Wednesday, February 18, 2015

Underwater we found bottlenose dolphins, galapagos, silver tip, silky, and white tip sharks, plus a manta... During the surface intervals we found humpbacks!

Hello!
Today we woke up at Roca Partida, the ocean was a bit choppy and the sky was cloudy but still it is always good to be back here and see this tiny rock in the middle of nowhere it reminds you of how big the ocean is and how much life can be created with just a little bit of a shelter!
The morning started with a sighting of some whales next to the rock, which got our hopes up for a possibility of seeing them underwater again, but unfortunately after that they got a bit further away from it the rest of the day. I guess you can’t always get lucky but that is the beauty of nature.
We did 3 dives with water temperature of 73f/22C, visibility about 70ft/21m and a consistent mild current from north east. On the first dive there was pod of around 10 bottlenose dolphins that kept passing by us and playing around the whole dive. Today the sharks got a little bit shallower than the past few trips there were lots of very big Galapagos and some silvertips cruising by in between 40ft/12m and 80ft/24m. There was also one black and one chevron manta around the rock during the day. And of course the usual residents of Roca white tips, lobsters, jacks and triggers.
Even though the wales were not close enough to the rock to see them during the dives we could still hear them sing and see them out of the water so we decided to try to snorkel with them during the surface intervals. We had 4 encounters with them, in one we saw 4 humpback whales together and they seemed to be males fighting each other maybe to see who was going to be the lucky one to get one of the females that were around. When we were snorkeling with the whales there were always lots of silky sharks going around in circles very shallow underneath us.
In the afternoon the wind calmed down a bit and the ocean got a bit smoother so we decided to stay one more day here and see what surprises Roca Partida will have for us tomorrow. Stay tuned!
Thiago Mendonca
Dive Instructor

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