San Benedicto Island giant mantas interacting with divers

The magic of Socorro Island is that these resident mantas actually choose to approach divers on their own terms. We’ve always felt that there must be “something” in the water around Socorro, as a number of resident animals choose to approach and even initiate physical contact with divers. Not just the manta rays but dolphins, Lumpy our favourite leather bass, and even some of the Socorro lobster.

Read More

Amazingly loud humpback whale song

Captain Dave reports that humpback whales were singing so loudly today that guests could hear the song inside the lower deck staterooms on the Nautilus Explorer!!! It was quite something for our guests while on their dive. In-water visibility was down on the east side of Socorro Island, with lots of phytoplankton in the water column. While this made it hard to spot big pelagic animals off the outer cleaning station at Cabo Pearce, the guests were rewarded with a great show of feeding behaviour by the giant manta rays. 

Read More

Giant manta ray migratory route

Highlights included a huge bait ball of skipjacks being hunted by silky sharks and 100-pound yellowfin tuna, a group of five hammerhead sharks that approached within 40 feet of the divers and a blue water drift dive looking for pelagics. All the usual Roca Partida critters were present, including over 30 white tip reef sharks, silky and Galapagos sharks and some curious wahoo.

Read More

Interesting bottlenose dolphin behaviour at Socorro Island

Divers saw the usual complement of electric rays, Socorro lobster, silky, Galapagos and hammerhead sharks, but their most spectacular encounter was with a single bottlenose dolphin who adopted the divers. We’ve been seeing similar behaviour from the dolphins all winter, where they hang out and literally imitate the divers. If a diver hangs on to the ascent line, the dolphin will rest the underside of his head on the line. If a diver blows bubbles, the dolphins will blow bubbles. If a diver does a 360-degree roll, the dolphin will do a full roll (well actually, they tend to be somewhat playful and will often do a 720-degree roll or even a triple barrel roll).

Read More

Easy passage from San Jose del Cabo to San Benedicto Island

The Canyon came through with good diving with giant manta rays, white tip reef sharks, juvenile silvertip sharks and a small school of hammerhead sharks. A couple of humpback whales came close by the boat, but weren’t in the mood to interact with the divers.

Read More

Rebounding shark population at Clipperton Island

We are all VERY excited about journeying down to Clipperton on the first ever non-scientific diving trip there. I recently had a nice chat with the Captain of the San Diego-based Royal Star when he was in the Revillagigedos and he mentioned that the shark population at Clipperton Island is rebounding nicely after being decimated by illegal longline fishermen in 1998  –  so our fingers are tightly crossed on that one.

Read More

Rough crossing from Socorro Island

Most of our crossings to and from Socorro Island are pretty good. It’s unusual to have an uncomfortable crossing. Last night started out silky smooth with a remarkably low swell. Unfortunately, the winds picked up around 0300 and we now have a very short, steep sea which is very odd for the open ocean.

Read More