On several mornings of my nine day trip on the Nautilus Explorer, I watched the sun rise over islas Socorro, San Cristobal, and Roca Partida with cup of coffee in hand, always freshly brewed. Normally, these moments of peace, beauty, and caffeine would be the highlights of my trip, but the dramatic cliffs and rock formations of these islands could not compare to what lay below. Five consistently fantastic days of diving later and steaming back towards Cabo on our at sea day, I skip my morning coffee and try to save the memories of the wonders I’ve seen to the mental hard drive despite minimal risk of forgetting the special sights I’ve seen here in the Revillagigedo Archipelago. I think about the wall of hammerhead sharks, a reef shark nursery nestled in an underwater landslide, and the curious manta that gracefully maneuvered its giant body through our dive group to check each of us out individually.
While I was the least experienced diver on the boat, there wasn’t any sense of jadedness among the other divers at what we beheld. Even the divemasters would sing through their regulators when the dolphins came to play around us closely followed by a giant manta ray and drop their cool as a sea cucumber demeanor to gesticulate excitedly when a tiger shark came skulking out of the blue, indifferent to our bubbles and shark dances. With no more dives ahead, now what I look forward to is annoying friends and loved ones with my many stories of the walls of hammerhead sharks, manta ray cleaning stations, and the joyful assortment of fellow guests and crewmembers. This was my first liveaboard trip, and this will not be my last. My main worry now is that I am spoiled for future dive trips. Pro-tip: the biggest problem of the trip was being fed too much good food, so don’t overpack on snacks like I did.
Madson
