Silky Sharks Swimming in the Moonlight

By on November 29th, 2007 in Archive, Socorro

Two whale sharks. One was the size of a bus! 45 – 50 feet long and a little brother of maybe 21 feet. We also got visitedby giant manta rays. It was a good start and we had the whale sharks around the rock for the rest of the day. We also saw whitetip reef sharks of course but just a few Galapagos and silvertip sharks – likely because of the relatively warm water?! A good day. At night with no moon we were surrounded by about a 50 silky sharks chasing flying fish in the floodlights of the Nautilus Explorer.

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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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Dive of a Lifetime with 50 Dolphins at Socorro Island

By on November 20th, 2007 in Archive, Captain Mike, Socorro

Sten estimates that there were more than 50 dolphins interacting with the divers. I would have loved to have seen that. Oh yeah, Sten also reports that they saw a big tiger shark in 20 metres of water, a number of hammerhead sharks and a couple of mantas as well as all the regular fish commonly seen at Socorro Island. Sounds like an incredible day!!

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Quiet Scuba Diving Day at Roca Partida

By on November 18th, 2007 in Archive, Captain Mike, Socorro

We consider Roca Partida to be the crown jewel of diving Socorro/Revillaigedos but by the very nature of Big Animal diving, it’s not always going to be super hot. Current scientific thinking is that the local population of giant manta rays actually traverse a 1200 km route that takes them by San Benedicto Island, Socorro Island, Roca Partida and then up and across to the west side of Baja California before looping south again.

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Giant Manta Interaction with Divers at Socorro/Revillagigedo Islands

By on October 25th, 2007 in Archive, Captain Mike, Sea of Cortez, Socorro

So, over 200 identified Socorro mantas now with lots of resightings and many thanks to everybody who sent manta images and video in to Bob and Karey over the summer. Karey made one especially interesting comment to me that she was able to positively identify several animals a day or two apart at different islands from images taken by our guests. One wonders if the mantas preceded the Nautilus Explorer or followed us??

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Scooter diver buzzed by a Giant Manta Ray

By on April 24th, 2007 in Archive, Captain Mike, Socorro

We’ve been watching one poor old Galapagos shark with a fish hook and leader stuck in his gill plate all season. I’ve become quite certain that Galapagos sharks are resident rather than transient because we see this guy every time we dive Roca Partida. The sad thing is that he has been getting skinnier and skinnier and now looks quite emaciated. The alarming thing is that his behaviour is changing and he is now coming in VERY close to divers. He swam up to me this afternoon and it’s the first time that I had a gut feeling that I had better “watch out” around him. An understandable behaviour I guess if he is sick and starving to death. Damn, I wish there was an easy way to get rid of the illegal longliner fishing boats.

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Mating mobula and manta ray??

By on April 7th, 2007 in Archive, Captain Mike, Socorro

One of our divers reported seeing extraordinary behaviour with a very large male mobula ray (which is still dwarflike in size compared to a giant manta ray) pursuing a female chevron giant manta. While we have seen a lot more female than male mantas this season, the males are definitely here and we sometimes observe what appears to be mating behaviour with the male pursuing the female from behind and the two of them soaring and dancing through the water. It’s hard to tell if they are both enjoying it (not meaning to anthropomorphize the behaviour too much) or if the female is simply trying to get away from a doggedly determined lustful male!! Anyways, Roberto is quite sure that the pursuing ray was a mobula as its mouth was not located terminally. Soooooo, the question is whether he might have witnessed a prelude to interspecies sex!?! 

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