I recently noticed that the highest pinnacle at the north end of the ridge sticks up into the current and seems to be somewhat of a “magnet” for giant manta rays – I suspect that it is a cleaning station for mantas. So I dubbed it “manta rock,” and have been encouraging our guests to hang out there as well as the other cleaning station. Everyone has been having very good luck finding giant manta rays there.
Read Moreow! Yet another flat calm day on the open ocean. We’re on our way back to San Benedicto Island after turning the ship around, and it’s even calmer than our last trip. It was rougher in Cabo San Lucas harbour with all the pangas, dive skiffs and jet skis flitting around than it is out here!
Read MoreHad a great run from Roca Partida straight back to Cabo San Lucas. Sometimes it is a rough crossing with 6 – 8ft seas. Most of the time it is pretty nice, with the ship gently pitching up and down and an easy roll from side to side. And sometimes it is flat calm. This crossing was so calm that it was as if we were already tied up to the dock!
Read MoreDave reports that the divers saw 7 silver tip sharks between 5 and 7 feet in length circling at the north end of Roca Partida, along with at least 10 silky sharks and some good-sized Galapagos and hammerhead sharks. One interesting note is that one small silvertip shark apparently chased away 4 larger silky sharks (4 – 5 feet in length) that were hanging around a tag line hanging off the back of the Nautilus Explorer. Not sure on the dominance behaviour of silky and silvertip sharks, but that strikes me as highly irregular behaviour.
Read MoreWe have never seen so many yellowfin tuna in one place. They all seem to be 100 pounds or more, which is a very big tuna! The action got especially hot off the back of the Nautilus Explorer yesterday afternoon as the tuna and wahoo literally exploded out of the water in giant leaps as they chased down their prey. It is quite something to see a 100-pound tuna jump out of the water 200 feet away from the ship.
Read MoreIt was a sunny, hot and cloudless day. The visibility was great, we could hear the humpback whales singing underwater, dolphins were interacting with us, we saw lots of really cute juvenile silky sharks as well as white tip reef sharks hiding in caves in the coral gardens, turtles, loads of fish, aggressive Socorro lobsters, schooling wahoo and, of course, giant manta rays.
Read MoreWe dove the same site 2 hours later and there was virtually no current, beautiful blue water and a couple of curious mantas circling around as well as 4 bottlenose dolphins pressing their noses on the descent line acting as if they were puppies resting their chins on the edge of a table. The dolphins were squeaking away and laying their heads sideways to look at the divers. Totally amazing.
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