Today was absolutely breathtaking.

If I had to sum up today's diving in one word: Wow! If you have not been to Roca Partida before, you need to experience this. Today was absolutely breathtaking.

To start, Roca emerges from the ocean like a monument to the past. There's nothing but birds on the rock and all the life in the water. There's a quietness here like you're in some sort of sacred place. This is what it must have been like everywhere before people effected it.

As the sun rose this morning, the breeze dwindled and the sea calmed. Roca was good to us these last three days and even more so on this last day.

As we arrived by panga to roca this morning we saw dolphins. They were bow riding the pangas, excited for our arrival. We all jumped in and had the entire dive with approximately 12 bottlenose dolphins in the blue. They swam in and out of the group and teased everyone with their favorite game.. That is, falling to the depths to see if you will follow. They know exactly where the recreational dive limit is (130ft.) and they will put you to the test.  After 30 minutes of playing we decided to head back to the rock and found many silvertips, silkies, and galapagos sharks. There was virtually no current so we just hovered and watched. The dolphins even followed us back to the rock and we saw a couple mating. For some, it was their first time with dolphins.

The second dive started slow. We had a school of 12 or so Galapagos sharks patrolling the north point. There were also quite a few tuna and silky sharks spotted. We drifted all around the rock looking for the action, but didn't find too much. Until the last 5 minutes. Once we made it around to the north point again we saw the 12 Galapagos sharks again, but this time with 12 hammerheads. They were all schooling together. They circled around three or four times and split. We made our way more shallow on the edge of the bait and watched a large school of 30 wahoo pass very close by. As we surfaced from the dive, Pancho, one of the pangeros, told us that there was a whale shark circling the Solmar V. So we got our gear on board as fast as we could and headed to the boat. Sure enough a juvenile whale shark ~15ft (5m) circled the boat. Everyone, and I mean everyone, jumped in and snorkled with the little guy. It was a blast! She stayed on the surface and allowed close approach. Never did it show any signs of nervousness or annoyance with all the people in the water. This was our third whale shark in three days. The whale shark stayed until all were exhausted.

Our final dive at Roca today sta rted quite mello. We saw some Galapagos sharks and a silvertip shark here and there but they were not getting close and not in big numbers. We had a rare sighting of a chevron manta. It took a look at us and slowed but didn't want to play. We kicked to the south point where a lot of action seemed to be happening. On the outside we started seeing silky sharks and Galapagos. There were three silky sharks in particular who were following eachother in a line and circling eachother. The approached all divers very close. We enjoyed this show for ahile and kicked back to the north. Here we watched some LARGE yellowfin tuna hit the surface. They were obviously hunting, but they rarley pass between a diver and the rock and this time they were allowing divers to get close. These tuna were over 100 lbs and more than 4 ft in length. They were larger than some of the silky sharks. I even observed one tuna rub itself against a silky shark a few times. This is interesting because we have been seeing a lot of this inter-species behavior: Galapagos sharks rubbing on Whale shark, rainbow runners rubbing on silkies, and now tuna on silkies. Something is in the water and things are getting exciting here at Roca. Finally, we ended the dive watching 40+ sharks circle beneath us.. A school made of Galapagos, silkies, and Silvertips.
 
Today was absolute magic. It just goes to show the true potential of this place. The water has changed here since the first week of May and hopefully it's a sign of more amazing things to come. Off to San Benedicto for tomorrow.

Until next time....

Dave Valencia