{"id":5949,"date":"2005-06-22T07:07:45","date_gmt":"2005-06-22T15:07:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.oceanlight.com\/portfolio\/whale-shark-darwin-island-galapagos\/"},"modified":"2005-06-22T07:07:45","modified_gmt":"2005-06-22T15:07:45","slug":"whale-shark-darwin-island-galapagos","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.oceanlight.com\/log\/whale-shark-darwin-island-galapagos.html","title":{"rendered":"Whale Shark Photo, Darwin Island, Galapagos"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Galapagos Islands<\/a>, an Ecuadorian archipelago straddling the equator in the Eastern Pacific, is a remarkable underwater paradise. The central and southern islands hold a wealth of temperate as well as tropical marine creatures due to the mixing of currents there. However, it is the northern islands of Darwin and Wolf<\/a> that divers typically look forward to the most on a Galapagos dive trip. These two islands, along with the smaller Roca Redonda<\/a>, are the best places in the Galapagos — and indeed one of the best places in the world — to encounter whale sharks<\/a>. On our first dive at Darwin in 1996 the group had left me behind, riding the current back to the anchorage, while I spent my air exploring the area where we were dropped at Darwin’s Arch<\/a>. I met up with a young whale shark who happened along and allowed me to swim alongside him for 20 minutes taking photos. Eventually the shark and I caught up with the rest of the dive group, and as each diver noticed us he would swim over and join. Eventually everyone got a good look at the huge shark.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/a><\/p>\n

A whale shark swims through the open ocean in the Galapagos Islands. The whale shark is the largest shark on Earth, but is harmless eating plankton and small fish.
Image ID: 01520<\/a>
Species: Whale shark<\/a>, Rhincodon typus<\/i><\/a>
Location: Darwin Island<\/a>, Galapagos Islands<\/a>, Ecuador<\/a><\/p>\n

During our several visits to Darwin Island (we’ve made three trips there in ’96, ’98 and ’06), we have dove at the Arch repeatedly. In 1996 our group saw a whale shark on every dive there including a final dive at the arch was highlighted by a visit from an enormous whale shark, probably 40 feet or more in length:<\/p>\n

\"Whale<\/a><\/p>\n

Whale shark.
Image ID: 01503<\/a>
Species: Whale shark<\/a>, Rhincodon typus<\/i><\/a>
Location: Darwin Island<\/a>, Galapagos Islands<\/a>, Ecuador<\/a><\/p>\n

Keywords: whale shark photo<\/a>, Galapagos, Rhincodon typus<\/a><\/em>, Darwin Island, underwater.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Galapagos Islands, an Ecuadorian archipelago straddling the equator in the Eastern Pacific, is a remarkable underwater paradise. The central and southern islands hold a wealth of temperate as well as tropical marine creatures due to the mixing of currents there. However, it is the northern islands of Darwin and…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[77,83,122],"tags":[235,244,255,319,330],"class_list":{"0":"post-5949","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-galapagos-diaries","7":"category-icons","8":"category-underwater-life","9":"tag-ecuador","10":"tag-galapagos-islands","11":"tag-icons","12":"tag-sharks","13":"tag-underwater"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.oceanlight.com\/log\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5949","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.oceanlight.com\/log\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.oceanlight.com\/log\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.oceanlight.com\/log\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.oceanlight.com\/log\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5949"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.oceanlight.com\/log\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5949\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.oceanlight.com\/log\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5949"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.oceanlight.com\/log\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5949"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.oceanlight.com\/log\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5949"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}