Another Beautiful Day at Roca Partida

Today was another beautiful day at Roca Partida. The wind calmed down and
the sun came out for a very comfortable day out here. At first light, we
were happy to see dolphins bounding in the sunrise. As we made our way to
the dive site in the pangas, the dolphins followed pursuit. Bowriding all
the way to the dive site, they seemed to wait for us to get in the water.
When we jumped in, 12 dolphins greeted us. They swam circles around us for
the first five minutes. A few dolphins stayed close, but the rest
continued on with their morning hunt. The visibility was good at 80 feet
and there was current from the north. My group let the current take us to
the southern end of Roca Partida where the Creole fish were thick. On the
outside were multiple schools of skip jack tuna. The huge schools seemed
to boil out of the blue. Guarding the school closely, were 20 to 30 silky
sharks. Then a small school of 15 hammerheads came from the blue. They
schooled with 10 more galapagos sharks. The sharks circled in front of us
three times but kept some distance. We started our ascent to our safety
stop and watched an endless school of yellowfin tuna run by us. It seemed
to last the entirety of our stop. In that school were a handful of giant
yellowfin (100lb.+). Wow!

Our second dive showed even better conditions. We enjoyed 80'+ visibilty
and less current (still from the north). The Creole fish were thickest on
the western side of Roca Partida so we tried to stay in the vicinity. We
stayed in one spot and watched the show. The skip jack tuna were swimming
erraticly and seemed to be spawning. This was driving the silkies mad and
they tried to keep up with hundreds of fish. Galapagos sharks and
Silvertips were cruising below the schools. It was non-stop sharks from
beginnig to end.

Our third and last dive at Roca seemed the best of the day. Sharks,
sharks, and more sharks. We dropped in on the Northern side of the rock at
about 95 ft. We were surrounded by sharks of all types and close! At least
20 Galapagos sharks, 30 silkies, 10 Silvertips, and countless Whitetips
continued to swim around us for the first 10 minutes of our dive. The fish
were thick too. It was beautiful. We waited for more to happen in the blue
and enjoyed the many sharks pass us by. We took our time going up and
spent lots of time examining the rock. We found at least 10 green morays,
countless groups of whitetips, and many cleaning stations. We watched
closely as the barberfish cleaned all who swam into their area. We even
watched a 7 ft. Silvertip swim through a cleaning station again and again..
I couldn't believe how close we got. The fish continued to swarm as we
started our safety stop. A group of five wahoo (20-30lb size) came so
close you could almost touch them. A perfect farewell to us from the
amazing life here at Roca Partida.

Dive Instructor-
David Valencia