Drift Dive Through Schools of Tuna and Hammerhead Sharks

By on February 2nd, 2008 in Archive

Almost immediately we were mobbed by an enormous school of yellowfin tuna swimming powerfully all around us, with silky and silvertip sharks thrown in the mix. After they passed, a group of hammerhead sharks made an appearance, allowing some excellent photographing opportunites. As we approached the island, a cloud of triggerfish burst into view, with circling silvertip sharks deep below us. The island drew by quickly in the current, and as we passed to the south we were given one last sendoff by yellowfin tuna and some curious wahoo, with some coy passes by hammerhead sharks for an encore.

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Tuna, Hammerhead and Silvertip Sharks Galore but Where’s the Giant Mantas???

By on February 2nd, 2008 in Archive

There was a coldwater current running past the island steadily for the whole two days, and with it came excellent visibility and a great amount of hammerhead, silky, Galapagos, whitetip, and silvertip sharks.  That’s on top of the friendly wahoo, the massive schools of tuna, the unique photographing opportunity of a moray eel wrapped comfortably around resting whitetip sharks, and big schools of triggerfish, big-eyed trevally, jacks, and other familiar faces.

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Giant Manta Rays Interaction and Hammerhead Sharks

By on January 29th, 2008 in Archive

To our great fortune, we were greeted almost immediately by a pair of chevron giant manta rays! They stayed with us the entire day, waiting patiently under the Nautilus until we re-entered the water, and graced us with some intimate interaction and eye-to-eye contact. The mantas may have dominated the centre stage at The Canyon, but that’s not to say that other pelagic animals didn’t get their time in the limelight, as we were also treated to a couple of close passes by a school of hammerhead sharks, and had some excellent sightings of a small group of silvertip sharks.

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Giant Manta Rays, Silvertip Sharks, the Sound of Humpback Whales and a Whale Shark at Roca Partida

By on January 21st, 2008 in Archive

Typically, we do not see whale sharks once the water cools off during December since they prefer warmer waters however, with a warm current coming through this 20-25 foot animal provided much excitement and photographic opportunities as it swam within feet of the divers on their safety stop. Then, just so that there was no fighting amongst the guests, the whale shark stayed around for dive 4 so that almost everyone got to see it.

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Calm Seas, Variable Currents, Giant Mantas, Sharks and Humpback Whales

By on January 18th, 2008 in Archive

Then off to Socorro to check in with the Mexican navy and dive Punta Tosca with the manta, tiger and hammerhead sharks on dive day 2 followed by Cabo Pearce on dive day 3. Our first dive at Cabo Pearce had great visibility and almost no current.  It was a relaxing dive with a few sightings of dolphins and sharks off the outer point along with a group of Barberfish patiently waiting for something to clean.  At times they even moved over to the scuba divers to see if they needed a clean.

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Cooler Water, More Shark Encounters and the Possibility of Whales

By on January 11th, 2008 in Archive

The upside of this cooling is that the larger oceanic sharks start appearing. We saw a group of 6 silvertip sharks and 4 galapagos sharks patrolling “fish alley” where the large schools of jacks and bonitos hang out. There seems to be a hierarchy in the shark world whereby silkys are displaced by galapagos which in turn are displaced by silvertips.

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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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