Dolphins, mantas, sharks, and more on our first day at San Benedicto!

January 7^th

After a top notch check out dive the day before, everybody was feeling excited and ready to explore “El Cañon” and the dolphins were waiting for us to hit the water. Our early morning dive started slowly, and as everyone made their way down the ascent line, the water was calm, in the high 70's with over 50' visibility!  It took a few minutes to get used to the lack of light at such an early hour though.  We could hear the dolphin heading in our direction even if we couldn't see them right away, we could distinctly see a few silhouettes in the blue coming towards us. In a few more seconds they were everywhere, the further out we adventured into the dive site, the more dolphins would come and check us out! A few hammerhead sharks came then out of the blue, and the interaction was fascinating.  We were surrounded by sharks and dolphins so much so that the dolphins bumped against the sharks and scared them away!  Our post-breakfast dive revolved around several chevron mantas over the cleaning station of El Cañon, and the most adventurous hurried out over the sandy area on the opposite side of the dive site where the current was hitting stronger.  After a few minutes cruising off the reef, one, two, then five, and finally about 25 hammerhead sharks showed up heading eastbound. In just a few they had passed were gone, but we could hear our divers screams of excitement at the spectacular ballet of nature they had just witnessed. The last dive we all decided to start the dive in opposite areas to cover the whole south bay, so two groups were dropped off the pangas while a third one went off the Solmar V. We all headed different directions, some went as far out as to El Fondeadero, an adjacent dive site, at about 20/25 meters (70/90 feet)of water where many eels, octopus and diamond sting rays can be seen, others went out into the blue and saw a manta, some silky and hammerhead sharks too. It was a great day of diving again, all our guests were excited about the diversity of life and interaction they experienced which left them with a clear idea of what the marine life at San Benedicto can be like!