Galapagos - The last great schools

All photos by Simon Rogerson

Are the Galápagos Islands really ‘in crisis’, as Ecuador’s president claims? DIVE’s editor Simon Rogerson reports on the battle to preserve the marine ecology of the islands, and the hope that improved protection may yet prevent the collapse of its famous shark population.

For centuries, the Galápagos Islands were known to Spanish sailors as ‘Las Encantadas’, the bewitched islands. The local combination of strong currents with light winds made the islands hard to locate; to the bewildered sailors, it seemed as though the islands themselves were moving, while they and their vessels were stationary. Today, the Galápagos experience can be just as mesmeric, especially from the underwater perspective. Gazing through the thermocline where the cold water meets the warm surface currents, you will be greeted by all manner of apparitions. Hammerheads, mantas, dolphins, whale sharks – the pelagic A-listers are all regulars at the Galápagos buffet, and the rest of the guestlist can be just as impressive, as we will see.

Some people will tell you that the Galápagos Islands have been fished out. Not true – the parade of fish exceeds that of any other diving destination I have visited. However, during a recent visit by a UNESCO delegation charged with quantifying the threat to the Galápagos, Ecuador’s president Rafael Correa declared that the islands were ‘in crisis’.

Successive Ecuadorian governments have failed to curb excessive and illegal fishing practices in Galápagos, and ecologists have warned that the problems run much deeper than Correa has acknowledged. The UNESCO mission is due to report in late June, and is expected to recommend a series of actions to help ensure the long-term conservation of the islands.

So, yes, Galápagos is facing terrible pressures, but for now the islands remain a blue-chip diving destination. The first time I visited, I was astonished not just by the parade of big fish, dolphins and sharks, but also by the plentiful blennies, scorpionfish and seahorses living on the rocky reefs. Earlier this year, I joined a ten-day cruise on the liveaboard Sky Dancer, and found the underwater experience to be even more spectacular than my memories of that first visit five years previously.

If you’re considering a Galápagos trip, my advice is to prepare for two separate destinations. In the main group of islands, you get cool water (ranging between 15ºC and 25ºC), and variable visibility. A typical reef may consist of a series of descending ridges of volcanic rock interspersed by ubiquitous clumps of greenish branching coral in which you may find seahorses, frogfish or blennies. Jacks and baitfish are common, their trailing schools broken by dive-bombing sea lions or predatory tuna.

Sail 100 miles north of the central islands and you reach the remote outposts of Darwin and Wolf, two natural fortresses, towers of rock that rise straight up from the crashing waves. Around these islands, the temperature is dictated by a warmer surface current, but it can also be fierce.

At Wolf, I jumped off the Zodiac and descended to the top of the reef, hunkering behind a big rock to protect myself from being swept off the reef. Unable to swim against the current, the smaller reef fish retreated into holes in the rock, but out in the blue there was a carnival of big fish, led by a school of seven big eagle rays. Eagle rays have a timid disposition, but I was in the company of some admirably restrained divers, each of whom knew that the best tactic in such circumstances is to remain on the reef and let the rays become accustomed to your presence.

The best shark encounters took place at Wolf and Darwin, where we could make out the shimmering outlines of hundreds of sharks through the thermocline. Occasionally, a hammerhead shark would break from the pack and speed over us, tempting me to move into deeper water to photograph the sharks from below. Using nitrox, I could only venture marginally deeper without increasing my partial pressure of oxygen, but I managed to duck below the hazy warm water. It was like stepping into a different sea – the water was clear, but dark and painfully cold – in fact, it was 9ºC cooler than the surface water.

Swimming out into the current, I looked up to see the hammerheads approaching. There were sharks as far as I could see, moving silently through the hazy water. In addition to the hammerheads there were groups of Galápagos sharks, famous wanderers of the Eastern Pacific.

Later, on a drifting safety stop, I came across an unusual school of juvenile hammerheads massing over a sandy bottom. I had never seen anything like it – the school was so dense, it looked as though some of the sharks were on top of each other. Even the wide-angle lens on my camera could only photograph a small section of the school – about 50 sharks – while there must have been many times more behind me and beyond range at the time I pressed the shutter. It was a super-school – at least 1,000-strong – and it was the most spectacular event I have ever witnessed in the sea.

The scalloped hammerhead remains one of the ocean’s most enigmatic creatures. We know they are drawn to volcanic sea mounts during the day, and we know their supercharged sensory systems tend to baulk at the noise of scuba bubbles, but for the most part, their lives are a mystery to us. Last year, the first tagging experiment took place in Galápagos, and 14 hammerheads were tagged with ultrasonic transmitters. Most of the hammerheads moved between the southeastern corner of Wolf and the eastern side of Darwin, confirming that these sharks have certain hotspots where they return again and again. It is hoped that this research, along with an improved radar system for policing, may help to save sharks from the longline fishermen.

Along with the other islands of the Eastern Pacific, the Galápagos is seen as the last great shark hotspot, and it is under attack. I spoke with a local fisherman who told me that Chinese shark fin experts are sent to the islands to oversee the black market, and that fins are exported on scheduled flights to Guayaquil in Ecuador on the mainland, and by fast RIBs to the pirate ships waiting beyond the 40-mile exclusion zone. It is illegal to fish for sharks throughout the 52,000-square-mile reserve, but the law is flouted on an almost daily basis, largely because there are insufficient resources to police such a large area of ocean.

There are regular seizures of dried fins in Galápagos, but far more are thought to slip past the authorities. By the time they reach the mainland, effectively they become legal, because there is no proof they were taken in protected waters. The final exportation of shark fins is overseen almost exclusively by the Chinese community, and as supplies begin to dwindle, the trade is becoming increasingly competitive, with 27 shark fin export licence-holders fighting for business on mainland Ecuador.

According to the Galápagos Conservation Trust (GCT), 13,000 shark fins were confiscated in Galápagos during the past five years. Most of the poaching within protected waters is carried out by foreign boats entering Ecuadorian waters, but many of the 1,000 resident fishermen are opportunistic and will take sharks whenever possible – a set of fins sells for between US$35 and $50, depending on size and quality. There have been recent announcements about improved radar facilities for the park police, but they would also need fast boats to impound illegally fished fins and kill the black market trade.

After five heart-pounding days in the northern Galápagos, the Sky Dancer set off on the long chug back to the central islands, enabling us to dive the remote sites along the northern side of Isabela, the archipelago’s biggest island. Some of my final dives were to take place on this desolate coast, off a headland known as Cabo Marshall, in the shadow of Wolf Volcano. As I descended, I saw a group of about 15 hammerheads swimming over the volcanic rock, followed by two immense schools of chevron barracuda, then a couple of manta rays! It’s this sort of rapid-fire action that typifies the Galápagos at its best, but the best was yet to come.

For the next 30 minutes, it seemed as if the action was over. Enjoying a rare absence of current, we finned out away from the reef and into cobalt-blue water. I was scrolling through old photographs on my Aquatica housing when I heard the telltale squealing of excited divers. Camera immediately readied, I looked up to see a school of mobula or devil rays, almost identical to mantas but a third of the size. Sometimes, if you’re lucky, you may see them in groups of six to ten, but here I was confronted by a school of several hundred rays. Again, my wide-angle lens could only pick off the upper section of the school, but I managed to take a few shots of a scene that re-defined the word ‘awesome’.

When, at last, they saw the group of divers, the rays acted as one, beating their wings and fleeing into the blue, leaving your breathless reporter peering at empty water. Where a few seconds previously the sea had been alive with a mighty school, there was now a void, complete emptiness and silence. Facing the sudden emptiness of the sea, I saw it as a warning of what the future may hold for Galápagos. Unless the activities of Galápagos fishermen – legal or otherwise – are curbed, this void will one day become permanent, and the last great schools will live only in our memories.

Travel Brief

The Peter Hughes liveaboard Sky Dancer is not the cheapest boat in the Galápagos, but I have used it twice now and am impressed with the vessel and its hard-working crew. For further details go to www.peterhughes.com. Dive Worldwide (www.diveworldwide.com, tel 0845 1306980) supported flights to and from Ecuador, and offers a range of Galápagos cruises from £2,500 upwards.

To reach Galápagos, you need to fly to either Quito or Guayaquil in Ecuador, with most UK flights routed via Miami. Flights from the Ecuadorian mainland to Galápagos are normally provided and paid for as part of the liveaboard package. The authorities have announced an end to ten-day cruises from October this year, but it is still possible to book back-to-back seven-night cruises if you want to get a lot of diving in. Finances permitting, I recommend this option, as the flight costs are quite high and it is worth spending as much time in Galápagos as possible.

To get an idea of what the current was like at Wolf and Darwin on this trip, check out the video clip of divers clinging to rock. The current was so fierce that even some fish were swept away.