Eric Ault’s Galapagos Report

“Clang, clang, clang, clang!” A strident banging instantly gets my attention. It’s divemaster Walter Torres banging on his tank. Mr. Big (okay, actually Ms. Big in this case) is making an appearance. Remembering the dive briefing, I instantly surrender my sheltered place in the rocks at about 75 feet and swim rapidly out towards the blue. I don’t see anything, but I do see Walter and he directs me to swim out further. Still nothing. I glance quickly back at Walter. He’s pointing up into the light. I follow his direction and then I see it; a silhouette against the bright light. From photos and TV documentaries I instantly recognize the black shape as a whale shark.

Breaking every rule in the book about safe ascent rates I rocket up while at the same time swimming rapidly forward to intercept this rare fish. The silhouette grows and grows. I realize that this thing is huge! Animate objects don’t come this large unless they are man-made my brain keeps telling me. I finally reach the head of this immense creature. We share a moment of eye contact, but unlike me, the whale shark appears to be completely unaffected. It lumbers on effortlessly through the water while I struggle to keep up. It occurs to me that I should be taking some pictures so I fumble with the camera in my excitement. Finally, totally gassed by the effort to keep up, I slow down and let this immense creature pass, moving away slightly so as to avoid the tail as it passes by. I note that a number of large remoras are hitching a ride on the tail. Finally, the whale sharks fads into the gloom.

This encounter was repeated only twice more during our week of diving on the Galapagos Aggressor I which was somewhat disappointing. Normally at Darwin Island, such encounters occur on almost every dive, but warmer than usual waters apparently discouraged the whale sharks. Actually, all of our sightings were at Wolf Island, some twenty miles further south. But maybe I’m getting a little ahead of myself.

Fellow Scubaneer Colleen Murphy and I joined ten other divers on a trip to the Galapagos hosted by Underseas Scuba owner Bruce Hootman and his son. We all opted for the add-on consisting of a trip to the Ecuadorian Amazon. We departed for Quito via Miami arriving in the early evening. The length of the days varies only slightly at the equator so it was well on the way to being dark by the time we cleared Customs and retrieved our bags. Quito is a modern city of about 2 million lying in several valleys high in the Andes Mountains at 9,000 feet. Walking up stairs and even talking could leave us huffing and puffing. A short bus ride took us to the Mansion del Angel, a quaint hotel located in a converted mansion. The place is highly recommended by Lonely Planet and has beautiful wood parquet floors and elegant furnishings.

On Sunday morning we were joined by our guide Romiero Romero and we boarded our bus for the trip to the Amazon with driver Jorge at the wheel. We were lucky to have some exceptionally clear skies that day providing a view to the 19,000 plus foot summit of the Cotopaxi volcano as well as other Andean peaks. The road winds up and up through the mountains finally reaching 13, 200 feet before starting down again. After several hours we reached the natural hot springs at Papallacta, a weekend resort popular with Ecuadorians. We stopped for a couple of hours to bask in the warm waters and to enjoy a very good lunch at the restaurant.

Then it was back to the bus for four plus hours on Ecuadorian highways, most of which were not paved. This was especially exciting as we made our descent through the cloud forest where each curve in the road was bordered by a drop off fading into the fog and clouds. Apparently they haven’t yet heard of guard rails in Ecuador, though in some places where road work was in progress the abyss was guarded by some of the yellow plastic tape saying Pelegro! (Danger). Romiero said that the previous president of Ecuador was from the Amazonian Region and he funded road building and improvements in that area. Unfortunately for us and for the roads, he was deposed in the last coup (bloodless as are most coups in Ecuador) and most of the road improvements stopped.

Down the River »