Location: The Canyon and The Boiler, Isla San Benedicto, Socorro, Revillagigedos, Mexico
Comments: We arrived in the early morning at the Canyon and had a wonderful dive with a small school of hammerheads at the cleaning station and dolphins on the way back to the boat. This was a first underwater encounter with dolphin for some. Then it was off to the Boiler to look for giant mantas. We had been in the water less than 15 minutes when three giant manta rays showed up to dance with the scuba divers and each other. They soared and swooped and looped around the divers creating a magical encounter and another first for many.
We anchored so that we could swim to the dive site, and with no current and very little waves, we had an open deck for the day so guests were free to dive whenever they felt like. Between dives, a lot of guests chose to accompany Marco, our chief mate, on a tour of the shoreline to see the arches and pinnacles and whale watch. From the Nautilus we watched a young humpback whale leap multiple times out of the water followed by an adult humpback breaching creating some wonderful photographic opportunities.
As the last of the divers came out of the water our lovely hostesses, Emanuelle and Silvia, brought champagne mimosas around for all to enjoy as they sat in the hot tub, cleaned gear and watched the sunset over a calm ocean. What a change from our first day!!
The northbound crossing was smooth sailing allowing for more relaxation in the hot tub and reading on the sun deck. About three quarters of the way home we encountered a large school of common dolphin, over a hundred individuals leaping out of the water and so we took a slight detour to go and see them and watch them ride our bow wave.
This trip started out with a first for us, we have never had to turn return to port. The firsts continued with a first snorkel with humpbacks and a first underwater dolphin encounter and a first giant manta ray dance for some. Hopefully our guests will have many more firsts but next time we will leave the weather out of it!
–DM Tricia
