Friday, March 2, 2012

Different sites around San Benedicto each provided something special

Hi all again from San Benedicto island!!!

We enjoyed a beautiful sunny day during the morning and a little windy for the rest of the day we went diving 4 more times!!
    Our dives took place in different areas, like The famous CAÑON, EL FONDEADERO AND DOS HERMANOS, water temp in all dive sites 73f, vis from 40' and 60' at times, all day mild current from west but zero current during the second dive!
    For those dives at el cañon and due to the current we decided to anchor on the west side and use our descent line to 50'of water to stay safe, we had manta encounters all over the the dive area, every time the mantas did slow, full circles around us, the contrast of watching a chevron manta underneath us and the sandy bottom as background is breathtaking when you are perfectly neutral! You notice every detail on the manta, nothing moves but the manta around you!!
    I can't leave sharks out of this, especially not the hammer heads! We had small groups here and there, they were close to us... very close... it definitely got our adrenaline pumping! The rocks had brown sea urchins all over, lots of fish, octopus, lobsters, scorpion fish, green moray eels, flounders, jacks, etc. All the life encourages you to relax at the depth after the close encounters with the hammerheads, now let's add a few juvenile silver tip sharks that kept swimming in and out, but closer every time and we are barely breathing to let them come closer for a great Photo!! Ahhh!!
    I also have to say you need to turn around always keep an eye out to what's around you, because those Galapagos sharks we saw were very robust, curious and also like to come VERY close, is a good idea to have extra pair of eyes looking for things around you such as your dive buddy or the dive masters.
    To finish talking about el Cañon  --i have to say this!!!--- 10 minutes into the dive, to be more precise the last one, we had an encounter with a tiger shark, we can really tell it was 10'(3 mtrs) in lenght, 10, 15 seconds we couldn't take our eyes off of it, probably not too much time for others but knowing how rare are to find them those second were to enjoy it and another adrenaline rush!
    The other 2 dive sites were great too with mantas, hammer heads on the sandy bottom, white tips sharks, giant electric rays, lobsters, octopus, etc... What do you guys think about today's dives?
    Dive Inst Daniel Zapata

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