Wednesday, April 6, 2016

Galapagos, hammerheads, mantas and a world of fish on our 2nd day at Roca Partida!

Hi All!
April 05, 2016. 

An awesome second day at Roca! We woke up feeling the wind blowing from North East, at the bow of Solmar V we are just looking at that rock, thinking, just below the surface the incredible amount of sea life gathers here!
Our first dive of the morning got welcomed by a Chevron manta ray, it was extremely friendly, this is only 18m/60ft of water, in the background lots of pacific creole fish, a few hammerheads and white tips sharks that were very active swimming in the area East side, no swimming needed during the next 13 minutes which was all a manta dive, only one but we had her attention! Definitely she liked our bubbles stream, she wasn't either making big loops around us, she wanted to be so close to us all time, the slowly swimming movement she was performing was passed on to us making our breathing pattern go slow as well making stay longer underwater, dream dive underwater condition made our dive a great one, vis 30m/100ft(+), barely noticeable current from south in which she swam off heading North, well then we all went South! No more than a few Black Jacks here and there while doing so and a perfect crystal clear water, finally we got South enjoying our swimming, rising from deep water columns and columns of cotton mouth jacks in black color, Big Eye Jacks well coordinated while swimming, hundreds of Pacific Creole Fish, lots of rainbow runners, red and yellow tail trigger fish, our depth by now is 30m/100ft, shark fins started to be visible to us among the big number of fish, we did not chased them, they came up on us, we had counted up to 25 adult Galapagos sharks and 4 Hammer Heads with them, literally we had them right below our fins making circles, it was our reward by not chasing them! Disengaging from current it took us to white tip sharks ledges well distributed, adults taking its place, pregnant females other ledges, juveniles too, the little ones about 0.30cm/a foot long separated from others, our safety stop was easy surrounded by lots of big eye jacks, water temp of 23℃/74℉. 
During the surface interval the wind picked up a bit more, sky partially clouded, the swells were not too big, nothing major that would keep us from going diving so here we go second dive! It started again with such a blue water! While descending on the South point that world of fish was still there! We descended about 30m/100ft spent time there until dive comp were beeping hoping for sharks, it is a unique sensation being down here, depth inviting to go deeper, we can actually see sandy areas, easy we are talking another 30m/100ft deeper, rock formation all covered with soft coral moving sideways due to swells on the surface, Galapagos shark are there as deep as that! We actually see them, hope next dive they will come up shallower.
Our last dive of the day we insisted on the South area, every time, every descent the world of fish was there making us feel how so fortunate to see this we are, not too long after those shark fins came back close to the rock, so close to count more than 80, 90, 100 hundred Hammer Heads, with them Galapagos also, the world of fish retracted towards the rock letting us see such a fascinating creatures, then a second time, then a third time! The way up to shallow water was relaxing easy, surrounded by fish, even though current picked up and had to swim a bit it was worthy! So we drifted North East to finish the dive and have the opportunity once more to enjoy the baby white tips.
Dive Inst
Daniel Zapata

Solmar V.

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