Days 111 & 112: Ooooooooooh Baracuda!

Saturday, December 13, 2008

Day 111. I had to get up early today because I was diving at Kicker Rock. Unfortunately I had not been feeling well for a few days now, and my stomach was extremely upset this morning. I took some medicine to help me feel better, but I still didn’t feel great about diving and feeling like I had to puke. We met on the tourist pier around 8 am, but didn’t actually head out on the boat until about 8:40 am. We rode for a little while before getting geared up to dive. It was quite a process, especially with that many people trying to get their wetsuits on in a small space while bouncing around because of the waves. We weren’t even completely geared up by the time we arrived at Leon Dormido. Finally, after everyone was exhausted, hot, and sweating profusely, we were all ready to get in the water. Just as I was telling people how last time I had forgotten to inflate my BCD before jumping in, I was getting ready to get in the water and lost my balance and fell backwards in before I had inflated my BCD. Talk about ironic.

It felt amazing to be in the water and I no longer felt so sick like I did at the beginning of the day. Once everyone was in we split into our two groups. In my group Chicho and Danielle were buddies, me and Tom Z. were buddies, and Judith and her husband Felípe were buddies. The other group consisted of Victor and Lisa Bunn, Tom N. and Sam, and Shawna S. and Rachel. My group began our descent first, and it went quite swimmingly for me. I had no problems equalizing and went down at a nice slow pace. Tom, Judith, Felípe and I were the first four down there, and as soon as we got down we saw a whole school of spotted eagle rays and tons of Galápagos sharks as well. There were fish in schools all around us, and other schools swimming up and down the walls of Leon Dormido. We have been snorkeling there twice now, but to be able to go so much farther down was surreal and I felt like I was in another world.

By the time Danielle and Chicho had descended, Tom and I had already been under water for more than 15 minutes, not to mention we had followed Judith and Felípe who are both Dive Masters and ended up going down to about 21 meters even though 18 is supposed to be our limit. The group finally began the dive plan to go through the channel. The current, however, was much stronger than we had anticipated, and the fact that Tom and I had been down longer, deeper, and were swimming around a lot as newly certified divers meant we had used up a lot more oxygen than the others. Basically, by the time we were entering the channel we were getting to the point where we were going to need to surface. We went a little farther with Danielle and Chico, then Tom and I had to go up. We were supposed to make our three minute safety stop at 5 meters from the surface, but somehow we ended up popping right to the surface. We both had had a little bit of air in our BCD’s because at lower depths the air compresses and isn’t as buoyant, but as we swam up towards the surface and the air expanded it basically pulled us right to the surface. By no means did we go fast, but we did fail to make a stop.

Once at the surface, we had to fight a surface current that was taking us away from the boat. It took a while to get to the boat and get out of the water, but we finally got there. Then we went around to the other side of kicker rock where the others had surfaced finally and picked them up. We had about an hour of surface time during which we rested, got hydrated, and had small snacks. You don’t ever want to eat or drink too much before diving because it will get compressed in your stomach when you go down, and then expand when you resurface and make you want to puke. After a while, we got geared back up and jumped in the water for our second dive. Rachel decided not to do the second one because she was uncomfortable and scared the whole first dive, so I used her BCD since mine was on its last leg. (I also remembered to inflate my vest before getting into the water this time!) We descended together, making sure not to go too deep, and started our dive. This dive was a bit longer than the first one because I think we all regulated our breathing more. It was much harder to see anything because the water was murky, so it wasn’t nearly as cool of a dive. I did, however, see a sea turtle feeding, and a pretty large Galapagos shark – it was probably 2 meters long.

Back on the boat everyone got out of their scuba gear and dried off a bit. There were dolphins in the area so we followed them for a while, and got to see them jump right next to our boat. There was even a baby! Then we went over to Isla Lobos where we had lunch. After lunch some people got in the water to snorkel, but I was so tired from the two dives that I just stayed on the boat and rested with some of the others. Finally we headed back to town.

After showering, I went to school for a little bit before meeting Rachel and Shawna S at Miramar for dinner. I got penne rigatte a la carbonara, which was quite tasty. After dinner I walked around with Rachel for a bit and got soft serve. Just as I was thinking about calling my parents, they called me. It was really nice to talk to them, and the service was great which is really weird. There was no delay at all and I could hear them loud and clear, so we had a nice long conversation. Rachel and I didn’t want to just go to bed, so we walked back to where the sea lion babies gather (aka the sea lion kindergarten) and watched them for about 20 minutes. Finally I decided I should go home and go to sleep because I had to get up extremely early tomorrow for fishing. I stopped at the panaderia and got some yogurt and chocolate bread for the morning, then walked home and went to bed.

Sunday, December 14, 2008

Day 112. At 5:30 am my alarm went off and at first I was confused as to why. Then, I remembered that I was going fishing this morning and had to be at the pier at 6 am. As part of our class/GAIAS we all got to go fishing with a local fisherman. Lisa and I walked there together and were the first ones there. We ended up waiting for about half an hour for everyone to show up, and even the Amelia had not shown up so we just left. In my boat with Carlos and his daughter were Lisa D, Lisa B, and Kelly. Then the other boat had another daughter, nephew, Tom N, Tom Z, and Danielle. Whereas the boats that went fishing yesterday went out to Five-finger Rock, we went East out of the bay towards La Loberia. Almost immediately we started catching fish, so that was exciting. Lisa D caught a pompano by the tail, and then Kelly caught a barracuda. Then, when it was my turn to fish, I caught a 3 foot long barracuda! It was really hard to reel in and took me a while because it was fighting a lot. The mouth and teeth were amazing and I was very proud of my catch.

Both boats use a rods (heavy duty ones) to fish for a while, then eventually switched to a different style of fishing to catch the deep demersal fish. This method basically consisted of dropping a thick line into the water with a heavy weight on the bottom until it reached the bottom which was about 70 meters down. Then you wait and when you feel a pull (which I never felt) you had to pull the line up by hand as fast as you could. However, the line was very slippery and the weight very heavy so your arms got really tired really fast. Because we were sitting still and the boat was rocking a lot more now I was also getting sea sick and the intensity of the sun was getting to me since we had been out for over three hours already. Finally, after our boat pulled up five fish and had untangled and coiled up the lines, we headed back towards port. We had to go slowly though because Carlos was cleaning the fish. You can’t clean in the bay because the blood and guts attract fish, so we had to stop and wait until all 9 of the fish that our boat caught were cleaned. I must say it was nice to see the south/eastern side of the island because I had never seen it before from the ocean, and we got to go right by Tongo Reef which is where a lot of people surf.

Once we got back to the pier and unloaded I got lunch at Casa Blanca with Lisa D, Stephanie D, and Tom N. Lisa and I walked home where there was no power – again – and I ended up taking a very hot and sweaty three hour nap. When I woke up from the nap all sticky and there was still no water I was not a happy camper. I tried to dry off as much as I could with my towel, got clean, dry clothes on, and went to school to do some work. I don’t think I was productive at all. 5pm marked the start of the Talent show that Caroline put together. First Tom N. sang a silly song, then Caroline did belly dancing that was really cool. Lisa D. made balloon animals, Katie Kangas baked peanut butter cookies for everyone, and Louise and Stian made a video of our time in Ecuador. Stephanie D. and Tom N. did a silly little skit, and then it all ended with Lisa Bunn leading us in Christmas Carols. We watched the sun set together from the roof of GAIAS and sang tons of carols. Everyone was smiling and happy and it was just so great to realize how close we all are and what a great time we have had down here. As our last Sunday in the Galapagos we wanted it to be special, and getting to spend those moments in the company of friends made it very special. Once everything was picked up and reorganized we all head to dinner at Calypso. Even though it was Sunday we were being given dinner at Calypso in compensation for the lunch that we were supposed to get on Isabela but never got. After dinner, my team from the scavenger hunt wanted to go back to school to have our Cana and coke on the beach. I was not feeling great (and had not been for about the past week) but still went. We sat on the beach and watched the stars, conversed with the sea lions, and basically had a nice time just sitting out there in each others company. Even though the drink was not great because the coke was warm, it was a nice end to yet another great weekend. These past two weekends have been some of the most amazing ones in my life and I have gotten to bond even more with the people who I have come to regard as family. Seeing shooting stars while laying on a beach at night in December is one of those things I will never forget, and I hope they never do either.

Back home I quickly fell asleep as my weekend had been a long and tiring one, and I needed to be refreshed for my last week in the Enchanted Isles.