DAY THREE FRIDAY, 8 NOVEMBER 2013
Had a difficult night's sleep - the bunk was way too soft, the room was cold, but I woke up clammy under the covers. Maybe tonight I'll try sleeping on top of the duvet they have on the bed and use a light blanket they provided as a cover. Woke up about 5 a.m.; knew I wouldn't go back to sleep, so I wrote the first day's report. Our first dive of the day was at Punta Carrión (Point Carrión) off Santa Cruz Island. This day I had more new gear: Search And Rescue (SAR) transponder & a dive flag on a steek (to quote Jeff Dunham). Also, I was supposed to have a First Alert signal horn on the BCD, but it wouldn't work with my Airsource. So I ended up doing dive #2 without one. The reef here is completely different than what I'm used to diving. The cold water prevents the tall soft corals & sponges we are used to seeing in warmer waters. BTW, the green stuff is BLACK CORAL. Once back on board, after talking with Walter, I had them take my inflator/octopus off and put on a standard low-pressure inflator hose so I could have their recommended safety equipment, but - right before the dive they noticed it was leaking. So they took it off and I didn't have one for dive #3 either. This dive was better - but when I hit the water my "find me flag" came undone and wrapped around me. Couldn't see what I was doing so I just stuffed it up under my BCD shoulder strap and swam on. I tried the camera for the first time which worked fine on the boat, but which would not fire the large strobe under water. Was met by a fur seal right off the boat. Randy got a sweet shot of that. A field of "Pillow Stars" these are the "Chocolate chip" variety (Nidorellia armata) Galápagos snake eel & diver Galápagos snake eel
Another form of starfish, the Blue Sea Star (Phataria unifascilalis)
Saw lots of starfish, pointed out one small Nudibranch to Gar and someone else who also photographed it. Saw lots of King Angel fish, a Galápagos reef shark & two large rays. Back to the boat for surface interval, snack & a warm-up. Moved the boat to a new location - Bartolomé Island. Briefing time again - this time for Bartolomé Island Remember the sand spit we saw from the plane? Here it is again as we pass it on the way out of the channel to our second dive site, Bartolomé Punta (Bartolomé Point) a 20-90-foot dive with groupers, creole fish, white-tipped sharks, barracudas, scorpionfish, sea turtles, guinea puffer fish, red-lipped batfish, reef corals and, occasionally, hammerhead sharks & bottlenose dolphins. Gar skipped this dive so I buddied up with a father-son team from Luxembourg, Antonio & Till Almeida. Underwater camera worked a bit better, but was still having fits. Missed a shot of a great mobilar ray & a batfish. Still getting used to the rental gear and changing configuration.
	White Sea Urchin (Tripneustes depressus)
Barracuda Galápagos (Sphyraena idiastes) . . . . . . which do not get as large as the ones we often see in the Caribbean. Guineafowl puffer, spotted Ppuffer, golden puffer (Arothron meleagris)
Brown hogfish, Galápagos hogfish, harlequin wrasse (Bodianus eclancheri)
	Moorish Idol (Zanclus cornutus)
A variety of sharks . . . Photo courtesy Randy Garrett Photo courtesy Randy Garrett Silky sharks (Carcharhinus falciformis) Photo courtesy Randy Garrett Photo courtesy Randy Garrett Scalloped hammerhead sharks (Sphyrna lewini) Did 73' for 40 minutes. This time (with considerable help), I was able to get into the Zodiac over the side, not using the ladder as I did yesterday. What time is it when your backup dive timer claims you dove 181' for 153 minutes in 84F water (when you know COMPLETELY different)? Time to get a new backup timer!

LAND HO! HERE