1. Flash Winter 2007
By Dave Constantin
Graduate Student
Sixty-five feet down, tanks getting low. The
woman from Holland has to bail before she
runs out of air. Victor, our dive-guide, takes her
up to decompress. I check my air gauge again;
almost in the red. I concentrate on slowing my
heart rate by taking long, steady breaths. We’re
advancing along the north wall of “Kicker Rock,”
otherwise known as “Leon Dormido” (the sleep-
ing lion), an ancient eroded lava cone off the
coast of Isla San Cristóbal, in the Galápagos Is-
lands. Fifteen stories above our heads, blue-foot-
ed boobies, great frigate birds, and terns swarm
the sheer basalt cliffs. Down here, powerful, nu-
trient-rich currents feed a galaxy of colorful cor-
al, exotic sea urchins, and iridescent tropical fish
that makes this place one of the premier dive
sites in the Galápagos.
Already today I’ve followed a green sea turtle
the size of a truck tire on its wobbly course
through an underwater canyon, frolicked with a
band of curious young sea lions who treated my
fins as chew toys, and came eye-to-eye with more
swollen, neon-green parrot fish than I could
count. For someone who’s previous diving expe-
rience consisted of a few dunks in the perpetu-
ally cold, low-visibility waters off the Oregon
coast, this place is a wonderland. But it holds
another significance.
Just across Stephen’s Bay, within sight of
Kicker Rock, is a small cove called Cerro
Tijeretas. This is the spot where, in 1835, Charles
Darwin first set foot on the Galápagos Islands.
Darwin and the crew of the HMS Beagle reported
spotting an American whaling ship docked near
Kicker Rock on their approach to the island.
What irony that at this very moment when the
islands stood poised to reveal their ancient se-
crets to the man who would use them to forever
alter the face of scientific understanding, others
were already plundering their resources.
More than 170 years later, the Galápagos must
evolve even faster to accommodate the growing
human footprint. The island’s 30,000 residents
have no choice but to welcome the 100,000 year-
ly tourists like greeters at the gates of a theme
park. But their race for dollars has largely pushed
aside concerns for safety, industry regulation,
and environmental integrity. The Galápagos re-
mains one of the last great wilderness areas left
in the world. I feel immensely fortunate to expe-
rience it in this way; I just don’t want to be here
when pressure becomes too great and the sleep-
ing lion awakens and decides it’s had enough of
the human invasion.
We’re rounding a corner when the deep-water
current hits us, forcing us to cling to the wall to
save energy. Everyone in the group except me is
wearing thick dive gloves. The coral here is as
rough as sixty-grit sandpaper. But I’m just pray-
ing I don’t reach into a crevice occupied by some
jumpy critter hard-wired to sting, bite, lacerate,
or chew its way out of trouble. I keep a close eye
on the porcupine-quilled, long-spined urchins,
plastered all over the wall in defensive colonies
of jet-black, hypodermic menace. A brush against
one of these would leave slivers of delicate, nee-
dle spines imbedded in your flesh. A harder hit
might introduce you straight to the arsenal of fin-
er, venomous spines that lay hidden beneath the
longer ones, like snakes in tall grass.
We’re waiting at this corner for something.
From around the bend, a massive school of grin-
go fish (so-named by locals because their red-
Where the Wild Things Are
A breathtaking encounter in evolution’s fishbowl
dish-pink coloration resembles a sun-burned
tourist) floods across our view. Just then, my dive
partner, Diego, suddenly points over my shoul-
der, his eyes wide through his mask. I shoot my
head around but see nothing except the unfath-
omable darkness of open ocean. Whatever it was,
I’m too late.
When I turn back, I realize what had snuck by
me. There, looming just beyond the veil of grin-
gos, are the haunting, unmistakable outlines of
two full-size hammerhead sharks, each about ten
feet long. Instantly, I release my grip on the coral
and begin fighting the current, fumbling with the
underwater camera attached to my wrist, all the
while trying to keep the sharks in view. I feel my-
self being pulled toward them. It’s not the cur-
rent. I’m caught in a beam, like an alien abductee.
A subconscious grin breaks the seal on my
mask and the excitement puts my heart and
lungs into overdrive. I’ve forgotten all about con-
serving air, all about diving Zen. I’m like a kid in
the presence of Santa Claus. I stick my camera in
the face of the nearest shark, which is no more
than four feet away. When I click, boom, it’s
gone before the light beam can dissipate. A sec-
ond later, the displaced water from its tail wash-
es over me like a gentle breeze. The image of that
shark moving that fast snaps me out of my rev-
erie. I’ve taken it on faith that these things prefer
eating fish instead of people. I’m suddenly feel-
ing like a clumsy piece of bait; a giant steak
packaged in neoprene.
Through the murk more sharks arrive. These
are scalloped hammerheads, which often travel
in enormous packs, although I count only four or
five at the moment. I look back and realize how
far I’ve drifted from the group. Everyone is glued
to the wall in a disciplined formation, while I’m
out on a space walk. That’s when I notice the
pull of my regulator getting tight. I imagine it’s
nerves until I glance at my air gauge. A lump
forms in my throat. The gauge reads empty.
I see Victor, just returned from the surface,
bobbing serenely in the current. I swim toward
him, quickly. Remembering my scuba training, I
drag my hand across my throat in a cutting mo-
tion, the international signal for, “I’m in a pile of
shit right now.” Victor waits a beat, then grabs
my right shoulder strap as I grope for his. He of-
fers me his extra respirator and soon I’m taking
full breaths again.
This is a good time to surface. Everyone’s run-
ning low on air, including Victor. Linked togeth-
er, we slowly make our way up the wall to our
first decompression stop. The lurching current
and the awkward bend of the emergency air hose
restrict me to staring straight at Victor or at the
wall. It’s a long couple of minutes. I have plenty
of time to think about all the weird and wonder-
ful things I’ve recently learned about the Galápa-
gos, like how none of the dive guides here are
licensed. As far as I know, Victor doesn’t even
have his dive master certification. Gotta love that
frontier spirit. I concentrate on the microuniverse
of the rock wall.
We make one more decompression stop and
I’m breathing as shallow as possible, while still
obeying the first rule of scuba diving: NEVER
hold your breath. Even a small increase in alti-
tude with a chest full of sealed, compressed air
could pop your lung like a balloon. Better to
make a break for the surface on your last exhale.
Not today though. Victor’s air supply holds out to
the top.
Safely back on the boat, Victor hands me a
mayo sandwich with pieces of tuna in it and I
politely thank him for this and for his help under
the water. Secretly though, I send my thanks to
the Galápagos itself for patiently rewarding one
more blundering human with an unforgettable
display of wildness at its most refined.
Study the Galápagos
During summer 2006, six journalism
students and one environmental studies
student participated in a new writing
course in the Galápagos. The ongoing sum-
mer program is directed by SOJC Associate
Professor Carol Ann Bassett through UO
International Programs in cooperation with
Universidad San Francisco de Quito. It in-
cludes three weeks of fieldwork throughout
the archipelago and a fourth week of inten-
sive writing workshops in Quito, Ecuador.
The goal is for students to publish their
work in national magazines. Twelve stu-
dents are expected to participate in sum-
mer 2007.
Students say this “in-the-field” experi-
ence deeply changed their lives, says Bassett.
“It gave them more self-confidence as indi-
viduals and as journalists working in a for-
eign country. Many of them have now made a
commitment to pursue environmental writ-
ing as a career.” To learn more, visit jcomm.
uoregon.edu/galapagos.
The Galápagos’ native wildlife have found some creative uses for human artifacts. This sea lion takes an
afternoon siesta on an unoccupied boat in the harbor at Villamil on Isabela Island.
photosbyDaveConstantin