Location: Leather Bass Alley Weather: Clouded Skies, NE Wind (8kts), Calm seas The day is cloudy we even had some drizzle this morning, the sun is trying to make its way thru but clouds are just too thick, our check out dive was conducted at the leather bass alley from the back deck, some guests […]
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I worked with giant manta identification to differentiate each individual, and thus evaluate their population. This helps to obtain important information including how many individuals are in the biosphere reserve, how many mantas are present every season and if there are new mantas every season. It also includes which islands attract more mantas, how many females and males are there, and how the mantas move between the islands.
Read MoreI 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!
Read MoreThe giant manta rays were too playful and interactive at the Canyon today. Seriously. Our last dive day turned out to be fabulous, and one of the best days of the trip. The big animal diving at Socorro Island and San Benedicto Island can be wildly variable and while the Canyon was very quiet at the start of this trip, it was smoking hot today. A large school of hammerhead sharks (we estimate at least 100 animals) swam past the cleaning station with 20 or so of the sharks very close to our divers. Some of our divers were only half joking when they surfaced and complained that the overfriendly mantas wouldn’t get out of the way and allow the divers to get unobstructed photos of the hammerhead sharks!
Read MoreI 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.
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