Sunday, November 23, 2014

Mantas on every dive at el Boiler!

Dive day 1, Isla San Benedicto, all four dives done at el boiler.
Water temperature steady throughout the day at 26 degrees celcius / 79 fahrenheight. Ambient temperature was comfortably warm starting the day off with 24 degrees celcius / 75 F and warming up to 29/84F degrees around midday.  Clouds were sporadic throughout the day with mostly sunshine, a slight southerly breeze moderately blowing at around ten knots constantly.
At the boiler, the current was mild at about half a knot, south to north was experienced throughout the day, with the exception of the second dive which had about a one knot current in the same direction.  Visibility was excellent throughout the day with a 25 plus meters (80'+) visibility.  Mantas represented in heavy numbers today on each and every dive! We counted at least six different mantas on each dive and at times seeing them all together, you could say there were swarms of mantas!  The dolphins were present strongly on the first and second dives of the day, exercising their signature behavior here at the boiler which is hanging neutrally in mid-water exposing their bellies. They were also seen underwater near the surface and from the boat they were seen jumping into the air in an acrobatic style.  The sharks seen throughout the day were the ever-present white tip reef sharks, as well as some silver tip sharks in the blue and deeper waters adjacent to the boiler. There was also an occasional hammerhead spotted by some of our guests.  The dozens upon dozens of lobsters were spotted in their usual cracks and crevices, along with many large moray eels.  Large schools of jackfish (jack crevalle) were swimming gently against the mild current on the surface and large schools were seen from above at depths exceeding 30 meters!  The surface throughout the day was a moderate to mild chop which was a bit contrasting to our navigation out here to the Revillagigedos, which was mostly flat and calm.

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