I Have Accumulated more than 10,000 Dives in 35 Years of Diving and I’ve Been a Dive Guide on the Nautilus Explorer since 2004. Crew blog. 06 DEC 2010.

I hope you enjoy this video of a giant manta swimming and interacting with some of our guests at The Boiler on San Benedicto Island.  This is the only place in the world where I have seen this kind of behavior. My name is Pedro Cervantes, I’m a diving Instructor, and I will talk a little bit about me. I’m from Mazatlan, a port city on the mainland at the same latitude as the tip of the Baja. I have lived in Baja for the last 18 years.

For 4 years I studied at the marine science university and I started scuba diving at an age of 11 years  (1975). All my life I have been working as a buzo (diver).
In 1986 I studied  commercial diving in Oakland CA USA and after I worked in many branches of commercial diving. From oil-rig diving (for Pemex a Mexican oil company and oil British), to ship salvage, to harvesting scallops and lobster. I’ve been an instructor for 15 years,  worked as a diveshop manager and used to own a diveshop called “Sr. Diver” in San Jose de Cabo. I’ve also been  a support diver at 330 feet for Francisco Ferreras (Pipin) who holds the world wide free diving record (1996/1997). I have accumulated more than 10,000 plus dives in 35 years of diving of which 28 years were as a working diver. Not only with scuba equipment but also with umbilical diving including 17 different types of Mask and helmets and a closed circuit rebreather.
I’m now the dive guide of the Nautilus Explorer. I have worked at NE since it first came to Baja in 2004. Since than I’ve been hooked, I always wanted to explore the marine nature of my country at the extreme. And that is what I found working on Nautilus Explorer. It has given to me the experience of doing many trips during those years .
That means, STEN (Divemaster leader, better known as the Viking, from Sweden and a dive guide partner in NE adventure)  and I have been accumulating approximately 1500 dives each in the Socorro Islands and Guadalupe Island area, giving us experience and knowledge of animal behavior, on weather conditions etc. that can be reflected in our guest service, for safe diving condition judgment, and spectacular encounters with the wild marine life of these areas.  Without mentioning the multicultural experience from guests and crew from all over the world.
With modesty, we are not the only dive guides in the area, but we are the most experienced. My only problem is that I have become addicted to this work.  My fellow crew on the Nautilus feel like my second family now.
Divemaster Pedro