So after finishing up last day diving in San Benedicto and Socorro Island with A LOT of hammerhead sharks at the Canyon and actually no big animals at the Boiler we decided to run north to the Sea of Cortez for a couple of days of scuba diving. . We met som decent waves on our way up north that made the activity on board was a litle less then normal. Coming in to Sea of Cortez we met flat sea and started of with a whale shark search bby the mogote, we had 3 whalesharks , but not for so long. So we went up to Swanne reef and did an hour and a half dive on the shallow reef. Playing with a group of california sealions and watching various small neat cleaning stations. Coming from Revillagigedos all the time scanning the blue water for big animals , Sea of Cortez makes a nice change to dig our heads in to the sand and rocks looking at fish beahviour and nudibranchs, kind of contemplation.. well until the sealions comes to bug us!
Ah ! We also watched the bird Cormorant fishing under water. It reminds me of some kind of stressfull cartoon caracter speeding around the rocks after fish.
We ended the first day in the sea of Cortez with a night dive at los Islotes. Great spot to see a lot of stuff coming out at night you would never see at day here. Like the seaslug the sea hare , up to a foot long and having a strange behaviour to stick its head in the but of an other sea hare…The biggest sea hare can get are up to 14 kg!! Even if ours here had just gets up to a kg. The arch gets full of yellow cup corals that blooms and make the walls golden.
Our second day we did two dives at Los islotes, we let our Rebreather divers have the possibilities here to make 3 hour dive if they wanted. It is a good place to do so, as it is easier to have control watching over the divesite.
Sealions and fish, big groupers in shallow waters. Viz was not the best though.
As a lat dive we steamed down to La Reina and had a bunch of sealions playing around. A lot of male youngsters now days in the spring that have been chased away from Los Islotes by the the bigger bulls. A little surprice was to see a orange seahorse hanging hard on a barnacle in a sweeping current.
A nice dive to end the trip with. Actually we had some of our guests that said that the best dive of the trip was the first dive and the last dive.
Surface conditions: Sunny , flat water. 30 C
Underwater conditions: all from 21-25 C 72-76F Calm water except La Reina that was a bit “windy”
Dive guide Sten
Return to the Sea of Cortez for some really nice diving brings back memories – dive guide log – 14 MAY 2010
