Today we had another great day of diving in the Sea of Cortés! It may have been a bit chilly down deep and visibility might not be the 100ft plus like in Socorro but it is still great diving! I only did two of the four dives today but I still managed to see several species of nudibranch, mainly Nembrotha varieties, huge leopard groupers, massive schools of Cortez chub and Razor surgeonfish. But the highlights had to be up close and personal encounters with sea lions and a school of 30-40 mobula rays right above my head! This is the biggest school I have ever seen in 10 years diving and I hope there will be more schools to see later in the trip! We also saw countless Mobula breach today and even some hunting right next to the Belle Amie also! Not to mention a couple of pods of dolphins swimming past throughout the day!
–DM Martyn
Today, on the second day of diving, we did our first dive at the dive site “Isla del Carmen” in Punta Lobos, looking for sea lions but with no luck. We did have a nice dive finding little creatures like nudibranchs, octopus, scorpion fish, and lots of sea life. The visibility wasn’t too good, around 6 feet and 23˚C. From there we moved to Isla Coronado, looking for the sea lions, and we found a small colony. On the first dive they didn’t get in the water to play, but at the second dive they did, although a big male was taking care of them, swimming really close to us. The water temperature at the bottom was 17˚C and 23˚C at the surface. We found lots of life underwater, and in the last dive, a group of divers got lucky with a school of mobula rays, that did a few oases on top of them. Even with the storm Bud affecting our trip to Revillagigedo, the good thing about the Sea of Cortés is that there is a lot of life underwater and you never know what is going to show up…
–DM Peter
