October 16 - 21st
Live now! Marlin and Mexico sardine run! ➞
Lets go to Mag Bay!
Approaching Isla Margarita
All blogs from Nautilus. Get inspired before your trip.
One group of guests came especially prepared for New Year’s with everyone bringing dinner gowns to wear underwater.
Read MoreOver the last 4 years of operating around Socorro/Revillagigedos Islands, we have had the occasional problem with giant mantas swimming into descent, ascent and anchor lines. This is obviously upsetting to us so today I implemented my idea for a “manta rope.” We took a length of 3/4″ bright yellow 3 strand anchor line and spliced short chunks of horizontal streamers of yellow, blue and green rope into it. The idea being that the descent/ascent/anchor line will be so brightly coloured and “big” that the mantas can’t help but see it. In a perfect world, our highly intelligent manta friends may even be so fascinated by the manta rope that they will want to swoop, loop and fly around “their” rope. Fingers crossed.
Read MoreOn a different note, our great thanks to the Mexican Navy for their help today. One of our guests started feeling ill last night and was diagnosed this morning with acute pancreatitis – which is extremely serious and potentially life threatening. A number of evacuation options were considered including a chopper medivac flight right to the boat, which is possible because the Nautilus Explorer has a rated helicopter deck. No options are easy or simple on a small ship anchored in the lee of a volcano, 250 miles out into the open Pacific ocean.
Read MoreWe are at sea today enroute from Cabo San Lucas/San Jose del Cabo to San Benedicto Island with the roughest weather we have seen this season. There was a big honking storm with humongous seas off the Oregon/California coast a couple of days ago and we are getting the residual wave train of 7 to 8 feet on a fairly long period. The ride on the good ‘ol Nautilus Explorer isn’t bad but we are getting the occasional haystack where the energy of waves from different directions converges and literally piles up into a column of water, as well as potholes where the opposite happens and you get a deep trough.
Read MoreCheck out this slideshow of guest and crew pictures from our trip to the Sea of Cortez in early November 2007
Read MoreSince the discovery of an illegal fishing net draped across a reef at southwest Benedicto wall, there has been some heated and emotional discussions onboard the Nautilus Explorer regarding the abhorrent practice of shark finning, shark fin soup and the whole issue of illegal fishing – especially in a protected biosphere reserve such as Socorro/Revillagigedos. These are huge issues and there are no easy answers.
Read MoreMy last dive today was even more special. We were hanging off the north end of Roca Partida in the shallows with 10 or so divers below us and their bubbles streaming to the surface. The positioning of the divers was such that the bubbles looked like vertical curtains with a passageway between them. I was busy admiring this when a giant manta swooped in beside me and flew straight down the alleyway, twisting and turning around the veil of bubbles. It was beautiful. And then he turned around and did the whole thing over again leaving no question in my mind that this intelligent animal was clearly and deliberately playing in the divers’ bubbles.
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