Written by Phoenix
I was very nervous dropping into the freezing water where there were the biggest sea turtles in the world, sharks, rays and all different kinds of fish. It was cold when I got in so I had to keep swimming. When I stuck my head in the water I was shocked at how many marine animals there were. It was like a completely different world; a very incredible world.
Giant Turtles
I never imagined in my wildest dreams I would get to swim with giant turtles. Some were twice as long as me in length and much heavier! It was amazing! One came right up to my face and popped its head out of the water to breathe. Giant Sea Turtles can hold their breath for 30 minutes before having to come up to the surface.
Lava Tunnels
We came to some lava tunnels and to swim through them, you you had to keep your head under the water to make sure you did not hit your head on the really sharp rocks. In some of the tunnels, white tip sharks were sleeping. We did not go too close but at some points we were about 2 metres away from them. They are formed from rivers of lavas that spill down to the sea. As they cool, the gas escapes and creates tunnels of lava. There are many underground you can walk through in the Galapagos, as well as some you can swim through in the right tide.
Sea Horse
We swam to see a super cool seahorse. At first it was quite hard to see it as it was camouflaged by being curled up to the twig. It was much bigger than I imagined, about 30cm long. It was very shallow where the seahorse was and when I turned around I nearly bumped into a giant Sea turtle eating the algae off the coral.
White Tipped Sharks
After that we went to see the terrifying sharks!!! The sharks are called White Tipped Sharks, because they have white on the tip of each fin. The idea of swimming with sharks is far scarier than actually swimming with them.
Sea Lions
One of my favourite things we did was swim with sea lions. They are not that different from seals. The thing that makes them different is that they walk with their fins. The sea lions are very playful creatures. When they want to play with the White Tipped Shark, it bites the tail of the shark so the shark moves away and the sea lion chases it. The young sea lions loved playing with us. They circled us and came up very close. It was very tempting to touch them but we made sure we didn’t.
Here is a video of one of our snorkelling expeditions where you can see us swimming with sea lions, sharks and turtles.
Sky Yonder 