Day 13: After getting up this morning, we went straight to

After getting up this morning, we went straight to the dive centre. Due to the small baggage allowance on the plane, we had left our diving equipment in Guayaquil. So we had to rent everything here.

We took a boat to the Cousins and Bartholome Rock dive sites off of Bartholome Island. The diving was fantastic. We saw the endemic emperor fish, H. passer, seahorses and many whitetip reef sharks which were in a mating mood.

There aren't any tropical coral reefs here although the islands are located right on the equator. Instead, there are cliff reefs with an enormous density of fish due to the high nutrient concentration in the cold deep water. That is why the water is quite cold with temperatures of 19 - 22 °C at the bottom and 25 °C at the surface.

The sea lions were the most comical. Like all the animals on the Galapagos Islands, they exhibited no fear of humans. They would swim over to us and played with us for a long time. The flash arms of my underwater camera seemed to have a special appeal to the sea lions.

Galapagos offer so many superlatives that it's hard to decide what to try and see first: Marine iguanas, sea lions, fish, sharks, turtles. Okay – we've still got two whole days more.

Tisk