27.05.2014 | Alexander S.
Each person has a number of different impressions over a life time and I now would like to tell about mine. This was one of my first exotic travels and, if to be exact, it was the second.
At that time, I started to get interested in diving and once I was offered to go to Ecuador, the world renowned Galapagos islands. My imagination drew fantastic pictures of the landscape and animals of the place I knew very little about. It was because all my efforts were devoted to studying diving. There are very difficult conditions going down into the depth of water even for experienced divers. It is because there is very insufficient visibility, strong currents, cold water and vast number of sharks, so you get the real extreme sport.
I will skip the description of the flight and excursion to the city and islands and move on straight to the boat, on which we were about to dive safari in Galapagos. The boat was called Lammerlaw. It was a luxurious sailing yacht. Now we are in the middle of our journey and coming to the furthest point of archipelago, to the island Darwin. And here we are under water observing the firework of life – sharks, moray eels, and all possible fish. By the end of my diving I heard a signal from my dive guide (in order to attract the attention of the group they hit the balloon with the metal stick). This time the signal was especially strong and long. I was intrigued and swam to him as fast as I could. When there was just about five meters to reach him I couldn’t understand where he was pointing to with his hand. In front of him, as it seemed to me at the beginning, there was a flock of fish. It took just another meter before I was completely stunned – right in front of me, out of nowhere, there appeared a giant shark – it looked as though it was a real submarine, definitely not an animal. And what I thought to be a flock of fish turned out to be a picture on its body. Because of bad visibility it was like a ship coming out of fog. Just a second ago you saw nothing and then suddenly you see an eighteen-meter-long giant. It was a dream of all divers to see a whale shark. It is difficult to describe my emotions at that moment. It was more of a shock, hysterics and atomic bomb explosion - all happening at the same time. It’s quite possible I forgot how to breathe while this whopper was going passed me. Later we saw this unbelievable creature yet five more times, and every time it was unforgettable.