May 12 Dive Report at
San Benedicto Island, diving "El Cañon
The day started as usual early with a great pink sunrise
that predicted a fantastic day, so we unload the zodiacs, got the equipment
ready and the divers organized to get in the water as soon as the briefings
finished. The conditions were perfect with a clear blue sky, flat sea, great
visibility for the first dives with 60 ft / 20 mt of clean water, warm
temperature of 25 C / 76 F, no current so our divers could descend easily as
planned and as the day continued the current picked up a bit, coming from all
directions, sometimes from the south, sometimes from the east but it was
perfectly manageable.
On the first dive we went down to 30 mt / 90 ft close to the
edge of Cañon were we normally see the hammerheads and this was not the
exception, we spotted about 10 hammers quite close, then when we were looking
for them a chevron manta passed by, so the first manta of the trip! The divers
got very excited and they kept wanting more along the day, so this place offers
so much that they didn´t get disappointed, more sharks
around, some black tips in the distance were patrolling the area and as usual
the silky sharks under the boat guarding the jacks.
For the second dive we decided to start on the north side of
Cañon so we took the pangas to this spot and started the dive going to 60 ft /
20 mts and kept going deeper to try to see the hammers again, great to our
surprise when we saw them again, maybe about 15 this time, the numbers kept
coming up so it looks like something big is coming soon. By now, the current
was perfect so we could explore the site searching for different types of fish
like the trumpet fishes, parrot fishes, some eels, lobsters and the white tips,
these guys are all over the place!
We started going down and immediately I spotted some white
dots about 15 mts / 50 ft, HAMMERHEADS!! We followed them into the blue and
little by little the group became bigger and bigger, 15 sharks, 20, 30, big
ones, some juveniles and everyone following the leader, so we focus on keeping
with the big group that at some point got as big as 80 or maybe more
individuals that kept swimming in circles and coming back towards us having
them about 5 meters away, perfect shots!! This continued for 40 minutes, we
didn’t even see another fish, only hammers so we drifted a
bit but all the divers got so excited that even compared this dive with some of
the best of their life, just incredible, no more words about it!
For the last dive we spotted some white tips, silky sharks
and a lost hammerhead but not the big school of 100´s,
but it was a nice and relaxed dive for all the divers.
Rodrigo Marroquin, dive instructor.
SOLMAR V.
No comments:
Post a Comment