South America

One of the major goals for our trip to the Galápagos Islands was to scuba dive. Especially after Isabela, with all that we saw just snorkeling and walking around, we were even more excited and it did not disappoint!

Puerto Ayora felt like a big city after coming from almost a week in tiny Puerto Vilamil, Isla Isabela. We visited the Darwin research centre, the Tortoise breeding centre, and a couple local breweries (with really good beer!), though we'd say the town itself was not the destination.

We dove at Daphne minor, Seymour, and the famous Gordon's Rocks, the 'home' of the hammerhead sharks.

On our first dive day saw giant schools of fish, a huge manta ray, eels, too many turtles to count, stingrays, Anna got an INCREDIBLE video of an octopus walking along the coral, changing colour, and hiding from us. Amazing diving. Truly incredible to see such healthy marine life.

We also met a great group of people, 3 from Ireland, and an American guy, who were travelling together sailing around the world. We ended up spending some time with them on their boat, and on land, sharing beer and stories. We hope to see them again!

And then we went to Gordon's Rocks. The excitement was palpable on the boat. Due to the strong currents, these aren't easy dives and they require a minimum of 25 previous dives to even sign up.

It was a huge success. We saw about 30 hammerheads in total on our 2 dives. The current was strong, so we found a spot at about 14 meters and held on to rocks to wait and they came to us! At one point a school of about 20 swam across in front of us. Hearts were pounding, but there's nothing to do but watch these amazing creatures wander about under water. They were huge, graceful, unique, and we can confirm that they are in fact real!! Absolutely a highlight of the trip so far!!

We were both very sad to the leave Galapagos islands. It's an absolutely incredible place and we've barely only scratched the surface. It's one of the few places in the world we can see ourselves visiting time and time again.もっと詳しく