Giant Mantas and a Whale Shark at Roca Partida

By on December 14th, 2007 in Archive, Captain Mike, Socorro

My 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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The Boiler is on Fire with Mantas and Dolphins!

By on December 4th, 2007 in Archive, Socorro

The Boiler site was on fire again! This time we heard dolphins but did not see them. The giant manta rays were with us again! Doing their beautiful dances and seeking eye to eye contact with each one of us (I believe anyways). They were so close that you can see their pupils. It feels like a real, personal, encounter in these moments. Photos and filming of mantas was hot! It is a bit amusing to see when the memory card on the scuba divers’ cameras got full and they would start to delete pictures to make room for more. Everybody came up with big smiles on their lips and everyone had their own private story how these giant manta rays have been coming up and curiously been checking you out, eye to eye. Even on our twilight dive they accompanied us like giant black flying ghosts in the dusk.

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Great Hammerhead Shark??

By on December 3rd, 2007 in Archive

Divemaster Sten reports that the swell made it impossible to stage scuba dives at The Boiler but that did not matter as they found giant mantas at El Canyon. They also got the Hammerhead sharks going in circles. Some thought one shark was a great hammerhead shark as it was 12 feet long  (and passed very close by the divers)!! Sten and divemaster Tricia confirmed that it was just a very large scalloped hammerhead shark however. An unusual sighting was when on a surface period a pod of False Killer whales passed by.

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Full Inspection at the Navy Base on Socorro Island

By on December 1st, 2007 in Archive, Socorro

A couple of Hammerheads and two curious mantas came by the ascent line. Our third dive of the day was a so called “washing machine” dive. Lets just say that some did not appreciate it so much and others had fun playing with the current, finding the slacks and using it to their favor. Not easy with current. But learning it and reading it you can find a lot of benefits with considerably more activity in marine life.  Last dive in the day we went inside and had a bit of meditation dive. The biggest surprise of all was the unafraid lobsters we found in every little crack.

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Giant Manta Rays Show Up in Force at San Benedicto Island

By on November 21st, 2007 in Archive, Captain Mike, Socorro

Divemaster 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! 

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Leaving a time capsule behind on Clipperton Island

By on April 22nd, 2007 in Archive, Captain Mike

None of us are ever going to forget the 1/2 million booby birds (and their incredibly cute chicks) that we saw, the 5 million bright orange land crabs, the amazing number of moray eels and their bizarre behaviour, the thick “clouds” of black and big-eye jacks, heavy schools of black triggerfish and rainbow runners, the endemic iridescent blue Clipperton angelfish and the coconut groves, white sand beaches and beautiful setting.

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Ascend into a Giant Manta Ray

By on April 2nd, 2007 in Archive, Captain Mike, Socorro

I think that we sometimes forget the basics of our scuba diving training ie. before ascending always look up, reach up, go up. One of our guests forgot all this on one of his morning dives and was surprised as heck to ascend right into a giant manta ray that was hovering above him. The diver had no idea the manta was there and had the surprise of his life when he bumped head first into 4000 lbs of manta!

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