Punta Vicente Roca

On the northwest shoulder of Isabela, where the Cromwell Current slams nutrient-rich water into the island, Punta Vicente Roca is the cold, strange heart of a western itinerary. Mola mola rise from the depths to cleaning stations along the wall, hanging tilted while barberfish work them over. Green turtles pile up here in remarkable numbers, resting on ledges in the murk. The wall itself crawls with life better suited to Peru than the equator - and the celebrated oddballs of the west, red-lipped batfish and Pacific seahorses, hide on the slope for divers patient enough to search 14 C water. Penguins and flightless cormorants hunt the shallows overhead.

اللحظة التي جئت من أجلها: Mola cleaning stations, turtle aggregations, red-lipped batfish, penguins in the shallows

التضاريس: Steep wall and boulder slope inside a collapsed caldera edge

التيار: Often sheltered, but the cold Cromwell upwelling makes its own weather - expect green water and thermoclines.

المخاطر: Cold - the coldest regularly dived water in the islands - plus limited visibility and boat traffic at the surface.

الحفاظ على البيئة البحرية: Galapagos Marine Reserve; western itinerary sites are tightly scheduled by the park.