10 Jul 2026

Oof, last night was ROUGH!

We motored through the night up to Wolf Island, which doesn’t even show up on my map:

and I don’t know if the winds were high or if the sea was extra choppy, or if it was just because we were on the open ocean, but our boat pitched back and forth so violently that our beds slid around in the room.  Every other liveaboard I’ve been on has had the beds bolted down, but on this one, our beds were just free floating (which was nice when we wanted to move my roommate’s bed out of the direct breeze of our AC, not so great when the boat is pitching side to side).

We basically played bumperbeds until about 2am when we finally arrived and anchored.

Needless to say, I did not sleep well last night.

Unfortunate, as we have a full day of diving ahead of us:

Dive #4 – Shark Bay

Our first dive site is actually just a bit south of where our boat (and the blue arrow) is anchored:

and I made an absolute rookie mistake: my normal boat routine is to prep my camera as soon as I get up, then eat breakfast, then dive, but last night, knowing the boat would be rocking and not wanting to lose my strobe’s battery covers, I closed them up while I recharged the batteries in my cabin.  So when I came down in the morning and saw my strobes closed up, I assumed I had prepped them last night.

And I splashed without checking them.

There were no batteries inside.

Which means any pictures I took were just flat blue.  I edited them down to a moody grayscale:

but it kinda ruined the dive for me- this was one of those “hold on and wait for stuff to come through” kind of dives, which already aren’t my favorite- it was drilled into me during my training not to touch things, so being instructed to just grab onto a rock and hold on felt so wrong!

I couldn’t even distract myself with photographing fish

I really hope this isn’t a sign of what this trip will be like…

After a quick breakfast, we hopped back on the pangas:

(my group was second so we had a dance party while waiting for our turn)

and dropped for our 2nd dive, which will be off the coast near that green area on the left-hand side of the island, a site of an old landslide:

Dive #5 – Landslide

Here be sharks!  I mean, they were kind of at the limit of what my camera can capture, but several large schools of hammerheads came through!!!

Blue-chin parrotfish (and a whole school of Pacific creoles):

Mexican hogfish:

This blenny doesn’t match any of the pictures in my fish book 🙁

Spotted eagle ray off in the distance:

Razor surgeonfish:

Cortez rainbow wrasse:

Flat crab- these guys remind me of spiders, I think they’re kinda creepy:

Panamic fang blenny, with fangs!

Zebra moray:

King angelfish:

Razor surgeonfish:

More eagle rays swimming through!

During our surface interval, I found a pack of birds had taken up residence on our boat:

We also acquired a blue-footed booby, though his feet aren’t the most vibrant:

Dive #6 – Landslide

More hammerheads!!!

Spawning rainbow wrasse:

This is probably one of those things that I should have videoed- they would clump up into a tight ball, there’d be a puff of white, and they’d all settle back down like this.

Sunset wrasse:

Something took a chomp out of this poor creolefish:

And one final hammerhead to round out this dive:

I found some more birds on this next surface interval- Nazca boobies:

A young frigatebird:

and a magnificent frigatebird trying to attract a mate:

I also spotted a sea lion napping on a rock off in the distance:

There were a couple other dive boats in our cove, as well as some fishermen:

Fishing is allowed by permit here in the Galapagos, and fishermen spend up to a week out here at a time. Some of the fish we eat comes from their catch. As rough as the crossing was in our big boat though, I can’t imagine doing that in such a tiny vessel!

Dive #7 – Shark Bay

Black triggerfish train:

King angelfish:

King angelfish (juvenile phase):

Not a great shot, but this is a Mexican hogfish in the terminal phase:

easy to spot as he’s got a bump on his head

and this is a Mexican hogfish in the initial phase:

he’s still pretty young- he’ll lose some of that yellow as he gets older

Guineafowl puffer (spotted phase):

Guineafowl puffer (yellow phase):


(I’m determined to get a better shot of this guy!)

Sabertooth blenny:

unusual to see him free swimming- usually they’re tucked up into a hole

Leaf scorpionfish!

He was sitting nicely on a ledge, but by the time it was my turn to take his picture, he was over it and hopped down into this little crevice where I had to wait for him to blow sideways to get a good shot.

And just a few feet away, I spotted this second guy!

Had to protect him from another diver’s fin, but he was in a much more photogenic location.

I love it when urchins wear things as hats!

This one had a surface unlike any other I had seen previously:

This guy made a face out of potato chips:

(not actually chips, just not sure what they really are)

And extra dark Pacific creolefish:

These guys can range from extremely pale to dark like this, and they can change color at will

There were also 3 turtles in this area:

I’m not really a turtle person

but it felt wrong not to photograph them

This Guineafowl puffer had a “C” on his dorsal fin, but he kept waving it so this was the best shot I could get:

Farewell, friends!

During dinner, we left Wolf:

and motored up to Darwin Island, where we’ll be diving tomorrow

Tucked behind the island where, hopefully, we’ll be protected from the winds:

It was dark by the time we anchored, so here’s the sunset leaving Wolf:

Good night! Hopefully tonight is more restful than last night!