A Mentally Unbalanced Humpback Whale?

By on June 21st, 2008 in Archive

Anyways, we saw one young adult today who defied any description of humpback whale behaviour that I have ever observed. Bob (which is what we named this guy) was hanging out with stellar sea lions instead of other humpback whales. Not only was Bob hanging out and interacting with 10-20 sea lions at a time, but he also seemed to be mimicking their behaviour. Twisting and turning on the surface and throwing himself from side to side. Bob was even doing barrel rolls and swimming along on his back. Even more oddly, Bob approached the Nautilus Explorer a couple of times with his head out of the water – just like a sea lion. All I can say is that never before have I seen a humpback whale that so clearly wanted to be a sea lion. 

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Diving and Waiting Out the Storm – Day 2

By on June 10th, 2008 in Archive

It didn’t take much convincing for me to stage another dive there today. Finished the day off with a shore visit to the old whaling station at Coal Harbour on the far side of the Narrows. Coal Harbour was originally a coal mining town (go figure huh!!). It became a coastal defense station during World War 2 with large hangars, over 700 personnel and a fleet of Stranraer flying boats and Canso (aka PBY or Catalina) amphibious aircraft as well as fleet of high speed RCAF air-sea rescue boats (the dinner charter boat Malecite which still works out of Granville Island was one of these air-sea rescue boats and somewhat famous for trying to rescue the crew of a Stranraer that crashed in open ocean in 1944).

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Last Diving Day of Our 2007/2008 Socorro Revillagigedos Season

By on April 13th, 2008 in Archive

Over the two days all of our divers were able to have closer and more intimate interactions with a couple of giant manta rays than anyone imagined. Some divers saw a small school of 10 hammerheads and one lucky group of divers had terrific interaction with a dolphin who played for 5 minutes before taking off rapidly and leaping out of the water. The silvertip and Galapagos sharks were off the northeast end of the rock circling in and out of view. One of the Galapagos sharks looked like it is recovering from a nasty spear wound to the head. He has a large lump with a hole on the top right side of his head and a hole/scar on the bottom left side by his gills. The good news is that we saw him last trip as well and he seems to be recovering nicely.

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New Diving Site at Socorro Island but Lack of Charismatic Megafauna

By on April 11th, 2008 in Archive

Punta Tosca on dive day 4 was also surprisingly quiet and the visibility was low so after 2 dives at the outer point we decided to move the Nautilus up a couple of bays and try a new site. A series of small rocks sticking out of the water with a sheer drop to 120 feet on one side and shallower bays on the other. It proved to be fascinating and several guests saw sea turtles and a “fly by” with a giant manta. Definitely a site that we will repeat but once again the “charismatic megafauna” was elusive.

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Giant Manta Rays Dance with Scuba Divers

By on March 23rd, 2008 in Archive

We anchored so that we could swim to the dive site, and with no current and very little waves, we had an open deck for the day so guests were free to dive whenever they felt like. Between dives, a lot of guests chose to accompany Marco, our chief mate, on a tour of the shoreline to see the arches and pinnacles and whale watch. From the Nautilus we watched a young humpback whale leap multiple times out of the water followed by an adult humpback breaching creating some wonderful photographic opportunities.

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Bad Weather, If at First You Don’t Succeed…

By on March 15th, 2008 in Archive

We started Dive day 2 by checking in at the Navy base and then picking up three underwater photographers from the World Wildlife Federation who had been waiting for us at Socorro Island during the storm (unable to dive). From there we went to Cabo Pearce. Throughout all 3 dives at Cabo Pearce we could hear the humpback whales singing in the background. In between dives two and three several guests were out snorkeling when a humpback whale mom and calf happened along and checked out the snorkellers. The encounter was, of course, an incredible experience.

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6 Hours in the Water Every Day is Not Enough!!

By on March 10th, 2008 in Archive

It has always seemed to us that our best giant manta ray interactions tend to be on the second and third scuba dives. This has been reinforced by our experience here on the Boiler on this trip. Although we have been seeing giant mantas earlier in the day they do not seem to wish to stay around and play until about 11am, at which point they are happy to play with us until around 3:30pm. Luckily, this is also the best time for the photography as the light is at its best.

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