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.
Read MoreWe saw five whale sharks at El Mogote and our two local pangas were busy dropping off and picking up our divers. A 6 metre whale shark stopped to feed and positioned itself vertically in the water, completely indifferent to our snorkellers. This provided a great opportunity for photos and videos. Pelicans reportedly dive bombed the bait fish that the whale shark was feeding on and thousands of the fish ended up hiding in the exhaust bubbles from the underwater main engine exhaust of the Nautilus.
Read MoreWe’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.
Read MoreWe checked the radar and discovered a large (225ft??) target doing tight circles off Roca Partida and clearly in the Biosphere Reserve. I suspected that it was a large tuna clipper and that they were watching us through their binoculars because as soon as we launched one of our inflatables, all the lights on the other ship blinked off. The illegal boat then started jinking around at high speed (15 knots plus), apparently doing it’s best to stay away from the inflatable.
Read MoreOne 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!?!
Read MoreSo there we were, towards the end of our dive, coming around the north end of Roca Partida and swimming through an enormous school of jacks when, HOLY COW, a group of very large Galapagos sharks swam right up to us and started circling around. I had never seen anything like it.
Read MoreJust to top things off, four giant manta rays came into to the rock and spent “quality time” with our divers, gliding by close enough to touch. Interestingly, there were very few silky sharks, and divemasters Sten, Tricia and A.J. speculate that the silkies may have been intimidated by all the other sharks. Diving the Revillagigedos (Socorro Island) is not always hot but man, when it’s on, it is RED HOT DIVING!!
Read More
