Galapagos Islands

Ecuador

The Galapagos Islands are a remote volcanic archipelago off Ecuador's Pacific coast, protected as the Galapagos Marine Reserve and world-renowned among divers for large schooling aggregations of scalloped hammerhead sharks around Darwin and Wolf.

The Galapagos Marine Reserve covers around 133,000 square kilometers of ocean, one of the largest marine protected areas in the world. Its northernmost islands, Darwin and Wolf, lie over 100 miles northwest of Isabela Island and can only be reached by liveaboard diving vessels. A 2016 study led by the Charles Darwin Foundation found the waters around Darwin and Wolf hold the largest recorded shark biomass on the planet. Divers travel here chiefly for schooling hammerhead sharks, alongside Galapagos, silky, whitetip and blacktip reef sharks, whale sharks, manta and eagle rays, sea turtles, and sea lions.