Passport:  No visa is necessary from any country, but, your passport must have 6 months prior to expiration at the time you enter Ecuador.

Currency:  Currency, both money (USD $$)and electricity (110 volt), is the same in Ecuador as it is in the US.  There are ATMs on San Cristobal and Santa Cruz as well as the Guayaquil and Quito airports. Travelers checks are not so easy to cash, therefore we do not recommend them.  

Time Zone:  -6 GMT.  No daylight savings time. Half the year, Ecuador is the same as Central Time in the US (Chicago), the other half of the year it is on Eastern Time (NY).  The Galapagos  are 1 hour behind the mainland.  

Weather:  Dec - May is our warm season with more sunshine and higher air/water temps.  Average air temperature ranges from 80-87 F / 26-31 C.  February and March are the warmest months.  June - Nov is the cooler season. Garua, a light mist, is often present, creating overcast days. Winds can create choppier seas.  Average air temperatures range from  of 67-78 F / 20 -26C.  

Sea Conditions:  Dec - May:  Expect an average surface temperature of 70-86 F / 21-30 C with thermoclines as cool as 61 F / 16 C .  Visibility is better during these months.  Expect 40-100 ft / 12-30 m.  June - Nov:  The Cromwell Current comes in from the west and the polar Humboldt Current comes in from the south to bring nutrients and cold water during garua season.  Expect diminished visibility, but more marine life.  Expect an average surface temperature of 60-75 F/16-24C with thermoclines as low as 61F / 16C.

The Diving:  The marine life is the most spectacular pelagic diving on the planet!  It is one of the rare places where you pass through a bank of hundreds of hammerheads while chasing a 60 foot whale shark.  Toss in Galapagos sharks, silky sharks, sea turtles, giant free swimming morays, schools of thousands of pelagic fish species like barracuda or jacks along with large schools of tropicals like king angelfish and you have just 1 dive at Darwin.  At Wolf, you can expect huge Galapagos sharks, more hammerheads, eagle rays within feet-sometimes inches and Cabo Marshall will put you face to face with giant manta rays and inside a school of millions of black-striped salemas.  Macro life is spectacular at Cousins where the abundant (green) black coral shelters seahorses, blennies, nudibranches, hawkfish and frogfish.  And this is but a mere taste of why divers consistently proclaim the Galapagos to have the most healthy marine life in the Pacific as well as the best place to dive for pelagic life.