Hi All! May 17, 2015
A gorgeous sunrise hiding behind clouds and lots of morning tropical birds!
Our morning started with a positive anxiety to be underwater, some swells and wind were affecting the surface of the water, gradually the light of the sun made the morning warmer, the swells from the surface became a smooth backward and forward ride underwater. Water temp was 25˚C/75˚F, visibility was no more than 18m/60ft due to swells, no current at all made the swimming easy! What underwater was a smooth ride for us due to swells on the surface was a fantastic way to surf and ride for dolphins, they also have fun in the swells of EL BOILER!
The underwater part happened to be a concert of dolphins making every one of us happy, several trips in a row we have been seeing some of the same individuals among the 17 that showed up in different groups! The mantas were very generous and playful this morning, so it was a bit difficult at times to choose which direction to take! Here is when the word fortunate came along, with mantas congregating around the same corner where the dolphins were hanging out, in such a small area we had 4 big mantas and 17 dolphins, who wouldn’t be happy! We noticed one of the mantas had a circular bite right on its back, 7.6cm/3ʺ to 10cm/4ʺ diameter, what do you think it was? On every corner we went to we had more and more mantas, in addition to the the previous 4, we know they enjoy the bubble massage, you see them coming straight at you, a bit over your head, all you have to do is wait! Aim your bubbles to hit the belly, then they stop swimming to trap the bubbles then as they go bubbles run along and do it again since they come back for more, it’s a sort of game we like to play! After having fun with mantas, the dolphins came back, not totally gone since the chirping was there while enjoying of the mantas and the cracking noise of the hard coral, playful as usual, came so close to us, a bit more than an arm length from us but enough to not let us touch them.
Time to go for a second dive so "Dive Time!" Was the word on the dive deck, the dolphins came back again! A fun and joy than don’t want to end, as we were making our descent, we already had mantas wanting bubbles and chasing after us while we headed to the north west in search of dolphins. All the fish seemed to be in a relaxed mode from 12m/40ft to the surface, then one bad guy, alone, showed up swimming like a rocket terrifying everything in the area chasing a fish until it became food! Everything was retracting toward the rock fast leaving us with only water in front of us, and a yellow fin tuna was responsible for it! A silky shark swam by covered by lots of rainbow runners, how funny we barely see the shark! Once again mantas, other fish moved to the south west side of the rock due to the slow current from that side, west, in this area we had 6 mantas circling us for most of the dive!
A third dive was time to go for a swim on the South side, Big Eye Jacks are out there so here we go! The reward was 5 hammer heads below those jacks that ended up keeping us in the middle, and of course around El Boiler others had more fun with mantas! White tip sharks, lobsters, green moray eels, flounders, trumpet fish and golden variation, needle fish in shallow water, trevally jacks, long noise butterfly fish, clarion fish, zebra eels, scorpion fish, flag cabrilla, and burrito grunts were some of the fish we identified!
Mantas love to play, 4 dives already and they are still here despite the low vis we are still having, admiring more of those giant patient swimmers, giving us numerous chances to take so many pictures of them, the eye contact with them is really eminent, so we ended up today having lots of what we came to see and enjoy, Mantas and Dolphins!
Dive Inst
Daniel Zapata, Solmar V.
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