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’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 MoreNone of us are ever going to forget the 1/2 million booby birds (and their incredibly cute chicks) that we saw, the 5 million bright orange land crabs, the amazing number of moray eels and their bizarre behaviour, the thick “clouds” of black and big-eye jacks, heavy schools of black triggerfish and rainbow runners, the endemic iridescent blue Clipperton angelfish and the coconut groves, white sand beaches and beautiful setting.
Read MoreI have to report that we haven’t seen many sharks yet. Three hammerheads and a couple of silvertips today and that was it – OH WAIT!! We also saw a nice 25ft whale shark swim by this morning!! We often see whale sharks at Roca Partida (Socorro Island) in November and December, and then they disappear when the water cools down as the cool waters of the California current push southward. The water temperature at Clipperton Island is presently 82˚F and I’m wondering whether the Socorro whale sharks head down this way to stay in nice balmy water?? Hmmm.
Read MoreFar and away the coolest thing we saw on our afternoon dives were spawning sea urchins! Yup, we happened across in-water sexual reproduction as the urchins released sperm into the water column. It looked almost as if the urchins were sending up smoke signals with puffs of white “smoke” (sperm) spiraling up from the top of these amazing echinaderms. You have to think that it is a very long shot that eggs are going to get fertilized this way but that’s what happens.
Read MoreAnyways, the visibility this morning 80ft plus and our divers had some great hammerhead, silvertip and galapagos shark sightings. Plus good old Lumpy, our tame leather bass with the broken jaw was there as always. I was very tempted to stay for another dive but flexibility is the name of this game and our guests wanted to move on to the Boiler on the west side of San Benedicto Island.
Read MoreI think that we sometimes forget the basics of our scuba diving training ie. before ascending always look up, reach up, go up. One of our guests forgot all this on one of his morning dives and was surprised as heck to ascend right into a giant manta ray that was hovering above him. The diver had no idea the manta was there and had the surprise of his life when he bumped head first into 4000 lbs of manta!
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