We have a full boat on this trip with 32 divers coming to Revillagigedo. The first two dive sites that we visited on San Benedicto island were Fondeadero and Canon. And what a day, we saw Hammerheads, Silvertips, Dusky, and Whitetips not to speak of black and chevron mantas swimming around at a handshaking distance.
Tomorrow we are diving off Socorro Island but first tonight – it’s party time and Taco night!
Diving off Socorro Island
Diving off Socorro Island was a surreal experience. Let’s check out the diving experiences individually.
El Canyon
It was a fantastic encounter with Galapagos and Silvertips sharks with a bunch of Hammerheads around the cleaning station.
Punta Tosca
In the western area, we found 2 Chevron Mantas but more was in store for us when we surfaced. A pod of bottlenose dolphins showed up and stayed with us for quite a long time. One of them was very playful and tried to nudge each diver very gently. It was a great show by them and we enjoyed the act thoroughly.
Cabo Pearce
It was the perfect place to find black and chevron mantas, and there were plenty of them within the cleaning station at 18 m. The current was moderate to strong and it was a great diving day. At the north in a protected wall and flowing with the current, we saw a beautiful black manta swimming from the blue to the wall and it was soon joined by another black manta. Spectacular.
Roca Partida
The ever-enchanting Roca Partida was amazing as always. But one incident deserves special mention.
A beautiful baby whale shark showed up at the southwestern wall at around 74 ft /23 M. It was swimming and moving shallower each time. At about 50 ft/15 m, a couple of big, and fat Galapagos sharks appeared and they and the whale shark came in contact and scratched their skins against each other. The whale shark then turned the corner at the South, came back to the southwest, and passed the divers for one last time before disappearing into the blue.
The Boiler
We headed back to San Benedicto and El Canyon, having had our fill of a couple of big tiger sharks and Hammerheads. Our next stop was the Boiler, an amazing place to interact with the Pacific Giant Manta. Even though the manta activity was comparatively slow, the beautiful sea creatures did not disappoint us. We found amazing Mantas at the stern cleaning station, 3 beautiful black specimens, and on the last dive saw a wonderful black manta in the west! They were constantly coming back to circle our bubbles. I still can’t believe how friendly these mantas are in this area.
The water temperature was 75 to 77 F and visibility was about 80 ft/24 m – the ideal diving environment.
See you soon!!
Summing up – First 2 dive days of the trip
Looking back on the first two days of diving on this trip, we have had some awesome dives so far. We started at a site called Fondeadero yesterday for the warmup dive. Always a great way to get divers comfortable and weighed properly. A lot of divers are not used to the thicker wetsuits and it takes a little time to get used to them. Fondeadero is a great place to go through these preliminaries. After that, it was shark time at the Canyon where hordes of them were seen throughout the day.
Let’s see what tomorrow brings us. Stay tuned.
