In December 2016, John Mattox continued his travels for free diving on San Cristóbal Island in the Galapagos.
I got there by flying from Quito to Santa Cruz Island and traveling on to San Cristóbal by ferry. On the way, I took this photo of Sea Lions enjoying the facilities at the ferry terminal at Peurto Ayora. It was great to visit in a country with a constitution that extents to nature “the right to integral respect for its existence”!
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On San Cristóbal, I was referred to Scuba Eden, which is owned and operated by Ramiro Flores, who is a Galapagos National Park Naturalist Guide and a SNSI certified SCUBA Instructor. He also enjoys free diving, and was very supportive of my interest. His phone number is +593 982457856. On 12/20/16, I joined Ramiro for a snorkeling expedition on his boat. Our first stop was at the beach, about 1 kilometer south of Punta Deda on the northwestern shore of San Cristóbal Island.
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This photo of me was taken there by Ramiro. I’m wearing a Ganesh tee shirt purchased in Rishikesh in 2014.
I subsequently did a freediving session along this shore. I went as deep there as possible, ~10 meters. I was told by Ramiro that it would be possible to free dive much deeper near the shore at Punta Deda, which is only accessible by boat.
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A photo taken with a GoPro camera by Ramiro during my second freediving session that day at Kicker Rock, a few kilometers west of the location of the previous photo.
John is the vertebrate behind the sea turtle. He is about 5 meters below the surface.
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John´s third freediving session was on 12/21/16 near Chino Beach on the eastern shore of Santa Cruz Island. He found many Yellowtail Surgeon there. This species is shown in this photo taken on a scuba diving trip on 12/18 that John was on at Gordon Rocks near Santa Cruz Island.
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The Yellowtail Surgeon at Chino Beach seemed to like being around him during his free dives. At one point free, diving to about 10 meters depth, he was in the center of school of nearly 100 of these fish circling him in a cylindrical formation centered on him at a distance of about 1 meter – sorry no photo.