We love diving Socorro, especially in the spring and early summer. Socorro is always stunning, raw, and primal, offering fantastic diving experiences known for the super-friendly and interactive giant mantas. With 11 different species of sharks and playful bottlenose dolphins trying to outdo the mantas to see who can be the most playful with scuba divers. Despite being only 235 nautical miles from Cabo, it feels like being deep in the Pacific to a remote and unvisited paradise. You almost expect to see Game of Thrones dragons soaring out from behind the active volcano on Socorro. The archipelago is a UNESCO World Heritage Site and a tightly guarded national park, accessible only to a limited number of permit holders.
What makes May and June our favourite dive season of the year is the abundance of animals. This is when we encounter loads of sharks, often on every dive, including schooling hammerheads and schooling silver tip sharks (not a misprint!), silkies and Galapagos sharks are very common as are white tip reef sharks stacked up like firewood as always at Roca Partida. Swimming through vast schools of thousands of jacks is amazing. This is the time of year when we see bait balls, pilot whales, and pelagic species, including giant tuna visit. There is more biomass, more fish, more animals and more life than at any other time of year.
And, of course, there are the mantas. Nowhere else in the world boasts a population of giant oceanic mantas (Mobula birostris) that literally seek interaction with scuba divers and snorkelers. It is extraordinary. We have been running dive trips to Socorro since 1978, and these friendly giants have never ceased to amaze us. It is incredible when the sun is blotted out as a manta hovers directly above you. It might sound nutty, but we firmly believe that if you have an open heart and feel kindly to these gentle giants, they will respond, looking you directly in the eye and if they like what they see, seek out interaction. And that alone is reason enough to get out to Socorro as soon as you can.
