Hola from Roca!

It was our last day here at Roca and we had some good diving. As we rode out to Roca on the pangas for the first dive we had dolphins bow riding. They didn't stick around for the dive, however, but they were nice to see nonetheless. On the north point we had quite a few galapagos sharks with silvertips, maybe 12 schooling together. We drifted to the south which was filled with fish. There were jacks, creolefish, and triggerfish everywhere. On the outside we watched as the school of galapagos and silvertips moved in and out of the bait.

Our second dive started with dolphins finally making an appearance. They were two juvenile bottlenose dolphins checking us out. They stuck around for about five minutes and like teenagers do, decided they had better things to do. So we waited on the outside of the bait and waited. Many sharks passed by, but the highlight was a huge baitball of skipjack tuna. They seemed to boil up from out of the blue and circled us as we got closer. We returned to the rock where we saw more silvertips in groups of three or fours.

Our last dive today had some heavy current, especially around the points where all the action was happening. There were so many fish and the school of sharks were there. This time I counted 20 silvertip sharks with 2 or three galapagos with them. They were approaching very close and coming around again and again. There were also some very large tuna 100 lb plus. They were rubbing against one another, a behavior we have just started to see. It seemed also that one would change colors and show stripes-this would be the one pursuing the other large tuna. It was quite a show with fish bigger than you are swimming circles around you.

Roca gave us some good diving this trip. We saw some things we haven't seen this season. Most remarkably the schools of silvertips. There were no silkies and the schools of galapagos seemed to changeover to this now mixed school of silvertips and galapagos. I can't wait to see what changes we see next week. Off to San Benedicto for some manta action.

Until next time...

dave valencia <(((><