo-kick), and we started going together at least a couple times a week. The younger kids were never hesitant to want to play either.

We want to thank our Galapagos family for taking care of us for the past month. Their hospitality was wonderful when we were just getting used to a new place. We will always think of them fondly when we think of our time spent in the Galapagos Islands.

(Written April 10th)

Volunteering with Galapagos ICE

When you think of the Galapagos, you think of Charles Darwin, evolution, and a vast number of crazy species of wild life (at least I did). Before we arrived, I didn't think much about the people that live here in so called paradise. Don't get me wrong, the Galapagos Islands do represent paradise in the amazing things you can see and do. Yet the quality of life among its 20,000 inhabitants could improve greatly. Protecting the animals is such a great focus, and we learned that the people sometimes get left behind. Like many of the smaller cities we visited, tourism has become the main focus in the Galapagos. Being so remote makes normal resources, such as water, difficult to come by. Everything is more expensive here because it has to be shipped in from the mainland. Education about the wonderful place where they live can be scarce. The importance of health can be even worse.

We are staying in Galapagos Islands for a total of 4 weeks to volunteer for Galapagos ICE, which stands for Galapagos, Immerse-Connect-Evolve. Galapagos ICE is an NGO started eight years ago by Emily Pozo and serves to support the people in the community. She has worked hard to build up Galapagos ICE and was even featured by Dan Rather in a report in April 2011. The current projects include nutrition education and advice to the public, as well as health screenings for obesity, high blood pressure, and diabetes. Emily also has projects within public works to help enhance the public areas around the towns, such as playgrounds and parks.

Emily has long-term goals of entering the primary schools to start nutrition education for the kids so that they can take it home to teach their parents. We learned most recently while we've been here that she will also be given her own 30 minute segment of a local television show to teach the public about living a healthy lifestyle.

Izzy, Alex, Sam, myself, Sarah, and Rebecca.  They were all medical students from Oxford.

Sam and I got to work just a few days after arriving in the largest town in the islands, Puerta Ayora. Being as handy as he is, Sam was sent to help with public works for the first couple weeks. The park near the peir in town, called San Francisco park, was getting a make-over, so Sam helped to spruce it up. Along with four medical students from Oxford, I have been helping out with the weekly health screenings where we measure height, weight, waist circumference, blood sugar, and blood pressure. If they have an abnormal result, we often sent them straight to their doctor, who they rarely see.

Once the Oxford medical students left after a couple weeks, Sam came to help us at the health screenings and to help us get ready for our biggest event while here, World Health Day! (As a side note, I´m impressed with how fast Sam learned how to take a manual blood pressure, although apparently I'm not living because he could never find my pulse when taking mine).

The poster that Sam and I made about sugary drinks for World Health Day.

Alex taught Sam how to take a manual blood pressure, but he got to use an automatic BP machine for World Health Day.

Not only did we continue to implement the health screenings on World Health Day, we helped Emily put information together about nutrition, and she gave nutrition talks after everyone was screened. The hospital in Puerto Ayora was also present with doctors on hand and donated medications to give to those who needed them. We had almost 100 people screened on World Health Day and it was a huge success for Emily and for Galapagos ICE. We will continue to help Emily with the screenings during our last week here.

I stayed busy with blood glucose readings the whole morning.

Emily (in the blue shirt with the hat) giving her nutrition talk.

Sometimes it seems like the information we give the public falls on deaf ears. Like many people in the U.S., they are reluctant to change lifestyle habits to become healthier and to improve their quality of life. Even identifying those few people as hypertensive or diabetic and ensuring they see a doctor to get the treatment they need did make a difference for them. We are so glad we chose Galapagos ICE as a volunteer destination on our trip.  As with our other volunteer destinations, we are raising money through our Paypal button in hopes to help Emily continue to make a difference for the people in this beautiful place.

(Written April 8th)

Another World - The Galapagos Islands Part 1

If I was compiling my "Bucket List," visiting the Galapagos Islands would be at or very near the top. With this being towards the end of our trip, we were really looking forward to 4 weeks in this very different world. We would also be volunteering during this time, so it could be challenging to see everything while remaining committed to our duties with Galapagos ICE in the archipelago's biggest city, Puerto Ayora.

The two, needle-shaped objects above the water are actually birds. They are diving in for fish and it never gets old to watch anywhere on the islands.

It was somewhat of another flight escapade to reach the islands for us. We had a flight from Cusco to Lima, Lima to Bogota, Columbia, Bogota to Guayaquil, Ecuador (Mainland), and, lastly, Guayaquil to the Galapagos. All said and done, it was another 36 hours of travel with another night spent in an airport. We arrived later than expected with nerves afire to meet our host family. Most of the phrases we had looked up in the dictionary went out the door when we arrived and we were shown our own private room with bathroom, mini-fridge, and TV. It was MUCH more than we had expected. We immediately felt at home minus the language barrier that we would be fighting since no one else spoke English.

There are always birds and sea lions waiting around for a niblet when the local fisherman bring in their catch for the day at the Fisherman's Pier.

We had an early night the first night and got up early to explore Puerto Ayora, along with nearby Tortuga Bay. This proved to be a major highlight of the area. We saw small sharks and there was a beach without any currents or waves and waist-deep water for 500 feet or so from the beach. It was like swimming in a swimming pool.

The beach at Tortuga Bay with no current or waves and waist deep water for hundreds of feet out from the beach!

Later that week, we made our way to the Charles Darwin Research Center, where they study wildlife in the Galapagos and have a breeding center for giant tortoises. The tortoises hardly look real and are somewhat eerie to look at. We stopped by another beach, which is the closest to town, for a couple hours of snorkeling with our new snorkels and swimming. This was medicore snorkeling for the Galapagos and it still blew anything we have ever done out of the water!

The giant tortoises on Santa Cruz Island....They barely look real because they are so huge!

We decided to spend our first weekend on Isabela Island, which is the largest island and is a 2 hour boat ride west of where we are staying. We spent the first day on a busy tour. First, we hiked to one of the four active volcanoes on Isabela, Sierra Negra. The last eruption happened in 2005 and was clearly visible from the rim of the crater. The volcano landscape can be characterized by large areas of dense vegetation and then huge areas of dry and barren rock where the lava from old eruptions has cooled. It really makes for drastic changes, sometimes just feet apart. It was a long hike, but well worth the great views of the rest of the island. The second part of the tour was a tour of Las Tintoreras, which is a nearby island where many white-tipped reef sharks can be found. We walked the island and saw lots of baby marine iguanas, some sea lions, and the sharks. The part we were really looking forward to was snorkeling around the island, but before that, we managed to see two Galapagos penguins hunting together and, of course, many of the famous blue-footed boobies. The snorkeling showed us how much wildlife there really is around the islands. We saw 5 white-tipped reef sharks (only 1 swimming around), some sort of blowfish, some starfish, and thousands of other colorful fish.

Near the top of Sierra Negra Volcano with two other volcanoes on Isabela in the background.

The caldera of Sierra Negra Volcano. It had its last eruption in 2005.

A giant tortoise (not so giant) and an egg that is still in incubation. The sex is actually determined by what temperature the eggs are incubated at. Colder temps make males and warmer temps for females. Wierd.

Blue starfish. We saw several of these and blue is such an awesome color.

This is some sort of blowfish. I got close enough to see his spikes come out.

This white-tipped reef shark was resting near a cave with several others of his friends.

Some flamingos on Isabela Island. This is a large mating ground for them.

Young marine iguanas chilling on the railing on Tintoreras Island.

A Galapagos penguin looking for its mate while it hunts.

The next day, before our ferry back to Santa Cruz Island, we did some more snorkeling at Concha de Perla. We got some awesome video of the sea lions swimming with us here and managed to spot some rays here as well in this small bay area. While waiting for our ferry, we got our first siting of a sea turtle who was feeding on some algae under the dock.

The famous blue-footed booby.

Apparently this guy needed a makeshift pillow made of our sandals.

We have both gotten better with sea sickness after our fiasco when we dove with great whites in South Africa. This made the ferry rides much better.

Is he sleeping? Sea lions are like a cross between a penguin and an extremely flexible dog....Why "lion?"

We saw this sea turtle while waiting for the boat back to Santa Cruz from Isabela Island.

Back on Santa Cruz and the next week, we visited one of the many lava tunnels on the islands. These are caves made by lava during eruptions. The lava on the outside cools and solidifies, leaving the inside still flowing. When the flow empties downhill, a large cave is left. We also visited Las Grietas, which is a small rock formation and waterhole with shear cliffs on either side. They are about 30 feet high and drop into about 20 feet of water. This gives the perfect opportunity to jump down into the water from the rocks above. Erin, as you can imagine, did not take part, but I managed a couple jumps into the cold water.

We climbed and explored one of the lava tunnels near Puerto Ayora. This is actually a smaller one.

Bombs away!

We still have San Cristobal and Bartolome Islands to visit, along with our first scuba diving experience off the coast of Seymour Island. All this should prove to be an interesting second half of our visit here in the Galapagos.

(Written April 3rd)