HI All! Jan 27, 2015
The hump back whale concert!
Cabo Pearce at Isla Socorro had interesting water conditions today. As early as 7:00 am we were in the water, there was a super strong current from South! On the first dive, mantas were over the cleaning station so it was a no swim dive, all we had to do was wait there, get the shot, and celebrate! The whole dive!
A second dive, we were on a mission to find some hammer heads! Being the third group to jump in, we took it easy and after 15 minutes we were at the sweet spot 26m/85ft of water, the one I like! All of a sudden the singing was on and on and on, getting louder and louder, of course we know it is a male humpback, in between our breaths we can hear it coming closer! It's a lot of work swimming into the current to go looking for hammerheads, eventually our legs get tired! We didn't find any hammerheads, but after all this effort, we looked up and saw the massive body of hump back whale crossing our sky for 10 seconds at 15m/50ft of water and swimming into the current! We almost couldn’t believe it! Visibility wasn’t that great here so in those 10 second we saw it coming at us passing over our heads and swim away, I can say from head to tail including those long white pectoral fins, so we wished for hammer heads we got in return hump back whale! Not bad at all I think! No time either to tell length of it, it was about enjoying the moment and celebrating this incredible sight we just had! We were looking at each other screaming into our regs with arms hands up! The return to shallow water was easy, we got to play with some mantas and do a nice safety stop holding on to the rope that made us feel like flags due to a still current flowing!
Time for a third dive at call of "dive time!" As we are getting ready dolphins showed up, and once we hit the water the current dropped a lot but could not find the dolphins we saw when we were suiting up! The water temperature was 25˚C/77˚F, we decided it was going to be manta dive and so it was! The protected area was the spot with 5 to 6 of them, it was not really a big area so we had mantas coming from pretty much all directions and depths, some lucky divers got to stand vertical, doing a nice job on buoyancy and black mantas doing tight circles 5 times in a row around them with tip of wings almost touching the divers, how cool was that! Bubbles were everywhere! The mantas were happy getting their bubbling belly massage!
Our last dive of the day was around 3:30pm, after have seen a hump back whale under water of course we want more of that! But we are in search for hammer heads once again, the was still flowing but it was mild. Our descend line is a big tool here, big time! We took it easy and played it by ear. Away at the distance we can hear the vocalizations of a male, but that away at distance’ became in a short time a right here and so loud sharp vocalizations, signaling that it is heading our way! At the edge of the reef was interesting watching all fish behavior due to current; lobsters growing so old and big, green morays, zebra eels, scorpion fish along the way, a silky shark showed up above our heads making wide circles at first then smaller and smaller circles. It's interesting how some fish take advantage of the roughness of shark skin to get rid also of something attached to their body, the melody of whale singing is fading out, we can even feel it in our chest area not vibrating so much anymore, and still no hammer heads! When we were returning to the cleaning station once again, the singing came back on really loud while 2 juvenile Galapagos shark were recognizing their territory, the reef! So we all are looking into the blue thinking the sound comes from that direction, a lonely chevron manta swims over our heads, not many saw it hopping whale would show up in front of us. The vocalizations got so loud and louder, counting 7 different vocalizations, 37 minutes of singing what a concert underwater that very few people get to attend, and the ones that do are so lucky! End of the story 2 bottle nose dolphins made themselves visible, since the whale singing was so loud they showed up quietly, and disappeared right way!
Dive Inst
Daniel Zapata
Solmar V.
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