We had always hoped that we'd have both the budget and the time to visit the Galapagos Islands, who wouldn't, but as our trip had progressed it looked less and less likely that we would actually be able to visit those magical islands. We had heard some reports from fellow travellers about how much cruises would cost and that had made us certain that we wouldn't be able to go. Whilst in Quito we had visited a couple of agents and one had been able to quote us $1,000 for a 5 day cruise on the Princess of the Galapagos including flights to the Galapagos Islands (which in themselves cost $400). We talked at length and decided that we had to do it, the price was good, we were so close geographically and we both so wanted to go!

As you'll know by now, we both love scuba diving and if we were going to the Galapagos Islands we had to do a day or two of scuba diving when we'd hopefully dive with hammerhead sharks. With all this in mind we flew to the Galapagos Islands 3 days before the cruise was due to start so that we could get some dives in!

The flight to the Galapagos Islands is about 2 hours from the mainland and we were lucky enough to bump into Bea (who we'd met on our jungle trip) at the airport departure lounge. She was on the same flight as us, another of the many coincidences that we have experienced on our travels. The plane landed at the island of Baltra and then a bus transfer (via a ferry) took us to the island of Santa Cruz and then to the main (but small) town of Peurto Ayora. We decided to wing it in Puerto Ayora and hadn't booked any accommodation, so our first job was to sort out a hotel which was pretty straightforward. Next stop was Scuba Iguana, the scuba outfit who we'd booked our two days of diving with, where we got fitted out in our 7mm wetsuits. All of which meant that we had a few hours before sunset to walk down to the docks and the pier to see sea lions frolicking, pelicans perched on railings, sally lightfoot crabs walking on volcanic stones and marine iguanas basking in the last of the days sun. It was clear that the Galapagos Islands were going to be special. Puerto Ayora had a few decent restaurants but little in the way of nightlife. As it turned out we would spend most of our evenings here relaxing in The Rock gastropub.

We were both so excited at the prospect of diving the waters around Santa Cruz, we've dived with big fish before, but Galapagos always comes up as one of the places to dive. In our briefing it was clear that we were with serious divers as Craig has always been the most experienced diver on our trips with 50 dives, here some of the other divers had 100, even 250 dives to their names. We did two consecutive days of diving around the island of Santa Cruz, on the first day we did Mosequra twice, it is a small sandy beach of an island in the canal between Baltra and North Seymour. On this wall dive we saw Galapagos garden eels, whitetip sharks, blacktip sharks, rays, hammerheads, although the many sea lions which reside on the beach seemed nonplussed by our arrival. Our first dive of the day was a bit of a disaster as one of the guys in our group ran out of air in about 25 minutes. The visibility wasn't great and although we saw the big stuff and especially the hammerhead sharks, they were fleeting glances, but that is the nature of diving in the Galapagos, there are no reefs to speak of so if you don't find the big fish there is little else to look at. We really hoped that the next day would be better.

The second day we dived Mosequera again and the famous Gordon Rocks. Our scuba company said that we needed a minimum of 30 dives to dive Gordon Rocks, because of the very strong currents. Gemma only had 25, but had shown on the previous day that she was capable so there was no problem with this. Mosquera was much better, we saw lots of sharks again and best of all we saw a family of eagle rays and a group of around 70 marbler rays swimming together. The excitement as we sailed towards Gordon Rocks was intense. We didn't have to do a negative entry as we thought we'd have to do, the current wasn't too bad, but as we descended we were pulled around quite a lot. On the dive we could see hammerheads and rays near the bottom, but they were just below our maximum depth so we had to fight the temptation to go deeper to get a better view. It didn't matter as we were soon surrounded by sea turtles and hammerhead sharks before spending around 15 minutes stationary at the cleaning station watching the underwater life pass by. It was an unforgettable dive.

Diving over it was time to start checking out the islands so we started off, naturally enough, with our base of Santa Cruz. We completed the exhausting walk to Tortuga Bay with its beautiful white sandy beaches, littered with massive marine iguanas and where we were able sunbathe and practice our snorkelling for the forthcoming cruise.

Next day we were supposed to set off for the island of San Cristobal where we were to meet up with our boat to start the cruise. During the previous evening our travel agent called us to tell us that our boat was broken and couldn't make the cruise and that as an alternative we'd been moved to another boat which was going to the same 5 islands that the original boat was going to. We were told to be at the docks of Puerto Ayora at noon when we would be picked up to set sail. We were at the docks at the appointed time, but it became clear that things were not going to go smoothly. We spoke to the guide who said that we would be based on Santa Cruz for 2 days, would do a day trip to Floreana and then cruise for one night to Espanola before returning to Santa Cruz for our flight home. This was so different to and much cheaper than our original package of 5 days of cruising to 5 different islands that we had to complain, spending two half days on the telephone to our agent and a morning in the Ministry of Tourism office. Our agent really tried to fob us off with the cheaper alternative which would have meant that we spent most of our time in hotels on Santa Cruz, an island that we'd already explored ourselves. In the end we got our agent to agree to give us a refund (after a fight) and decided to leave the tour and arrange our own. We were both so bitterly disappointed by this turn of events, we were so happy to be going on a well-priced 5 day cruise around the Galapagos Islands and because of the short notice of the cancellation we couldn`t book onto another cruise for at least a week. Our cruising dreams were dashed.
We pulled ourselves together and knew that we had to make the best of things. We changed our flight details so that we had a few extra days and then booked ourselves on a 3 day trip to Isabela Island, a day trip to Floreana and a snorkelling trip to Santa Fe.

Isabella was our favourite island, we saw flamingos and completed a trek to see the Volcan Sierra Negra which erupted as recently as 2005. Then the real highlight was seeing penguins in the bay, fighting with sea lions as they chased fish around the dock, then more sea lions were resting on the beach and we saw white-tipped reef sharks resting in a channel no more than 3m wide and 2m deep. The blue-footed boobies and other penguins that stood on the rocks by the dock were relegated to a mere sideshow! Following all of that excitement we went snorkelling and we spotted a moray eel, lots of reef fish and another white-tipped reef shark which we were able to follow for a while and get some good photos with our disposable waterproof camera. It is no exaggeration to say that our snorkelling in Isabela was better than some scuba dives that we have been on.

Floreana Island was another treat, we walked to the giant tortoise sanctuary, although these animals hold little fascination for either of us. Then we did some more top quality snorkelling, this time we swam with sea turtles and sea lions. Nearly everything we'd read about the Galapagos Islands said that sea lions will swim with snorkellers and scuba divers on nearly every island, but we hadn't seen any so it was both a relief and great fun to have incredibly manoeuvrable sea lions swim around us, they even pose for photos!

Our final snorkelling trip to Santa Fe was good, but not as good as the previous two islands. Again we saw turtles and sea lions, although this time the sea lions were hunting shoals of fish. It was a spectacular sight seeing thousands of fish dart this way and that to avoid the clutches of the sea lions. The trip to Santa Fe was worthwhile as it was the only occasion that we saw Nazca Boobies.

Our time in the Galapagos Islands was tainted so heavily by the fact that our cruise was cancelled that at the time we were there it was sometimes difficult to put it aside and concentrate on the fantastic wildlife. In hindsight the islands are just stunning and we cannot wait to go back in the future. Our dream holiday would be a liveaboard cruise of the Galapagos Islands, but at around $5,000, we might have to save up for that. As our time in the islands went on it became apparent to us that we aren't that interested in birds and that we much prefer the wildlife more directly associated with the sea.