We have just wrapped our 3rd day of diving at Roca Partida and our 5th of this 9 day expedition to the Islas Revillagigedo, commonly known as the Socorro Islands. Tonight we will run the 75 nautical miles back to the gentle giant manta rays of Isla San Benedicto for our last day of diving.
Roca Partida is the guano covered tip of a 10,000 ft underwater volcanic mountain, with only about 120′ showing above the ocean’s surface. With nothing else but this exposed rock around for more than 60 miles and more than 250 nautical miles from mainland Mexico, this is true open ocean diving. We have been blessed these past 3 days with almost perfect weather for diving this weather beaten rock in the middle of nowhere. The sun has been shining, with a light breeze and a long gentle swell rolling by under us for the duration of our stay here.
The best way to describe the diving for the past 3 days is “sharky”. Galapagos, silkies, silver-tips, hammerheads, white-tips and even a whaleshark today for a couple lucky guests. On most dives groups of 6-12 galapagos and/or silver-tips could be seen cruising the wall, with scattered hammerheads making random appearances here and there. On our second dive today our DM and his 5 guests encountered a big school of around 50 hammerheads. The whaleshark encounter was on that same dive, and the pictures show a great close-up encounter with a roughly 9 meter adult. We also had a couple good dives with a pod of bottlenose dolphins and had some of the biggest yellow-fin tuna you’ll see anywhere cruising by us on a couple of the late afternoon dives. Huge schools of cotton-mouth, big-eyed and black Jacks are almost always either in sight or right around the corner. The water clarity was great this week, with 100 ft plus of clear blue visibility on most dives. Tomorrow my plan is to smother all our guests with more giant manta lovin’ at the Boiler, which has been the prime spot for great manta interaction for the past few weeks. Gotta run, steak time!
Captain Gordon Kipp
Surface conditions: light winds, sunny sky, air temp 21-27C (70-80F)
Diving conditions: viz 100 ft plus with occasional periods of lower viz, water temp 21-23C (70-73F), current moderate to strong at times.
Best way to describe the diving is sharky… gotta run, steak time!! Socorro, Mexico. May 22, 2012.
