May 2 Dive Report at San Benedicto diving “El Cañon

Today the sea is calm and now we are on our way to Socorro Island after spending such a good day in San Benedicto diving “El Cañon”. Onboard we have an international group, nice people who have been dreaming of diving here for many years.

We woke up early with some clouds above our heads but nothing to get our trip spoiled, so we prepared the pangas, the equipment ready to dive and the people full of energy to experience the underwater world.

The conditions were good for the first two dives with no current, descent visibility about 50 ft /15 mts, the water temperature was around the 74 F / 24 C with some drafts of cold wind at surface that made the surface intervals quite chilly. Then for the third and fourth dive the conditions changed dramatically to a low 30 ft / 10 mts of cloudy visibility and we had some current coming from the north.

We started the first dive from the pangas right on the edge of Cañon, so the divers could go down easily to 60 ft / 20 mts and checked the life waiting between the rocks, then suddenly 3 hammerheads came by with their perfect hammerhead shape. Once we were close to the boat we could see some dolphins chasing jacks in between with some silky sharks that never leave the safety of the SOLMAR V. When we reached the sand we spotted some mantas that led our way back to the surface.

For the second dive we spent most of the dive swimming between 3 friendly mantas that loved the bubbles under their tummy, one of them seemed to be pregnant! Here it’s usual to spot all kinds of fish from the stubborn jack, to the hovering trumpet fish to the colorful parrotfish stopping by the beautiful butterfly fishes and the hungry clarion fish. This place is great in terms of diversity, especially if you want to see the big stuff too, the tunas swimming silently and the silky sharks surrounding the groups of jacks. At some point we could even see 10 hammerheads in the deepest part but always the mantas are the highlight and why the people love this place.

Rodrigo Marroquin, dive instructor.
SOLMAR V