As we ascended to our safety stops, riding in the mild surge, finally there they were! Two mantas, one black, one chevron, stayed with us on the last 5 minutes of our first dive, and every diver was making the most of their air to stay with these wonderful creatures.
Read MoreTo our great fortune, we were greeted almost immediately by a pair of chevron giant manta rays! They stayed with us the entire day, waiting patiently under the Nautilus until we re-entered the water, and graced us with some intimate interaction and eye-to-eye contact. The mantas may have dominated the centre stage at The Canyon, but that’s not to say that other pelagic animals didn’t get their time in the limelight, as we were also treated to a couple of close passes by a school of hammerhead sharks, and had some excellent sightings of a small group of silvertip sharks.
Read MoreFinally we went to a new site on the north east side of San Benedicto and found some interesting rock formations with lots of reef life and what appeared to be a moray eel the colour of a Clarion Angelfish. Definitely a place for further investigation. On the run home we came up with a list of possible names for the newly explored sites including Whale Sound, Booby Prize, The Act of Waiting on a Rock and Watching Barnacles although none have been adopted at this time. Maybe a few more dives on the sites will bring out the personality of the sites and the names will become obvious.
Read MoreThen off to Socorro to check in with the Mexican navy and dive Punta Tosca with the manta, tiger and hammerhead sharks on dive day 2 followed by Cabo Pearce on dive day 3. Our first dive at Cabo Pearce had great visibility and almost no current. It was a relaxing dive with a few sightings of dolphins and sharks off the outer point along with a group of Barberfish patiently waiting for something to clean. At times they even moved over to the scuba divers to see if they needed a clean.
Read MoreThe upside of this cooling is that the larger oceanic sharks start appearing. We saw a group of 6 silvertip sharks and 4 galapagos sharks patrolling “fish alley” where the large schools of jacks and bonitos hang out. There seems to be a hierarchy in the shark world whereby silkys are displaced by galapagos which in turn are displaced by silvertips.
Read MoreOn the trip out to the last dive guests were treated to the sight of a manta feeding on the surface at the dive site. We observed two separate incidents of interesting shark behaviour during the day.
Read MoreOver the last 4 years of operating around Socorro/Revillagigedos Islands, we have had the occasional problem with giant mantas swimming into descent, ascent and anchor lines. This is obviously upsetting to us so today I implemented my idea for a “manta rope.” We took a length of 3/4″ bright yellow 3 strand anchor line and spliced short chunks of horizontal streamers of yellow, blue and green rope into it. The idea being that the descent/ascent/anchor line will be so brightly coloured and “big” that the mantas can’t help but see it. In a perfect world, our highly intelligent manta friends may even be so fascinated by the manta rope that they will want to swoop, loop and fly around “their” rope. Fingers crossed.
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