Strong current at El Canon and lots of mantas at El Boiler!

We started our third day of diving with a clear sky less wind and smaller swell, but still a strong current at El Cañon.  On the first dive here it took us some time to get down  the decent line, but once we got to the reef we were able to find some protection from the current. After that we waited there for about 15 minutes to see if we could see some of the hammerheads we saw yesterday, we were about to let go of the reef and start to drift, when a black manta passed by and stopped right in front of the group and right after she left three big hammerheads came to check us out while the rest of the school was a bit further away just at the edge of our sight.  Then it was time to start going shallower, so we let go of the reef and started our drift we didn’t see much until the safety stop where another manta decided to hang out with us making us do a longer safety stop.
The current was still very strong after we came out of the water so we decided to go to the other side of San Benedicto to see how El Boiler was. We had good dives at El Cañon , but we were ready for some more mellow dives. When we got to El Boiler everyone was happy to see that there was absolutely no current, so we got ready and went in the water. Right at the decent at about 15ft/5m we already had 2 mantas going around us but they were still a bit shy. We went by the wall which was filled with white tip reef sharks, lobsters and green morays heading towards the blue and that’s where we had 8 mantas playing with the whole group for almost 40 minutes. When we came out of the dive the captain asked us if we had seen or heard whales because he had seen them pretty close by.
The third and fourth dives were very good too with less mantas but still very playful. The highlight was when one group of twelve divers was trying to get a group picture and they had to pose for a bit longer because they realized one of the mantas was right on top of them trying to get in the shot, and it did!
The day ended with another beautiful sunset followed by a delicious Mexican style barbecue, and now we are on our way to Isla Socorro planning to get there still at night and starting our first dive right after the sunrise!
Thiago Mendonca.