Greetings from Isla San Benedicto, Today was our first full day of diving. Our first two dives were at the legendary El Canon. The visibility was nice at 50 ft., a solid current from the southwest, and a surface temperature of 73 degrees (F). The dive deck was buzzing with anticipation this morning and all were enjoying our new sound system on the dive deck. Once underwater, we saw three hammerheads straight away. We spotted a few more over the sand on our way to the corner facing into the current. The current was quite strong and took us awhile to locate the hammerheads. In the end we did find a group of 20 or so going around and around in the sand. They stuck around long enough for us to observe that there are some interesting behaviors they repeat while in a school. We often see them swim with their sides facing towards the surface. This looks quite akward them swimming on their sides and it also makes them easier to spot from a long distance. We also noticed that sometimes we see them do a head shake. This looks like it could be a display towards us divers or maybe asserting dominance in the school. Either way very interesting observations on this first dive of the morning. The current switched on dive two coming from the opposite direction. So we headed towards the usual corner looking for a school. On the corner, we watched a silvertip shark shadowed by many big eye jacks going around and around on the cleaning station. We didn't see the school so we moved further east and had a nice interaction with 3 hammerheads. They came vary close and one looked close to 11ft long, a huge shark. Dive Three was a drift dive at Cabo Fear. This is a sandy bottom bordered by large boulders then drops off into a dramatic looking canyon. Visibility was 40 ft., and a ripping current to the west. So we went with it. We watched the many fish, green morays and octopus stream by us for many minutes before we spotted a manta. This manta must of had other business to attend to and did not spend much time with us. Dani and Eric's group, however, did get some good manta action and even some whitetip sharks. My group finished the dive into the blue wacthing the numerous kinds of plankton, especially comb jellies and venus's girdle.
Between dives a pod of 7 bottlenose dolphins swam curiously close to the Solmar V. So a few people jumped in with masks and fins. The dolphins swam circles around them for more than 10 minutes. This made some a little jealous so they grabbed their masks and fins and joined the fun.
Dive 4 was at El Boiler. The visibility w as 30 ft. and a stiff current going west. We were able to hide behind the rock to gain some respite from the current. The Boiler was filled with lobsters and green morays. Tons of creolefish also peppered the water around us. Our first manta was a black manta which made a few passes out of curiosity. But the majority of our dive was taken up by two chevron mantas. They played with the divers for more than 40 minutes. They were stalling above divers waiting for them to exhale and letting the bubbles tickle their bellies. Over and over this happened. The smaller of the two was especially friendly and was allowing divers to swim directly under her for long periods of time. As we left the boiler and waved so long to the mantas, it seemed as if they didn't want us to go and followed us far from the rock and circled us as we did our safety stop. That's the way we like to end our day on the Solmar V! Until next time..... Dave Valencia
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