Greetings from San Benedicto! Despite reports of a storm several hundred miles away, we had some pretty great weather and some amazing dives today..

We Started the day with two dives at El Boiler. Even before jumping in the water we had dolphins surrounding the boat. We quickly jumped in and had three dolphins zipping here and there. They seemed so excited they would go straight from 50 ft. and leapt out of the water and would come back down again. Soon they disappeared. So we checked out the many green morays, octopus, and scorpionfish. Then during the last 10 minutes of our dive they dolphins came back, this time with more dolphin friends and in a more playful mood. They swam in a tight group and swam around us many times. They were keeping a bit of distance away from the rocks in the blue, which was really nice for our photographers. The dolphins kept playing but it was time for our safety stop and they followed us all the way to the swim step.

In between dives we spotted a few mantas staying close to the surface and hoped it would be a good sign for our second dive. It started slow with my group checking out the pinnacle to the east, hoping to entice some mantas there, but to no avail. Instead we checked out more eels, octo, and scorpionfish. We made our way around the rock and spotted many creolefish away from the rock so we followed them into the blue. There I spotted 1 silky shark, then another then we saw saw a small school of 15 silky sharks come in and out of visibility. We were straying from the rock so we turned back and there was a manta leading the way. As we arrived back on the boiler antoher manta showed up and we knew our manta sightings from the surface was a good omen. These mantas played with us all for the last 30 min of our dive.

While all our guests were having lunch Dani, our lead divemaster, was sighting for birds on the horizon. He spotted lots of birds and dolphins maybe two miles away. This has been our new obsession since the baitball action has been so good. So we got everyone suited up and headed out for a blue water adventure. Dolphins greeted us as we got close to the tornado of birds. Upon jumping in, however, we didn't see any bait. Too bad...only dolphins and silkies, so we jumped in anyway. There was a marlin sighting early in the encounter, lots of silky sharks, and a pod of over 20 bottlenose dolphins. Everyone snorkeled in the blue watching dolphins play underneath among the many silkies. The longer we stayed, the more silkies accumulated. It's difficult to estimate, but by the end we had a school of over 100 silky sharks. They were acting as a school as well. They made a wall and if you held your breath and dove down, they would approach very close. They were swimming in a large circle around all of the snorkelers in the water. It's a good thing we weren't shipwrecked. 

San Benedicto was good to us today. Looking forward to another great one here in San Benedicto tomorrow.

Until next time...

Dave Valencia