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  • Nº120 # Date: 2018-06-15 - 13:33
  • # Max Depth: 21.3m Duration: 48mins
Diver's Notes

Darwin Island arguably only has one dive site, and that is at Darwin Arch. (We can just assume from this point forward that we saw hammerheads and galapagos sharks on every dive.) Nonetheless, each dive here brought on a different experience. This time, we briefly settling in with the others along the ledge at 70'. I say "briefly" because we were soon up and swimming along with our first of many encounters of a whale shark on this dive. After first entering, Jen pointed out a scorpionfish. These were abundant, and not so much interesting to point out except this one happened to be in our path as we made are way across the boulders. (Later inspection of the video revealed that this may have been a player scorpionfish, but the video is too bad to tell for sure.) I had been wary of accidentally setting down on one of these and ruining my day, but so far we avoided the little landminds. Back to the whale sharks: about 5 minutes into our dive, and shortly after spotting the scorpionfish, Paulo's rattle engaged and I saw him pointing up. Near the surface swam a large whale shark, and soon I heard the tale-tell ascent warnings as everyone ascended to get a better look. (My dive profile, as it turns out, looks more like a heart rate monitor than the pretty flat lines found in the analogue charts.) For a short half-hour, we stayed relatively still as the shark swam figure-8s, approaching us 6 or 7 times during the dive. It turns out that our buddies noticed that this wasn't a single whale shark, but a pair that were swimming in the same path, but opposite of each other. The pair was apparent as one of them had a notch near the tail, and the other a scar on its underside. At any rate, after thinking our first dive-of-the-day could not be topped, I was finding out I was wrong. I had my closest encounter yet with a whale shark, as one threaded between me and a few other divers: totally spatially aware, she tilted to sideways as she swam by: one pectoral fin over me, the opposite under the diver directly on the other side. As soon as she cleared us, she glided back and moved effortlessly through our bubbles. As she went by, the water swept over me with a surprising amount of force from her tail. (We had been warned not to get to close, as an accidental *whack* could send us spinning through the water!) Each pass was as exhilarating as the one before; each time tempted to reach out just a few inches to feel their skin as they glide by. But all of us behaved and just took in the scene, and before we knew it our time was up. We ascended through a thick school of creolefish and jacks to our safety stop, where we were greeted again by one of the sharks. As I began to surface, I noticed a silky shark swimming tight circles around James, while everyone else in the group stayed their distance! I was about to film him when I noticed James already has his camera out, so I kept watching instead. Then the little guy darted toward James! I later kidded him that I was frantically reaching for my GoPro at that point so I could get the attack on video! But she apparently was more curious than hungry, and swam away shortly after. Back on the panga, Jen popped up shortly after I climbed on the boat, with one of the whale sharks directly below her. I yelled out at her to "look down!" and when she finally did, she said her fins were nearly touching. She popped back up wide-eyed and smiling. A great end to a perfect dive! This, indeed, is why we're here.

Dive Profile
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  • Temp: Surf 32°C Bottom 27°C
  • Dive type : Recreational
  • Visibility: Good Water: Salt
Specific gear used
  • Weights: 7.3 kg
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Dive Shop & Buddies
  • Dive buddies: Jennifer McDonald, Tracy Newton, Cathy Dingman, James Shawver, Dennis Zullig, John Dingman, Johnny Kerr
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Dive Profile

  • 1. Nitrox 32
  • 12L Aluminium     196 → 34 bar
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  • Average depth: 12.4m
Data provided by EOL.org

Species Identified

Rhincodon typus Smith, 1828 (Whale shark) These sharks are usually solitary, but loose groups of up to 100 individuals have been sighted, often when they are feeding . Whale sharks appear to be highly migratory , and have been tracked for thousands of kilometres ....
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Sphyrna lewini (Griffith and Smith, 1834) (scalloped hammerhead) Forming impressively large schools, female scalloped hammerheads gather in the Gulf of California during the day, around underwater mountains known as seamounts, where they perform a wide range of poorly-understood behavio...
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Carcharhinus galapagensis (Snodgrass and Heller, 1905) (Galapagos shark)
Carcharhinus falciformis (Müller and Henle, 1839) (silky shark)

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