Today was our first day of diving aboard the Belle Amie, a luxurious liveaboard owned by Nautilus! We did our first dive at El Fondeadero, which was our checkout dive. Immediately after putting my face in the water, we were visited by a silky shark and then a quick pass by a bottlenose dolphin. Once we got to the bottom, our dive guide, Yann, pointed out a torpedo ray. Then the action started. We had three very close passes with the well known giant manta rays. They passed right over my head, within touching distance. Then two more bottlenose dolphins visited every diver in the group, as if they were robotic dolphins owned by Nautilus! I filmed whitetip sharks, Galapagos sharks, scalloped hammerheads and silvertip sharks. We spent the next three dives at El Cañon, where we visited Manta Rock and the cleaning station. Every dive produced many giant manta rays and a multitude of sharks as well as a diversity of species.
While the diving was spectacular, to me the incredible vessel and the spectacular crew really made this day truly amazing! Having traveled all over the world, I can easily say this is definitely a world class operation in every way. Every single member of the staff is always smiling, very helpful and attentive to our every need. I cannot think of how it could have been made better in any way!
- Jim Abernethy, Florida, USA onboard the Nautilus Belle Amie
