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[WreckWench]

As I'm putting the final touches on the trip here is Galapagos in pictures...



The Boat:














The Diving & Water Scenery:


















Sightseeing & Touring:

[WreckWench]

Ok here is a sneak peek at pricing and promos for this trip....


NOTE...trip expected to be opened up today or tomorrow at the lastest...stay tuned!



DATES:

Option A 16 spots: Dec 1-8,2014 + approx 1-3 days for add-on tours & safe luggage arrival
Option B 16 spots: Dec 8-15,2014 + approx 1-3 days for add-on tours & safe luggage arrival

The LiveAboard dates are...Dec 1-8th, 2014 and/or Dec 8-15, 2014. (Yes we have 2 trips due to popular demand and yes the dates run Mon to Mon BUT the full extended trip will be decided by the participants and will run longer to include sightseeing and tours...see below for details on the options available.)

PRICE:

$4295 + 2014 PRICE INCREASE of ??TBD??

The 2013 price is $4295 per person and the deposit to hold a spot is $1000. If you book and pay $4295 in full by Feb 2, 2013 you can lock in 2013 pricing for your trip.

NOTE: 2014 pricing is estimated to be $100-300 more than 2013 pricing. PLUS THE FINAL PRICE OF THE TOURING/LAND/COMMUTER FLIGHT package of $TBD d/o or $TBD s/o

DISCOUNTS & SPECIALS:

• Two (2) FULL weeks to sign up for our early booking discounts on one of either two trips to the Galapagos...or BOTH! Choose either Dec 1-8. 2014 or Dec 8-15, 2014.
• Bookings will be 'first posted & paid' in order to secure your spot.
• ONLY SD.com premier members can sign up for our trips (follow the upgrade directions in the 'How to Sign Up for this Trip' post.)
• $1000 non-refundable deposit is required to hold a spot on this trip.
• Get $50 off the price if you are willing to do either date when you sign up. (We initially need flexibility in the dates and will lock in the participants of each boat asap so will give you $50 off if you can initially do either date AND you'll be entered into a special drawing for FREE NITROX just by being able to be flexible in when you go.)
• LOCK IN and PAY 2013 pricing if paid in full by Feb 2, 2013. So price will be $4295 regardless of how much the price goes up. (Price is estimated to be $100-300 more in 2014. If for any reason the price does not go up in 2014 you'll receive a $150 cash rebate.)
• Anyone paid in full by Feb 2, 2013 will be entered into a drawing to win one of the limited Main Deck Staterooms.
• Anyone paid in full by Feb 2, 2013 will be entered into a drawing to win 2013 pricing for the trip they are signed up for.
• While the boat has no discount for a back to back charter, SD will give you $100 off if you choose to do a back to back charter.
• If you are active duty military take another $50 off for joining us and thank you for your service to our country.
• Get a $25 member rebate if you file for it within 30 days after the trip.
• Everyone signed up and deposited by Dec 1, 2013 will be entered into a drawing for a chance for FREE NITROX worth $150. (If you do not dive nitrox a substitute prize at SD's discretion will be awarded since prizes are non-transferable.)

[WreckWench]

TOURING OPTIONS:

Once the trip is filled or has critical mass we will set up our touring options so as to allow at least 2 days before departing from Quito/Guayaquil to San Cristobal and 1 day before departing from Quito/Guayaquil to home. This allows us sufficient time for all our luggage to arrive, allows us time to rest a bit before a week of amazing diving and allows us plenty of time to make our int'l connections. Remember...if you miss the boat...you MISS THE TRIP!!! So its pretty important to arrive a bit early to avoid any unforseen and trip threatening events.

The good news is that there are PLENTY of things to do in Galapagos and many people go simply for the topside activities.

HERE IS A FLYER of the tours we can do 1-2 days prior to our trip as well as 1 day after our trip.

For those who wish to add another 3-6 days of touring GALAPAGOS itself after our trip we will have those details for you as well. Current 2013 pricing for a 6 day island hopping tour is $1025.

[WreckWench]

More about Darwin's Galapagos:
The Galapagos Islands were discovered in 1535 by Fray Tomas de Berlanga, bishop of Panama who drifted across them while on a voyage from Panama to Lima, Peru. They were given their current name by Abraham Ortelier in 1574 after the giant tortoises. Galapagos is Spanish for a saddle a reference to the shape of the carapace (shell) of the saddleback tortoises found on some of the islands.

The Islands had been called Las Encantadas or bewitched islands. This was because of the strong currents that flow through and around them, so making navigation difficult and also due to the gaura or mists making it difficult at times to tell whether it was the islands or the ship that was moving. This name was in continued use by whalers and pirates for some time after the title of Galapagos was generally accepted.

There were no native peoples, though doubtless sea-faring races in pre-history had come across the islands, but kept on going for more hospitable places to build their communities.

Because of their isolation, the Galapagos quickly became a refuge for pirates and castaways. Treasures were buried, and stories grew up around them. By 1792, British whalers had reached the Galapagos and began to hunt for whales around them. Like many oceanic islands, the topography of the ocean floor suddenly sweeping upwards causes upwellings of deep nutrient-laden currents so resulting in a bloom of phytoplankton and so of animals that are a part of the food chain. The Galapagos are an excellent feeding ground for whales, with the Islands of Isabela and Fernandina being a calving place.

The whaling business was lucrative and unregulated, whalers took whatever they could until their holds were full. They also took the giant tortoises as living larders to provide fresh meat on the cruise. A typical whaling ship would take 500-600 giant tortoises in this way to be stored upside down in the holds to be slaughtered and eaten when fresh meat was needed. It is thought that the whalers caused the extinction of tortoise subspecies on the islands of Floreana, Santa Fe and Rabida. In total it is estimated that whaling ships removed 200,000 tortoises from the Galapagos.

One interesting relic of whaling days is still preserved on the islands, that is the whalers post-boxes. Whaling ships were away from port for usually at least 2 years and commonly more, so post-boxes were erected on islands where they might be seen by other whaling ships. Letters left in the boxes, often little more than a small barrel raised on a pole with a roof to keep the rain out, were left with a request that ships on their homeward journey would take the mail back with them and post them on arrival.

The whalers also caused further problems that would be around long after they left in the form of feral non-native animals. Black rats, cats, cattle, donkeys, goats, pigs and dogs are a legacy of whaling and other ships that called by. Sometimes the animals escaped, sometimes in the case of goats and pigs, they were deliberately let free to breed and establish a population that could be used for food by ship wrecked sailors in the future. These feral animals then competed with native fauna for food and habitat.

Author Herman Melville (of Moby Dick fame) visited the Galapagos aboard a whaler and later wrote about this visit in the story The Encantadas in 1855.

The Galapagos were largely ignored and considered unremarkable except to the occasional ship's naturalist until Charles Darwin landed in 1835 aboard HMS Beagle. Darwin was at the time a young man who had embarked on the exploratory voyage while in the midst of studying for the clergy. The voyage and especially the experience and collection of animal specimens from the Galapagos led to the development and crystallization of a set of ideas that would lead to Darwin's theory of evolution. Surprisingly perhaps, when Darwin arrived at the Galapagos, he was more interested in their geology than biology, though this changed when he started to look at what there was to be found there.

What fascinated Darwin the most was the geographical isolation and distribution of species. In Voyage of the Beagle, published in 1845, he documented his epic natural history journey. His discourse on the subject of evolution was not published until 1859, when the first edition of On the Origin of Species emerged in England and forever changed the study of evolutionary biology.

There were two to three hundred people living on Floreana at the time of Darwin's visit, he wrote:

"The staple article of animal food is supplied by the tortoises. Their numbers have of course been greatly reduced in this island, but the people yet count on two days' hunting giving them food for the rest of the week. It is said that formerly single vessels have taken away as many as seven hundred, and that the ship's company of a frigate some years since brought down in one day two hundred tortoises to the beach."

The Ecuadorian government used the Galapagos for penal colonies until the middle of the twentieth century. There were plans to further exploit the islands for their mineral resources such as coal and guano, but these foundered for the simple reason that there was insufficient for it to be viable. Salt was mined from a salt lake on Santiago and was used for salting locally caught fish and tortoise meat.

The oldest colony on the Galapagos was established on San Cristobal in 1869 and remains the seat of government in the Galapagos today. Other towns that are still in existence were established in the later years of the 19th century. Villamil on Isabela where coral was mined and burned to produce lime. Santo Tomas, 20 km inland also on Isabela was established to mine sulphur from the volcanic fumeroles in the area. These activities were supplemented by fishing and cattle ranching on the moist windward slopes of Sierra Negra.

Ecuador declared the Galapagos Archipelago a wildlife sanctuary in 1935. From about this time, eco-tourism began in the Galapagos, U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt, visited in 1938 for instance.

In 1942, the United States was permitted to construct a major air base on one of the islands, Baltra, to protect and defend the Panama Canal. After World War II, the United States returned this base and its airstrip to Ecuador. Legislation to protect the archipelago had begun in 1934, but war and politics prevented official protection to take place until 1959, when Ecuador established Galapagos National Park. In that same year, 100 years after the publication of On the Origin of Species, the Charles Darwin Foundation was established under the auspices of UNESCO and the World Conservation Union. The Foundation's stated goal is "to provide knowledge and support to ensure the conservation of the environment and biodiversity of the Galapagos Archipelago through scientific research and complementary actions." To achieve this goal, in 1964 the Foundation opened the Charles Darwin Research Station (CDRS) in Puerto Ayora on the island of Santa Cruz.

The principal partner of the Charles Darwin Foundation is the Galapagos National Park Service, the government agency that manages the National Park, and, since the passing of the Special Law for Galapagos in 1998, the Galapagos Marine Reserve. The Charles Darwin Foundation helped to establish the GNPS in 1968, and over the years, the Park-Station partnership has become a model for how conservation science and management can work together.