The Galapagos Islands, above and below the waters

This month's speaker, Dana Africa

Dana Africa is, in her own words, an "aquatic entrepreneur." I guess this means that the diving she's good at, and which she loves doing, she believes might turn a profit. Or at least support itself. She loves to dive and to share a passion for diving and the aquatic environment. She has been diving all over the world since 1972. Her talk to the Eugene Natural History Society this month will be a bully outlet for sharing the passion.

Most of the time Dana is a housewife raising three children. Her aquatic entrepreneurship is woven into this matrix; two of her children are now diving. The story of the focus of her aquatic adventures goes back to her college training at the University of Oregon. It was Nora Terwilliger of the Oregon Institute of Marine Biology who inspired Dana with an introduction to the fascinating world of marine invertebrates. The formal studies resulted in a Bachelor of Science in Biology from the U. of Oregon in 1993 ("how time flies!" she says).

In January of 1995 Dana was a guest with a professional ecoturism firm, Aquatic Encounters, on a one week expedition to the Galapagos Islands. The trip was fantastic and she knew that one week in the Galapagos would not be enough. Dana sold her talents as a guide to the firm, and has gone back to the Galapagos each May of the past three years. There's another trip planned for 1998.

The trips that Dana serves as a guide on last eleven days, with the highlight being three days of diving off Wolf and Darwin Islands, 150 kilometers northwest of the main archipelago. According to the Encyclopaedia Britannica these are two of the only four main islands largely untouched by human impact. In order to preserve the pristine habitats it is forbidden to set foot on these islands. But they provide what Dana calls the most magical diving of any place in the world. For those who attended Dana's last slide show, on the south seas, that's saying a lot!

Dana has pared down her slides to a favorite hundred and fifty, about half taken under water. Particularly impressive are the slides of big animals under water, like hammerhead sharks, whale sharks and, of course, the sea lions (all photos in this issue are by Dana).

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