The Dive Sites for Daily Diving Tours

The Academy Bay area is a short navigation from the dive center. This area is great for introductory diving, beginner and intermediate divers. We usually request that each person spend a minimum of 1 day diving in Academy Bay to get acclimated to our water, thick wetsuits and the visibility. We recommend that beginner certified divers do at least 3 dives in Academy Bay before heading to the more distant spots. The Academy Bay area is easy diving with very little current. The following are some of the Academy Bay diving sites; dive sites will not be specified when confirming an Academy Bay dive trip.

Punta Estrada

Sea turtle canyon in Academy Bay. Invertebrates, tropical fish, stingrays, green sea turtles; possible encounters with golden rays and some whitetip reef sharks. There are interesting geological formations here.

Caamaño Islet

Offers a chance to swim and play with friendly sea lions, many tropical fish and marine iguanas.

Punta Nuñez Cliffs

Wall diving with a cave. At this site, you can see turtles, stingrays, tropical fish, whitetip sharks and – occasionally – manta rays.

El Bajo

This submerged shoal at Academy Bay has an impressive amount of fish, whitetip sharks, morays, invertebrates, caverns, eagle rays, stingrays, turtles and sea fans. A great diving site for intermediate as well as for experienced divers.

The dive sites outside Academy Bay have navigation distances of between 20 to 38 miles. The approximate travel time is 1 hour to most sites. Galapagos Sub-Aqua always has at least three crew members on board when diving outside of Academy Bay(Captain, deckhand and dive master). These areas are spectacular world-class diving sites, best suited for intermediate to experienced divers.

Floreana
Enderby Islet, Punta Ayora, Champion Islet and Devil's Crown are the dive sites where you will experience sea lions, turtles, exotic fish, thousands of tropical fish, barracudas, black coral, whitetip and Galapagos sharks, moray eels, some hammerheads and eagle rays. You will have an excellent opportunity for dolphin watching during the boat trip to and from Floreana. You will also enjoy watching the local marine and bird life such as sea lions, blue footed boobies, frigatebird, penguins and marine iguanas from the boat.

Gordon Rocks
Here you will experience turtles, big fish, hundreds of tropical fishes, hammerheads, Galapagos sharks, white tips, large morays, spotted eagle rays, golden and stingrays as well as fur sea lions. This is the best one day trip for experienced divers, when done in combination with Seymour or Mosquera Islet.

Seymour
Schools of hammerheads, loads of snappers and other fish, turtles, morays, manta rays and white tip sharks, sea lions, garden eels.

Cousins Rock
An intermediate dive combination of shoal and wall diving with sea lions, large amounts of fish, white tip sharks, hammerheads, eagle rays and manta rays. There is a breathtaking vertical wall with a profusion of black corals and other invertebrates. It’s possible to find seahorses and frogfish here as well. This dive site is always combined with diving in Bartolome.

Bartolome
Stingrays, turtles, white tips, plenty of fish, invertebrates and interesting rock formations with crevices. During the surface interval between Cousins and Bartolome dives, we snorkel to look for penguins.

Mosquera Islet
Largest colony of garden eels, mantas, sea turtles, white tips and maybe hammerheads schools and eagle rays, as well as plenty of tropical fish and sea lions.

Daphne Islet
Wall diving  with morays, white tips, eagle rays, stingrays, sea lions, Galapagos sharks , hammerheads, turtles, black corals   and many other invertebrates, and hundreds of fish.

Santa Fe
Easy diving with little current. Whitetips, turtles, stingrays and occasionally a couple of hammerheads. snorkeling with sea lions at surface interval.

Combination of wall and shoal diving. Great side for seeing a lot of sea horses and fishes. Whitetips , sea lions, turtles, Galapagos Sharks.