Location: The Canyon, San Benedicto Island, Socorro, Revillagigedos, Mexico
Comments: We started off dive day 1 of this trip by splashing directly off the back deck of the Nautilus Explorer at a dive site called The Canyon at San Benedicto Island. This has always been a funny dive dive site in that it can be the highlight site of the trip with super friendly and inquisitive giant manta rays, dolphins, schooling hammerhead sharks and even schooling juvenile silvertip sharks. Today unfortunately, was the other side of the coin with the long groundswell kicking up ash and pumice from the silty bottom and making for low visibility.
After a couple of disappointing dives, I persuaded everyone to join me for an exploratory dive along the lava flows on the east side of San Benedicto. I have always wanted to check this area out as a potential dive site and that thought continued until about 5 seconds after I jumped into the water. Uh oh. It was very green murky water with less than 5 feet of visibility! The only good news is that it felt like being back home in the plankton rich emerald seas of British Columbia! The vis cleared up somewhat to 30 feet around the corner. We were saddened to find the remains of 3 old fishing nets stretched out along the lumps of lava. Good news in that the nets were degraded enough that the aren’t still catching any fish. I’ll be crossing this site off my checklist of to-do’s!
–Captain Mike
Weather: High scattered clouds, air temperatures in the mid 80’s, light winds but a long big groundswell outside our anchorage.
Water: Generally 25 – 40 foot vis with ash stirred up off the bottom by the groundswell. Water temperature 70°F.
