When and with what to Galapagos?

Hi, I have been at home working away for far too long now, and I have decided to splurge on a diving/photo trip to Galapagos (land photo, not underwater ). I have been working for a season in Thailand (west side) as a DM, with something close to 250 dives done, so I'm quite comfy in the water.

What I'm looking for is hammerheads, but I'm game for anything big in the water (seen lots of mantas and I have had my first whaleshark dive, but HH would be spectacular). I'm planing on a 2 week vacation, and possible some time before/after just spending on landside photography. Since I'm flying from Sweden, I figured I might aswell stay there for a while, since I'm guessing its the flight+diving thats going to cost me the serious money.

So, when would be the best time to go? Seems like HH are more frequently around from Nov-Jan, is that correct? I read a briefe thread here about El Nino, when would that happend, and would I need to take that into consideration?

With what dive shop / cruise should I go with? Are there any advantages of going directly to the cruise-owner, or should I go through something like http://www.galapagosadventures.com ?

Any other tips you guys might have for me would be appreciated.

/Björn

travelled and dived the Galapagos this year in june. the highlight deffinately was Darwin and Wolf which are a 16 hour cruise north from the warmer islands. The water at Darwin and Wolf dropped to around 17c so a suitable suit and hood is advised. The diving up at Darwin and Wolf was amazing. fast currents with plenty of big boys. Galapagos sharks, dolphins, whalesharks, seal, and thousands of hammers, yes thousands really.

We booked in the UK with MST and we were on the Deep Blue. We are probably going to return in 08 and would be looking at using a different boat. Although the boat was ok we were very dissapointed with the crew and that has made us look elsewhere for our return trip, probably the Aggressor.

have a look here at what to expect, this is just a couple of minute of Darwin that I took this year

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=74...heads&hl=en

interesting....

i was there first week of Nov. was 16-19c in the south... thats just wrong, yes i am a wuss!!

we hit wolf and darwin at about 23-24C, loads of hammers.. and 13 whale sharks in 3 days at Darwin....

Best time for the whalesharks is late June to early Nov

I was with Aggressor..

Sorry you are correct Mike we headed north for the warmer waters.....My head is all over the place trying to pack for next week. I still had my 7mm semi dry on though as it was still cooooooooool.

have a look here at what to expect, this is just a couple of minute of Darwin that I took this year

 

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=74...heads&hl=en

Awesome video, makes me want to go right now!

Any more advice on boats and places to book from? How were the land trips? Would it be better to concentrate on the diving during the liveaboard, and do the land trips separate, or can those be combined well enough? Seems like its all happening at Darwin and Wolf (and warmer water too, thats always nice).

/Björn

I have scheduled with Mauricio Handler / Peter Hughes in June '07. I beleive there are still a few spots. You may want to check his website.

Hi

for el nino look at :

http://www.dynapred.com/_Predictions/El-Ni...nino3-0304.html

and you can find every month an interesting forecast on :

http://www.elnino.noaa.gov/

Anyway we were in coco in September and saw a lot of hammerheads ..

We have make a reservation on deep blue for August 2007 a ten nights cruise , it's one of the last opportunity to make such a cruise , and we too come from far away , France !!

I hope that if we should get el nino conditions it should be weak enough to enjoy our dives !!

Who knows ????

I have scheduled with Mauricio Handler / Peter Hughes in June '07. I beleive there are still a few spots. You may want to check his website.

I checked out the photo expedition, but $4901 is a bit steep for me

So far we have a few + for the Agressor, and some - for Deep Blue. Anyone else care to chime in?

/Björn

fwiw eric has v good things to say about the deep blue, he's been on it a number of times.

you can read some words here:

http://echeng.com/travel/galapagos2005/

fwiw it's definitely the boat i am considering.

/paul

if anyone wants to drop me a line for more info on a handful of spaces for aug/sep

07 in full whaleshark season, please do. excellent boat, low cost. (can someone tell me how to

get an ad space on wetpixel, as i want to open this up).

i go in a dry suit as i´m a softee.

wolf and darwin as mentioned can be dead certs for hh , whale sharks showed really

well this year.

i agree that the Deep Blue is a good boat, I and the rest of the guests were un happy with the crew. We did not have Antonio on board though. Instead we had some guy called Jeff who was very rude and selfish....

If I knew that he would not be on the boat then I would not hesitate to re book.

if anyone wants to drop me a line for more info on a handful of spaces for aug/sep

07 in full whaleshark season, please do. excellent boat, low cost. (can someone tell me how to

get an ad space on wetpixel, as i want to open this up).

 

i go in a dry suit as i´m a softee.

 

wolf and darwin as mentioned can be dead certs for hh , whale sharks showed really

well this year.

Hi, your not replying to the email specified in your profile. Is it still current?

/Björn

hi bjorn, i've just sent you a PM, but yes that mail is current, they tend to get lost whilst i'm in ecuador for some unknown reason....jeez even emails get stolen!!!

repost if the PM doesn't arrive or if you still get trouble

regards,

mark