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one. Stunned by our good fortune, we respectfully keep our distance to avoid interrupting the cleaning behavior. We shiver in amazement and appreciation until our computers tell us to head skyward.


Mobs of Mobula Cabo Marshall, on the northeastern corner of Isabela Island, is a dive that, on an earlier Galapagos expedition more than ten years ago, taught me the wisdom in looking out into the blue. Mobs of fish swarming overtop the shallow reef had captured my full attention. Suffering from photographer’s tunnel vision, my eye was locked onto the camera’s viewfinder. But I was missing the big picture, completely


oblivious to the pelagic passersby over my shoulder. My wife had to practically slap me upside the head to get me turn around. Mobulas, mini manta rays 4 feet (1.2m) across, filled the water column, darkening the sea. I was so transfixed by the immensity of the school that I froze, then frantically fumbled my camera, almost missing the shot completely. It was one of those moments immediately seared into one’s memory which remains crystal clear years later. Back on board, after calming down enough to speak coherently, we voted and the average estimate was three to four hundred mobulas. I’ve seen smaller schools here since that epic day, plus groups


Smoothtail


mobula rays. Left: Marine


iguana feeding


on algae. Right: Mola mola


hovering above a cleaning


station waiting for a tidy up!


of fifty hammerheads, schools of tuna, swirling tornadoes of salema baitfish, and even a blue marlin! Cabo Marshall is also one of the best places in the Galapagos to see giant manta rays. On my last trip here, which was in April during the warmer ‘manta season’, I counted at least six different individuals on one dive.


Wolf and Darwin As amazing as all of the action


in the central islands may be, two rocks far to the north are all it takes to lure many seasoned divers back to the Galapagos over and over again. Wolf and Darwin Islands are the exclusive domain of live-aboards and considered advanced sites for


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