A manta bigger than I could imagine stayed with us for 40 minutes, circling the group, getting as close as half a metre from us, from me.
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Recipe for a perfect Christmas day: sunrise on San Benedicto island with a coffee, quick dive briefing and suit up, jump in, spend the morning with giant mantas (3 different swimming in your bubbles like they are bathing in champagne), spend the afternoon with schooling scalloped hammerheads sharks, come up, pop a beer in the […]
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Easily the best day of diving I have experienced in a long long time – dozens of sharks, scalloped hammerheads, galapagos sharks, a few silvertip sharks, a whale shark, oceanic manta rays, tuna, wahoo, jacks and much much more all jostling for position around a tiny fleck of rock in the middle of nowhere – […]
Read MoreDivemaster Sten reports that the swell made it impossible to stage scuba dives at The Boiler but that did not matter as they found giant mantas at El Canyon. They also got the Hammerhead sharks going in circles. Some thought one shark was a great hammerhead shark as it was 12 feet long (and passed very close by the divers)!! Sten and divemaster Tricia confirmed that it was just a very large scalloped hammerhead shark however. An unusual sighting was when on a surface period a pod of False Killer whales passed by.
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 MoreThe really cool thing was that the currents of cold water brought crystal clear visibility with divers able to see the bottom 240 feet below them!! Divers reported the usual groups of white tip reef sharks hanging out in various caves and oblivious to divers around them. Two of the divers saw a 5-foot long silky shark hunting at very high speed with the “lunch fish” been eaten right in from of them. A Galapagos shark came in very close to the divers and the incredible visibility made it possible for them to identify one great hammerhead and two scalloped hammerheads swimming along the bottom!!
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