Yesterday I decided to spend a quiet day after all the latest hustle and bustle. I went back to Las Grietas to cliff dive again. I am becoming well known over there… I spent the rest of the day with some maintenance work on Guppy. To catch up for my lazy day yesterday, I decided to go diving near the Gordon Rocks with three sailor friends. We had the company of Hammerhead sharks, White-tip sharks and Galápagos sharks. We hoped to see the Whale shark that was spotted yesterday, but unfortunately we did not encounter this sea giant. But while we swam the underwater world of the Galápagos, we met some turtles, manta rays and many coloured fishes. And the sharks were an adequate compensation for the Whale shark! So in the end, I defeated my shark-phobia! Since I was eight years old I suffered from an extreme shark-phobia, but this is over now. Those were exactly the sharks I had seen in my nightmares, and they did not do any harm to me. About ten of them swam below me and they were not interested in us at all! The water was extremely cold down there, and I almost came out of the water as frozen as an ice cube – despite the 7 millimetres [0,28 inch] thick wetsuit. It took me about two hours in 37° Celsius [98,6° F] outside temperature to come back to my normal body temperature again… If I had closed my eyes, I would almost have thought that I was back in the Netherlands… It really was THAT cold…

Laura