By this point on the trip, some of us were feeling a little bit tired. Not tired of the diving but because it was the last dive of the trip and so, we were contemplating sitting it out to rest . That being said, we knew that Roca Partida is a field station for big fish and I didn’t want to miss out on something spectacular and in return, I was repaid with a fantastic dive that I’m glad I didn’t miss.
Having had the opportunity to see the shy and elusive scalloped hammerhead sharks at various dive sites during our trip, I never managed to get close enough to get a really good look at their features and on this dive, I was finally given the chance to see them up close. At about 30 minutes into the dive, we were all pretty happy. The sun was out and we had been swimming through massive schools of big-eyed jacks, black jacks and tuna. We also had silky sharks, silvertip sharks, Galapagos sharks and then, out of the blue, came a small hammerhead shark and behind him was his big mother. Presumably making sure he was safe. The juvenile was so curious about us that he hung around for about ten minutes; both above and below us swimming in and out of view.
At one point, I noticed we were only 15 meters deep and we were all comfortable just hanging with our new friends. It was an epic end to an awesome day or so we thought… no sooner had we all piled into the skiff to head back to the main boat, we were treated to a silvertip shark breaching immediately in front of the skiff. Such an amazing dive! Thanks to the Nautilus divemaster crew: Pablo, Ivan, Ray and Mario for keeping us safe underwater and the lovely crew on the boat for keeping us comfortable on the Nautilus Explorer.
- Jose Fernandez, Panama onboard the Nautilus Explorer
