Greetings from the Solmar V, We woke up this morning to a beautiful day here on San Benedicto Island. The sun was out and there was a group of about 20-30 false killer whales playing nearby. Hoping to catch a glimpse of them underwater, we headed into the water for our first dive at El Canon. The visibility was gorgeous at 100'. There was quite a bit of current coming from the south and the water temp was a refreshing 75 degrees (F). We headed to the corner, even though the current was not coming from the ideal direction, hoping to see a few hammerheads. In the first minutes of our dive, we were buzzed by three curious hammerheads. At the corner, a school of a hundred or more yellowfin tuna swam overhead. All the usual Jacks, creolefish, and triggers were there, but the big school of hammerheads must have been taking a siesta. We instead took a tour of the reef spotting many green morays, lobsters, and even noticed two octopus hunting in unison. At the end of the dive during the safety stop, three dolphins swam through the group to say hi and went on with their day. Dive two was also at El Canon with a current coming from the north west. The temp. maintained at 75 degrees and the visibility was a stunning 100'+. Just below the boat we spotted more morays, octopus, and lobster. We even spotted a whitetip shark searching for a place to nap. We headed into the current a little looking for some sharks and were rewarded with sightings of three silvertips. We enjoyed the rest of our dive drifting with the current headed back to the Solmar V on the panga. The Solmar V headed to west side of san benedicto on our way to the Boiler for dive three. On the way, we ran into a huge pod of False Killer Whales.. There must have been at least 50 individuals this spread out group. The bounded next to the boat and were bow riding long enough for everyone to get some video and photos. The conditions were excellent at the Boiler. The visibility was 80'+, temp. was 73 degrees (F), and no current. Immediately, there were mantas on the cleaning station. At first, only two, then three....before we knew it five mantas were circling. There was no need to swm anywhere else since everythign was happening right there. So we stayed on the cleaning station the entire dive. Dive four was an encore at the Boiler. When we jumped in ther was only one lone manta circling the cleaning station. They must have gotten bored waiting for us while we were on our surface interval. So I took my group to the northwest corner of the rock. We headed into the blue hoping for something, when we saw a shadow of a huge school of Jacks. This school must have had 500 Jacks swimming in a tight school and then they swam toward us. To the left, right, and above they went, then circling. Adil, our videographer, got some great video. Then we headed slowly back to the boiler and three mantas were there on the northwest side. We spent the rest of our dive hypnotized by each flap pf their "wings" (pectoral fins).. It was a top day on San Benedicto. Cheers, Dave Valencia
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