All blogs from Nautilus. Get inspired before your trip.
Sten reported that they started the trip off with a visit to Los Islotes and the resident population of California sea lion pups. The scuba divers let the sea lions chew on their fins, their wetsuits and one diver was even “kissed” on the mouth. The last dive of the day was on the wreck of the Fang Min – a Chinese fishing boat that was caught fishing illegally in Mexican waters, confiscated and then sunk as an artificial reef on November 17, 1999.
Read MoreDivemaster Sten reports that today turned out to be a sad but excellent good-bye to Socorro/Revillagigedo Islands. El Canyon dive site was pretty quiet but the divers luck came at The Boiler with a last ballet of 6 giant mantas. In Sten’s words it was an “interaction with curious mantas who would not leave us alone and gave us so much that we had giant manta rays sticking out of our ears!!” Well said!
Read MoreSten estimates that there were more than 50 dolphins interacting with the divers. I would have loved to have seen that. Oh yeah, Sten also reports that they saw a big tiger shark in 20 metres of water, a number of hammerhead sharks and a couple of mantas as well as all the regular fish commonly seen at Socorro Island. Sounds like an incredible day!!
Read MoreWe consider Roca Partida to be the crown jewel of diving Socorro/Revillaigedos but by the very nature of Big Animal diving, it’s not always going to be super hot. Current scientific thinking is that the local population of giant manta rays actually traverse a 1200 km route that takes them by San Benedicto Island, Socorro Island, Roca Partida and then up and across to the west side of Baja California before looping south again.
Read MoreDivemaster Sten (affectionately known as Vikingo) reports that the warmup dives at the divesite El Canyon at San Benedicto Island were pretty quiet without much life. Sten and Captain Dave decided to move around to the tiny submerged pinnacle on the west side of San Benedicto known as The Boiler and found that the diving was on fire with 3 black mantas, a dolphin and even a hammerhead shark coming in to check out our divers.
Read MoreWe saw five whale sharks at El Mogote and our two local pangas were busy dropping off and picking up our divers. A 6 metre whale shark stopped to feed and positioned itself vertically in the water, completely indifferent to our snorkellers. This provided a great opportunity for photos and videos. Pelicans reportedly dive bombed the bait fish that the whale shark was feeding on and thousands of the fish ended up hiding in the exhaust bubbles from the underwater main engine exhaust of the Nautilus.
Read MoreSo, over 200 identified Socorro mantas now with lots of resightings and many thanks to everybody who sent manta images and video in to Bob and Karey over the summer. Karey made one especially interesting comment to me that she was able to positively identify several animals a day or two apart at different islands from images taken by our guests. One wonders if the mantas preceded the Nautilus Explorer or followed us??
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