Roca saved the best for last with a 12 metre whale shark, along with a manta in one of the dives. Simply unbelievable. When we turned around the corner, schools of Galapagos was covering the bottom blue of Roca Partida!
Read MorePunta Tosca on dive day 4 was also surprisingly quiet and the visibility was low so after 2 dives at the outer point we decided to move the Nautilus up a couple of bays and try a new site. A series of small rocks sticking out of the water with a sheer drop to 120 feet on one side and shallower bays on the other. It proved to be fascinating and several guests saw sea turtles and a “fly by” with a giant manta. Definitely a site that we will repeat but once again the “charismatic megafauna” was elusive.
Read MoreWe anchored so that we could swim to the dive site, and with no current and very little waves, we had an open deck for the day so guests were free to dive whenever they felt like. Between dives, a lot of guests chose to accompany Marco, our chief mate, on a tour of the shoreline to see the arches and pinnacles and whale watch. From the Nautilus we watched a young humpback whale leap multiple times out of the water followed by an adult humpback breaching creating some wonderful photographic opportunities.
Read MoreOver the years, we have seen that the manta rays at San Benedicto seem to like to interact with scuba divers, coming back and making eye contact and as divemasters we have felt that they will always single us out and make a close pass as if they recognize us. There are three models/freedivers on this trip who have been diving down and swimming with the giant manta rays and one of them has definitely been singled out by two of the mantas that we encountered. Every time she dives down the mantas will turn into her and circle around her and get very close. The other two divers, one male and one female, are getting are far less interest from the mantas. Hmmm…
Read MoreOur first priority was to remove the fishing net that was caught on the Boiler and had been found on our last trip. The crew of the Solmar V had done a good job of removing a large part of the net which made our job a lot easier. As we were finishing up a pod of dolphin and two mantas showed up. We like to think that they were thanking us for our work. The first day of the photo shoot was auspicious. Two giant mantas chose to interact with us, one kept coming back to the camera and the divers, turning and swimming loops around us as the film team and freedivers got used to the conditions and the interaction.
Read MoreThe scuba diving at Roca Partida was red hot today. Not sure what else I can say! The seas were calm. Everyone saw giant manta rays (as advertised, we are quite sure that these are the “friendliest” mantas in the world), loads of sharks and large schools of fish with everything set to the music of humpback whales singing in the distance.
Read MoreThis trip has been one of the lightest on giant mantas that this divemaster can remember. But fortunately (and none too soon!) we had a stellar eleventh hour appearance from three giant, friendly, photogenic mantas at our last dive site, The Boiler, at Isla San Benedicto.
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