Dive Day #5 - Fernandina & Isabela - Oh The Places We've Been!

13 Jul 2026

Good morning!

Last night’s passage wasn’t quite as bad as the first and while I still didn’t sleep great, I did eventually drift off.

Today, we’ll be doing a couple dives here off the coast of Fernandina Island, which is home to marine iguanas!!!

I love these guys! Last time I was here, on that first day when my camera flooded and I couldn’t descend, I thoroughly enjoyed watching them munch on algae and was so bummed I didn’t get any pictures. That will change today!

I thought when I took this picture there was only that one light sea lion, but there’s actually a TON of them scattered around- they blend in so well!

A shorter dive day today:

but today the water should be cooler than we’ve been experiencing so far… I don’t really want to add any of my layers as they’re currently nice and dry, and wet stuff never full dries on a boat, but this might be a good time to try out my wetsuit warmer again. I wasn’t impressed with it when I tested it in Florida, but maybe with a thicker suit it’ll trap the heat in? We’ll see…

Dive #16 – Douglas Cape

As soon as we rolled in, I could feel the difference- it’s chilly here! I clocked 73ºF/23ºC and fired up my wetsuit warmer about 30 minutes in- it wasn’t warm, but it took enough of the chill off that I wasn’t frozen.

Chocolate chip sea star!

Red-lipped batfish!!!

This is one of the guys I was hoping to see on this trip!!!

Flounder:

Another red-lipped batfish!

I found this one, but I think another group may have found him earlier because he was not interested in being photographed.

This is a terrible picture, but it turned out better than expected based on the terrible visibility- it’s a Galapagos bullhead shark!

Smiling clam:

This is not a good picture- I could not for the life of me get the right exposure. Just my spot light was too dark, but my strobes, even turned down as low as they’d go blew him out, which is unfortunate as this is a new-to-me nudi, the Tyrannodoris leonis:

Also unfortunate? He eats the blue nudibranch I’ve been hoping to find…

Octopus with his camo engaged:

The tiniest little juvenile Harlequin wrasse:

Tiger snake eel:

Either he’s a terrible hunter or he’s not hungry:

Another new-to-me nudi (that I spotted all by myself!), an Anteaeolidiella chromosoma, I think…

Not a great picture as I spotted it at the end of the dive and I didn’t want to lose the group. I wish I had time to get better shots of these nudis, especially since this is the first time this trip we’ve spotted any!

Before we splash for our next dive, we need to wait for the iguanas to warm up and start getting into the water:

Eventually, they started moving off their rocks and onto the beach:

Those little black dots in the water are iguana heads! One even got bold enough to swim up to our boat:

Absolutely prehistoric looking!

Once enough iguanas were in the water, our guides gave the go ahead to get ready for our next dive!

Dive #17 – Marine Iguanas at Douglas Cape

First marine iguana sighting!

If you get too close, or they’re done munching, they’ll swim off:

This guy was quite tolerant of me:

Look at that face!

look at his horns!

Marine iguanas have shorter snouts than most iguanas, which lets them get their faces right into the algae and their teeth are trident shaped which lets them scrape the algae off rocks.

I watched them for a while, but kept getting distracted by these orange guys:

I took to calling them Galapagos koi, because that’s what they looked like to me:

They’re actually Harlequin wrasse

and they come in all sorts of orange/black/white combinations

I may have gotten distracted following one and lost my buddy…

Visibility here is terrible- maybe 5-8′, so when she went one way after an iguana, and I went the other after a fish, we got separated. We both did the thing you’re supposed to do- surfaced and looked for a minute, but apparently at different times, because neither of us spotted the other.

And we both did the thing you’re not supposed to do, which is keep diving. Judgemental fish judging me:

I figured it’s a shallow dive close to shore- can’t really get lost doing that. I did end up running into Paul and Nadeem, and I just loosely followed them til it was time to surface.

(Coquito Sergeant)

My buddy found a pack of like 6 iguanas and a turtle and just hung out with them til it was time to end the dive.

I know it’s no excuse, but I did warn her that I’m a terrible buddy.

During a very fancy lunch:

(I opted for the option without eyes)

we moved north, to Isabela Island, for our next dive:

We’ll be diving in that little cove to the right:

which was formed as an old volcano cone eroded away

so these rocks have great layers!

Dive #18 – Punta Vicente Roca

A very shy little juvenile King angelfish:

I want this guy to be a Chameleon wrasse:

My buddy hunting for critters on the wall:

The water here was murky and green and cold as well 🙁 even if something big came through, we’d never see it.

Longnose hawkfish:

I FOUND THE BLUE NUDIBRANCH!!! Tambja mullineri:

And then, I found another one!!!

Of course, it was at the end of the dive, so I didn’t want to spend too long and totally lose the group (though the current here isn’t bad), but my buddy lagged behind to make sure I didn’t get lost, then started losing track of the group… it was fine in the end, but I felt bad for stressing her out 🙁

On the way back to the boat, we took a little tour of the cove and found a pile of marine iguanas warming themselves: