Aramco Expats

Diving Galapagos!

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Author: Helmut Bock
Released 2 November 2009

Eleven adventurous Saudi Aramco employees, retirees and friends flew to the Galapagos archipelago, some 600 miles west of Ecuador, November 2008 for a weeklong diving trip of a lifetime. The Galapagos consist of 19 major islands totaling just 3,000 square miles of land over approximately 28,000 square miles of the Pacific. We visited two and scuba dived off several more on our Oct. 27-Nov. 3 equator-straddling expedition.

Helmut Bock and Roger Gopal at the summit of Laguana Cuicocha, an extinct volcanic crater.

The travelers were: Colin Knight—dive-tour leader—and his younger brother Keith, Helmut Bock (the author), Paul Catley, Linda Boevingloh, Roger Gopal, Dennis Niemeyer, Will Kochinski, Steve Barlow, Deb Meier, Mahdi al-Ali and Abdulla al-Saleem. All but Keith Knight, al-Saleem and al-Ali are former or current Saudi Aramco employees.

The islands are fascinating places. They lie relatively close together, many with extinct and active volcanoes and picturesque beaches. Boasting the most spectacular array of plants and animals you will ever find packed onto one small island after another, they were rightly made famous by Charles Darwin in 1859 in his book On the Origin of Species.

Colin Knight began planning the trip two years earlier, while we were with Saudi Aramco. As Dhahran Dive Association members, we were heavily involved in scuba diving, and several of us had experience planning dive trips to locations such as the Red Sea, the Maldives, Oman, Vietnam and South Africa.

Whale shark and unidentified diver.

Exploring the waters of the Galapagos was a dream come true, offering the chance to swim with schools of hammerhead sharks, Galapagos sharks, whale sharks and seals. Two ocean currents, the cold Humbolt current from Antarctica in the south and a warm current coming from the north along the west coast of North America, collide in the Galapagos, stirring up the waters with nutrients. This supports an amazing array of marine life, large and small.

Barlow, Meier, Gopal, Niemeyer and Kochinski and I landed in Quito, Ecuador’s centrally located capital, to enjoy sites around that magnificent city and country for a few days before our flight to the islands. We pedaled several 10,000-foot mountain-bike trails near Otavalo, a town famous for a Saturday market where traditionally dressed indigenous people sell handicrafts.

Ecuador has an amazing variety of land forms, from the Pacific Coast to the Andes to the jungles of the Amazon headwaters. The Ecuadorian Andes include nine peaks that top 16,400 feet. (That compares with the highest peak in the Alps, Mt. Blanc, which stands 15,770 feet.)

One day we met at Mitad del Mundo, the official equator tourist site on the northern fringes of Quito. Speaking to other tourists at the site we found out that there are several “equator sites” several hundred yards apart, all claiming to be the real thing. Some of the group traveled to Guayaquil, on the coast, the stopping point for the flight from Quito that took all the rest of the party to San Cristobal. Located just south of the equator, it’s the easternmost isle of the Galapagos.

Galapagos penguins.

After greeting old friends and acquaintances and introducing ourselves to the five other travelers, we boarded MY Deep Blue, the 106-foot vessel with beds for 16 passengers that was "home" for the next week. We sailed to the other side of San Cristobal for our pre-dive safety check. There, friendly seals chased our bubbles and stared into our masks, taking a close look at the aliens in scuba gear.

After a day diving at San Cristobal, we took a long, overnight trip to Wolf Island north of the equator. Descending in our scuba gear we were amazed to find schools of hammerhead sharks, eagle rays and dolphins. At Darwin’s Arch, a bit of land that juts out of the water a little farther north, we encountered numerous whale sharks, more hammerheads, turtles and morays. As divers we had hoped for an up-close look at whale sharks and to our amazement we had many chances over the nest several days. Whale sharks are the largest fish species; they are slow-moving filter feeders, and are no threat to anything except the plankton they eat and can grow to 62 feet (ours were typically 30 to 40 feet). At Marshal Cape, we were thrilled to see mantas circling around while feeding – also on plankton, and schools of barracudas.

As part of their licensing agreements with Ecuador, dive-boat owners offer minimal land excursions. Luckily, we were allowed to land on two islands. We followed our guide and photographed, but were not allowed to leave the path or interfere with the animals.

The Group at Ilsa Bartolome. Top row l-r: Madhi al-Ali, Ricada McDonald (non-Aramcon), Roger Gopal, Dennis Niemeyer, Will Kochinski, Colin Knight, Helmut Bock, Steve Balow, Simon Ager (non-Aramcon), Abdulla al-Saleem; bottom row l-r: Carlos Halasz (non-Aramcon), Keith Knight (non-Aramcon), Csilla Halasz (non-Aramcon), Linda Boevingloh, Debbie Meier, Paul Catley

On North Seymour, our first land trip, we saw sea lions and marine iguanas basking in the sun, along with land iguanas, boobies and albatross, among many other animals. On Isla Bartolomé, famed for its tall Pinnacle Rock, we walked on black lava flows and got very close to marine iguanas and the adorable Galapagos penguins. The second-smallest penguin species in the world, they stood, swam and played—ignoring the humans who had come so far to see them.

Back on San Cristobal Island before our flight out, we were offered one last adventure: a mini-bus took us to Galapaguera de Cerio Colorado National Park, a very large, enclosed sanctuary for giant Galapagos tortoises, their eggs and hatchlings. The world’s largest tortoises, they can grow up to four feet long and weigh more than 650 pounds. On the inhabited islands, the lumbering creatures are under threat from human introduced species such are rats, feral dogs, cats and pigs and therefore are now sheltered in protected parks.

Enjoy more photos of the adventure in Aramco ExPats Gallery: Galapagos Diving Trip.