Swimming in a school of hammerheads 6/2/11
Second day at Wolf Island with three dives today. Up at 545 again for the first dive at Landslide; breakfast, nap second dive at Landslide; lunch nap third dive at Elephant Rock. The first dive was great! Andy and I were staying above everyone else holding onto a rock so we could watch the sharks swim by. I saw a large (9 ft- most sharks here are 6 ft) Galapagos shark swimming straight toward us. I notified Andy and he started a video. It continued for us so we hid behind a rock. It went right up against the rock, it must have been 4 ft away with a rock in between us. It almost stopped, knowing we were on the other side; we continued to peak over the top to see if it was still there. It slowly moved and we scurried to the opposite side of the rock. It slowly left, Andy and I looked at each other in disbelief. It was fucking amazing!! Macaroon said we were too far away so we moved closer to the group although there was tons of action above us. I noticed a Scorpion Fish that just landed right behind Curtis so I made sure to tell him. I’ve never seen a Scorpion Fish move in and settle so close to someone who was moving. A huge Eagle Ray passed up and it was amazing. I’ve never seen one so large- body mass wise.
The second dive wasn’t as eventful at Landslide. We saw a Moray Eel swimming in our direction so Andy taped it. It was impressive how fluidly it moved. It then went up to another Eel, but continued on. At the end we were above a large school of Gringos and it looked like a kaleidoscope. The sun was shining through and some fish were going in different directions. Very cool.
Since that dive wasn’t as exciting, we decided to do a new dive site called Elephant Rock, it’s a small island that’s just off of Wolf. It was amazing! The island was a vertical wall in the water with a surge pushing the fish (and us) up and down a couple feet. The fish swam straight down the crevasses of the wall and up and over the flats. Schools of fish everywhere, sunlight beaming in. A sea turtle swam up to me about 5 ft away, stared at me and decided he was bored. I turned my head to the left and saw a Galapagos Shark turn the corner and stare at me, eye to eye, no more than 5 ft away. I think he was as surprised as I was to see him. Luckily he wasn’t interested and he swam away. That was very cool. To end the dive we swam out into the deep blue. Just as I was thinking how uneventful this was, all of a sudden we were in a huge school of Hammerheads. It was fucking incredible! There must have been at least 20 or so, but that’s all we could see since vis was only 20 ft or so, but I’m sure there were many more. We stayed there for 10-15 min looking at all of them around us. Some came close and I got a couple good shots. At no point was I nervous in this situation (maybe that’s not a good thing). It’s truly an unbelievable thing to be able to experience swimming with sharks in the wild. The beautiful islands, Frigate birds, perfect weather, delicious food, good people, and amazing dives has made this trip a once in a lifetime experience!