After two days and 8 spectacular dives at San Benedicto, we still had not had our fill of seeing the glorious undersea creatures. Generally, check dives tend to be boring but it was not so in Revillagigedo! Every moment is filled with wonder and excitement.
We had barely touched the water when we saw the first sharks but strangely, they do not impress our dive guide at all! And over the next few dives, I understood why. They are so used to seeing sharks around them that they have sort of got used to them. Sharks were everywhere on every dive! And to top it all the first gigantic manta comes by to give us a look over.
For us divers, the first two days of the Liveaboard exceeded our wildest expectations in more ways than one. Day one was for mantas, these wonderful sea animals were everywhere around us. We also saw at least 6 or 7 hammerheads, silky, and Galapagos sharks.
The entire crew has been wonderful and accommodating and I have especially liked their educational presentations. Everyone is very excited for what is to come the rest of the trip. After all, it is the first two days only and we have already got such a treat from Mother Nature.
A Massive Tuna Wall at El Boiler
El Boiler really mesmerized us with its diversity of sea animals. Giant mantas were stuck on the huge vertical walls of the cleaning station and six of them kept circling us over and over again. Then came a dozen Hammerheads lazily swimming by us.
But what happened next was straight out of wildlife movies that we see from the comfort of our living rooms. It was two massive schools of yellowfin tuna passing by that blew my mind. Imagine a four-story building made of fish, big, glossy, fish with a shine like steel, darting by us almost within handshaking distance. I was so hypnotized by the scene before my eyes that I hardly paid attention to the redtail triggers, Clarion angels, lobsters, moray eels, horse-eye jacks, and massive parrotfish that also floated around us.
Amazing Experience at El Canon
Sharks, Sharks, and sharks everywhere, that was the amazing experience we had at El Canon, not to forget the occasional mantas that turned up to entertain us.
We started with the cleaning station where we had close encounters with the magnificent creatures. On every dive, different varieties of sharks showed up, first hammerheads, then silver tips, and on the last dive a large group of big Galapagos sharks. But we have also seen a huge black manta at very close range, the biggest so far. I’m excited about tomorrow, what would it take to top the first two days I wonder. Here I would especially like to thank our guides Pablo and Dan for the wonderful adventure.
Today has been another great day of diving off El Canon. The cleaning station was slow at the beginning, but we were patiently waiting for the animals to show up and our reward was sharks! We had eight massive silvertip sharks, circling the cleaning station. What a good-looking fish! The hefty Galapagos sharks that slid into their group made the elegant white markings of the Silvertips even more beautiful.
I also saw a new behavior from the rainbow runners as a school of them, each at least half a meter long, brushed against the Silvertips to scrape the parasites off their skin. Wow! And the icing on the cake was a lovely chevron manta that decided to swim next to us as we hung out for our safety stop.
El Canon gave us some excellent dives today. Silver tips, Hammerheads, Galapagos, Blacktip, and Mantas, you name it, we have seen it. It has been an incredible experience for us.
Tomorrow, we start for Socorro Island.
