Saturday, January 6, 2018

December 13th - December 22nd, 2017 #TripReport (Socorro Islands)

MANTA'S DANCE AT BOILER

We are almost at the end of the year, and the Somar V Liveaboard keeps on with
the surprises at Revillagigedo, this time as usual, we departed on our 5th trip with
great weather and high expectations for a ten days trip.

The journey began with our check out dive at “Fondeadero” on San Benedicto
Island, as we arrived quite late to the island we had a dusk dive with lots of jacks
gliding on the current, two silky sharks swimming on the shallows and as the dive
continue the visibility got dark so the astonishing colors of the fishes glittered on
the reef giving a sense of sparks and shiny stripes all over.

On the second day we unloaded the boats early in the morning and prepared the
gears to get in the water, this time the chosen site was “Cañon”. Here we got to see
some hammerheads on the outskirts of the platform, lots of white tip reef sharks
swimming here and there and due we had no current we could dive the whole site
looking for the small stuff like moray eels, tiger snake eels and the big school of
burritos grunts that usually gathers at this site. We dove another great spot called
“3 hermanos” which lately has been a great surprise to us, so one we got there we
could encounter a tiger shark ambushing the fishes in the deep crest of the wall,
suddenly the current started to rise and hammerheads showed up in the blue, a
group of 20+ swimming along 3 mantas that started diving among the divers
getting their common bubble bath. As the dive continue we suddenly heard the
squeaks of dolphins and out of the blue 8 dolphins started sinking and swimming
up circling the divers, one of them was a baby dolphin that stick to the mother all
the time. In San Benedicto we got the best diving at Boiler, where as is a tradition
for the people that come here everyone waits for the very first dive due the best
dolphin and manta interaction takes place at this amazing pinnacle, so one we got
in the water big groups of 30+ dolphins started swimming among us al over the
place, then the mantas took the control of the dives and we had 4 amazing dives in
here, with divers blowing bubbles at their bellies, the highlight definitely were 3
huge chevron mantas and a small black one extremely friendly that stayed with us
along the day. We could spot Galapagos sharks in the deep zones next to the
elusive hammerheads and even a couple of black tips swimming with the big
school of jacks that usually could be found on the west side of Boiler.

After San Benedicto we got to Roca Partida, where we were expecting the great
whale sharks but we didn´t get to see any of these, so we focus most of the dives on
the big schools of jacks, the ambushing tunas and the eventually hammerheads
that kept swimming in the deep parts of Roca. We got to see more Galapagos
sharks and silvertips quite deep too. No mantas at Roca this time but anyhow such
a great place full of white tip reef sharks gliding in the current making and
exquisite spectacle.

At Socorro Island we got great diving with dolphins at Cabo Pearce with some
mantas in between too, having what we called the “manticure” at the cleaning
station with the Clarion angelfish. Suddenly when we were waiting to spot more
mantas, a big school of skipjacks shade the site and started moving along the rock
with two silkies patrolling the ball. We dove to more sites here at Socorro, one of

them was Roca O´Neil where we had a great view of 30+ hammerheads and the
other site was Punta Tosca, where we spotted another tiger shark and mantas plus
the great variety of tropical fishes, electric rays and the tiny nudibranches.
This trip has been an amazing experience as usually Socorro is, but every time is
getting better and better so lets wait for the next journey to see what is waiting
underwater for the lucky divers in turn. Until next time!

Rodrigo Marroquín, dive instructor.
SOLMAR V.

TRIP CONDITIONS (scale 1-5)
Swell: 3
Current: 2
Visibility: 4
Crossings
To San Benedicto: 2
To Roca Partida: 3
To Socorro: 2

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