Underwater camera setup

How did you find the currents at Wolf and Darwin?

When you shift from the iphone or gopro to a housed ILC, or even a compact with a dual strobe system, you add a tremendous amount of drag, and when the current is really ripping there, your mask is at risk of being pulled off.  The camera will take some knocks against the rocks.    It can be really tough there.   It will also markedly increase your air consumption.   I also wouldn't really think of it as a macro destination.    Without considerable dive counts elsewhere, I would stick to the gopro route, and the most recent models for their stablization capabilities.  Older models will just produce vomit inducing videos.  No on the mask mount - again the current.   Attach to a coil that you clip into your d-ring.

In the bigger picture, when you're considering the entire range and unsure what you want to do, a trip that offers instructions and rentals would be a winning route.  Every purchase is an expensive one, and usually with a huge immediate depreciation, though if you buy your first one in the deep used market, it is less painful.  (my first ILC system was a Canon 20D in 2008).

As you discovered, the baggie housings are very limiting.

My first and only trip to Galapagos was in 2013.  My wife came in on the low end for experience (60 dives), but a 2 for 1 deal was hard to pass up given how expensive that destination is.  As a result, I often left the 20D with its 8" dome on the boat and just carried the gopro 3 on a mount with 2 solas.  I needed to be able to help her if necessary with minimal distraction.   But even without that, I would have often made that choice.   Chasing out from the wall at Darwin to chase a whale shark requires speed, and the opportunities were few that week - 4 in total I think.  A slower moving diver might miss it entirely.

A place like Cocos or Socorro is a bit easier on the current, and it's no longer the big penalty.    But you still learn to trail the camera in your right arm so it sits in your slip stream when you're kicking into it.