Just to top things off, four giant manta rays came into to the rock and spent “quality time” with our divers, gliding by close enough to touch. Interestingly, there were very few silky sharks, and divemasters Sten, Tricia and A.J. speculate that the silkies may have been intimidated by all the other sharks. Diving the Revillagigedos (Socorro Island) is not always hot but man, when it’s on, it is RED HOT DIVING!!
Read MoreA group of guests also went out in a skiff to get a closer look at four adult humpback whales and one juvenile and were rewarded with 15 minutes of dramatic tail lobs (smacking their tails on the ocean surface). While tail lobs can be a “back off” message directed at humans, or a “let’s get together guys and stay close,” it seemed much more likely that there was some male to male competitive behaviour going on here. ‘Tis the season at Socorro Island for humpback whales to mate and breed!!
Read MoreHighlights 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 MoreDivers 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 MoreVisibility was variable at the outer cleaning station, but we had good sightings of 4 different mantas, schools of tuna, a couple of inquisitive Galapagos and silky sharks, and small schools of scalloped hammerheads as well as 1 possible sighting of a 12 foot long great hammerhead.
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.
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