Location: San Benitos Islands, Baja California, Mexico.
We got up early today to move the Nautilus Explorer to a new place around the corner of San Benitos Island. We were visited on the way by Mexican fishermen from the local cooperativa who were worried that we would snag their lobster traps or dive for their abalone. When they saw we were not in that mission, they relaxed and were very friendly and easy. We found this rock sticking up on the south side of the centre island and anchored right in close in 45 feet on a sand bottom and had rocks and kelp on a very easy but exciting dive site. A big group of young california sealions messed around with us. The kelp was not as thick here as yesterday’s site but very pleasant to jump from one kelp forest to the next with fields of white sand bottom. On our second dive, we offered to either scuba dive directly off to the back deck of the Nautilus or explore a solitary rock closer towards the east side of the easternmost island. Half the group elected to jump off the back deck and half went. On our way, we went looking for a new divesite. We saw so many potential divesite. We could stay here for weeks!! The new rock went down to 80 feet of water and we had great visibility with long kelp walls, a flat bottom, big rocks, lots of sealions as well as nudibranchs, lobster, octopus and a bunch of fish that I am not that familiar with. This is an area that is very seldom visited and a number of the fish are species that we don’t see further north in the California Channel Islands nor further south in the Sea of Cortez or Socorro Island. It’s really great to be doing something so different and new. Ended the dive day with big smiles on our faces look for new dive areas at Rocas Aljios. Divemaster Sten.
Weather: Sunny, hot, flat calm and beautiful.
Water: Visibility 70 – 90 feet. Water temperature 22 degrees celsius
New dive sites on San Benitos Islands
