Whale sharks, mantas, and schooling hammerheads, Roca Rocks!

Second day at Roca Partida, the conditions kept the same as yesterday, water temperature 78F/25C and a visibility of 100’/30m. In the first dive we encountered 2 Mantas that kept circling around the pinnacle the entire dive, if some divers missed them, all they had to do is wait because the Mantas were going to come back around. Down deep the White Tip Reef Sharks still patrolled the south point with couple of Galapagos Sharks. We all hoped to see one of the Whale Sharks we had seen yesterday on the last dive, however didn’t show up.
Not until 4 of our guests that were low on air earlier than the rest of the group, headed away of the rock to complete their stop, so while doing it, the 30’/10 m Whale Shark cruised by underneath the feet just to give them a brief pass for later disappeared in the blue. Lucky divers, sometime is good to end the dive early and drift away into the blue, you never know what you can find out there!
Second dive, conditions were the same, however this time three Mantas, two Chevron and one Black one chased each other delivering a synchronized dance at the north point. Two of them took off and only one stayed around receiving bubble massages by some of the divers. We all gave up of hanging and waiting if the Whale Shark showed up this time by the rock but never did, so we tried to change our luck and headed towards the south point to check if we found her there, but instead of a Whale Shark, about 50 Hammerhead Sharks showed up from nowhere and hung out with us for about 5 min. Time to come up and end the dive.
We decided to try one more time the south point in the third dive in case if we could find the Hammers, no luck this time, but there were several Silkie Sharks that kept pursuing a small group of Bonitos that tried to escape from them, everybody got entertained shooting the persecution. This time one the Chevron Mantas swam by but didn’t show any interest in us.
So far in the season, Roca has been really good in Mantas and Whale Sharks sightings since the season started, so as always, Roca rocks!
Tonight after dinner, a beautiful sunset and a bunch of delicious Luis’s Margaritas, we’ll head to Socorro Island to looking forward to diving with friendly Dolphins and Mantas getting clean by dozens of Clarion Angelfishes at the famous cleaning station of Cabo Pearce, and who knows, maybe another spotty Shark?
Thanks for tuning in, stand by for the next adventures with the folks of the Solmar V!
Hasta la vista!
 Erick Higuera

We had everything on our first day at Roca Partida!

Here we are again at Roca Partida, yesterday after diving “El Boiler” we decided to navigate to Roca Partida as the weather report was indicating we were going to have a couple of days of good weather. The crossing was not smooth, but not super bad either, and this morning we woke up next to the rock, the water was calm, a light breeze was blowing from the north and everybody was excited and ready to dive!
7:45 dive briefing and off we went on the pangas, as we entered the water we noticed it was quite clear and warm, about 80ft/24m visbility and 79F/26C at depth, a light current from the north made it easy to dive all around the rock, were we were expecting to find sharks but unfortunately they were hanging out in deeper waters, any way we did spot a few, on the first dive as soon as we descended to 95ft/29m we had 2 sharks, one Galapagos and one silver tip that circled the same area a couple of times before disappearing into the blue waters, after that we went looking for hammer heads on the south west side were we saw a big school of big eye trevallies, and as we know they usually hang out more less close to the schooling hammer heads thats were we went, after hovering patiently at 105ft/35m we had 2 hammer heads that came very very close to us, especially one that swam right underneath the divers while the other one waited a little deeper, after a few minutes of watching them we started ascending a bit and at 60ft/18m another hammerhead came close to the group for a few seconds. So then we went north, were we found a lot of schooling jacks and creole fish, so we started ascending to our safety stop and for our surprise there were 2 silky sharks chasing a little school of striped bonitos, nice end for the first dive of the day!
For our second dive we had a little bit more current coming from the north west this time the highlight was a bunch of white tip reef sharks swimming in circles on the north west corner and a chevron manta that came across the group 3 times during the dive, by the end of the dive it just stayed with us and got really friendly, it came to get here bubble bath several times before we had to start heading back to the surface. So by this point the dives were good, but not really what were expecting so we said that the third dive will be the dive to make the decision to either stay another day in Roca or go to Socorro island...and for our surprise we went on our third dive of the day and... We had everything! We went down on the north west corner and descended to 120ft/36m were we were hovering with the rock on our back and in front of us a wall of fish, creole, black jacks, cotton mouth jacks, big eye trevallies, trigger fish, all kinds and in between them, SHARKS!!! Galapagos, a lot of silkys, silver tips, white tips, everything right in front of us, even a few big yellow fin tunas chasing bait fish! After about 15minutes into the dive, WHALESHAAAAARK! A juvenile of about 25ft/8m swam about a meter away from the group, very slowly, we stayed there hoping it was going to come back but nothing, so we started swimming south along the west wall and here comes a chevron manta, slowly swimming a little above the group, everybody was paying attention to it while the whale shark was actually in between us and the rock!...it actually almost run over one of the divers! So second time we see it and everybody is doing happy dances underwater haha....so we kept going slowly drifting with the current and when we hit the south west corner there was another whale shark probably a 20ft/6m one, this time swimming bellow us at about 90ft/27m! So I guess you can imagine what the decision was after this dive...we are staying one more day in Roca Partida hoping to see this majestic whale sharks once again!


Antonio
Dive Instructor

A great first day at El Boiler of San benedicto! Whale shark, hammerheads, dolphins, mantas and more!

 Isla San Benedicto
As early as 7:00 am and we are in the water for the first dive of the day at El Boiler!  There was a bit of surge, lots of bi-color parrot fish, yellow trumpet fish, jacks, and we could hear the chirping of dolphins, so we know they're in the area.  Layers of a thin horizontal rock are shaping El Boiler and becoming home for octopus, lobsters, and green moray eels!  As we make our way to the western side of the dive site we were led by a black manta, before being joined by one dolphin, then five dolphins, a current from the north brought with it lots of fish.  We were just admiring the fish when a second giant manta swims over our heads so slowly, and out of the blue more dolphins come into the area!  14 dolphins and 4 mantas were our numbers, we had an amazing time watching mantas, dolphins, divers, fish, white tip sharks all together, the interaction was absolutely great!
We are enjoyed of a so nice and relaxing surface interval in a sunny day, a bit windy under air temp 27.7˚C/82˚F. Underwater we were still enjoying of 27.2˚C/81˚F we go on a second dive so as soon as we dropped down a dolphin was already there to lead our way, giving us time to keep up with it until we arrived at the West side of the rock! Soon after we are surrounded by lots of cotton mouth jacks changing to a darker color, bicolor parrot fish, at a depth of 33m/110ft a black manta swims slowly making contrast against light brown color of the bottom, it didn’t take too long for the manta to come up to our depth, then another 4 coming from different directions! In the mean time dolphins kept chirping and showing up here and there, 36 minutes of dolphins and mantas time together plus 24 more of manta interaction, vis was 24m/80ft approx. Current still from North just a bit, a yellow fin tuna chasing creolfish made them swim as fast as bullets seeking protection among the rock! 
The third dive was one of those dives that leaves you asking how can you fit so many thing into a small area!  So as we are making our way down to the rock a no more than 4.5m/15ft long whale shark comes straight to us, it was so friendly, slowly swimming, no rush, I guess life is good to it! The massive shark swim off before later returning to stay for a bit longer this time among us in shallow water! From another point in the rock but happening at the same time we had 10 mantas in sight all together, each one from 3.6 to 4.8m/12 to 16ft wing span from 18m/60ft to surface! Below those 18m/60ft of water near the bottom 15 to 20 very robust hammer heads just passing by! And another area which had a really good vis also 8 dolphins came in to join the manta game, at 9m/30ft approx. second ledge of El Boiler is covered with lots of hard coral as well as about 22 white tip reef sharks swimming back and forward on the edge of it, lobsters, Moorish idols, green morays, jacks etc, adorning the rock, after seeing all, the mild current from North made drift some of us, on safety stop we were accompanied by 5 juvenile silver tip sharks.
Our final dive of the day we are on search for more hammer heads, just 4 out the school is what we found at 27m/90ft which was the limit of blue and green water on this dive, which also means water temp just changed from 27.2˚C/81˚F to 23.8˚C/75˚F, in our way back to shallow water of course more mantas to hang out with.
Dive Inst
Daniel Zapata

Friendly dolphins, giant mantas, whale shark and more at Roca Partida

Hi all! 
By 8:00 am we were heading to Roca Partida in the pangas, dolphins were doing high jumps near the rock so we quickly geared up and did a back entry and found 15-20 dolphins that enjoyed playing with our bubbles!  They were chirping the entire dive, the communication among them was absolutely gorgeous for the hour long dive, and very loud!  They came back to us several times in different groups from different directions, some of them rolled over showing us their bellies, others adopted a vertical position in front of everyone before doing a slow free fall into the depth, inviting us to go deeper!  Other dolphins were swimming so slowly letting us make eye contact with them, at times you could almost touch them, but they're good at estimating distance between your hand and their bodies.  To top it off, 2 chevron mantas showed up and then we had mantas and dolphins in a small area, and they get along pretty well.  All our divers were happy!  Water temp also made the time underwater slow down a bit where we enjoyed the 26.6˚C/80˚F water with visibiility in the 20m/65'+ range with no current.  We had fantastic underwater conditions, with an extended safety stop due to 10 dolphins that made our dive a bit longer, showing off their affections to each other.
A second dive with the same conditions made it count!  Just 10 minutes into the dive a maximum 20' long whale shark came into the area at 18m/60ft depth, swimming among the divers, it wasn't in a rush to go anywhere, it stayed with us for a long time, swimming so close you could almost touch it! (But we didn't of course)  For our safety stop, it came and checked us out again, in addition we foudn a black manta on the north eastern side of the rock, once we were on the zodiacs, we had an opportunity to get in the water and snorkel with it!  
A thirds dive was relaxing, swimming around the rock with lots of white tip reef sharks, fish everywhere, 4 hammerheads, 1 galapagos, and 1 silver tip shark, some divers opted to skip the dive, and instead chose to snorkel with the whale shark swimmig around the Solmar V!  So they jumped in the water and a black manta stopped by, probably felt secure swimming along side the whale shark!  A big thanks to Luis Godinez and Manolo our panga drivers, for their efficiency picking up our snorkelers with slightly windy conditions.
The night brought lots of sharks swimming around the Solmar V, and some flying fish found dinner time!
Dive Inst.
Daniel Zapata

Mantas on every dive at el Boiler!

Dive day 1, Isla San Benedicto, all four dives done at el boiler.
Water temperature steady throughout the day at 26 degrees celcius / 79 fahrenheight. Ambient temperature was comfortably warm starting the day off with 24 degrees celcius / 75 F and warming up to 29/84F degrees around midday.  Clouds were sporadic throughout the day with mostly sunshine, a slight southerly breeze moderately blowing at around ten knots constantly.
At the boiler, the current was mild at about half a knot, south to north was experienced throughout the day, with the exception of the second dive which had about a one knot current in the same direction.  Visibility was excellent throughout the day with a 25 plus meters (80'+) visibility.  Mantas represented in heavy numbers today on each and every dive! We counted at least six different mantas on each dive and at times seeing them all together, you could say there were swarms of mantas!  The dolphins were present strongly on the first and second dives of the day, exercising their signature behavior here at the boiler which is hanging neutrally in mid-water exposing their bellies. They were also seen underwater near the surface and from the boat they were seen jumping into the air in an acrobatic style.  The sharks seen throughout the day were the ever-present white tip reef sharks, as well as some silver tip sharks in the blue and deeper waters adjacent to the boiler. There was also an occasional hammerhead spotted by some of our guests.  The dozens upon dozens of lobsters were spotted in their usual cracks and crevices, along with many large moray eels.  Large schools of jackfish (jack crevalle) were swimming gently against the mild current on the surface and large schools were seen from above at depths exceeding 30 meters!  The surface throughout the day was a moderate to mild chop which was a bit contrasting to our navigation out here to the Revillagigedos, which was mostly flat and calm.

A lot of little critters, a few sharks, and a giant manta on our checkout dive at San Benedicto!

Hello friends!
Here we are on our third trip of our Socorro season!
It all started yesterday at about 4pm when we left Cabo San Lucas, the crossing was awesome, as the seas was really really calm, weather was warm enough to wear our shorts and sandals but not too hot, the atmosphere on the boat was perfect, crew and costumers joking around all day long, so after 24 hours, today we got to San Benedicto island!
After setting the anchor and a quick dive briefing, we went into the water for our checkout dive at “Las Cuevas”. Quick buoyancy checks for everybody and down we went, water was very nice, water temperature was 27C/80F, visibility about 20m/65ft, and no current, just a little bit of surge! So we went to explore the dive site a little and we found lots of life, big lobsters walking around everywhere, green moray eels, little schools of surgeon fish, burrito grunts and moorish idols, also stingrays, the surprise of the dive was to find a guitar fish, as they usually hang around in cooler waters, the 2 swimthrough's were full of lobsters up on the ceiling, schools of grunts, bunch of white tip reef sharks were laying there and also a big stingray was swimming around as we got in!
The highlights of the dive were a sea turtle, a manta ray that showed up for a few minutes, and a couple of juvenile silver tip sharks that were hanging under the boat at our safety stop, so all to all a very enjoyable checkout dive that got everybody excited to start the real dives tomorrow morning.
After the dive we had a delicious mexican BBQ prepared by chef Tony and now we are going to spend the night next to “El Boiler” and the plan is to dive it tomorrow morning at 7am so we are all crossing our fingers for the bottle nosed dolphins and mantas to come and play with us!
Stayed tuned and we'll let you know how that went!
Antonio
Dive Instructor

El Boiler at San Benedicto Island!

El Boiler at San Benedicto Island!
The first dive we had the pleasure of enjoying 35 minutes of our hour long dive with dolphins!  Our plan was simple, we wanted to go down into the blue to find hammerheads, but the visibility was restricting this mission. On our way into the blue we were intercepted by 11 dolphins, and their constant chirping grabbed and held our attention!  Their constant posing, swimming, and looping around us made our morning an exceptional one, some of them swam off towards the cleaning station and when we arrived there, we found two mantas waiting for us!  These two graceful giants cooperated with us, allowing for many photos, their slow swimming back and forth between our divers set the pace, and we slowed down to match these friendly animals! They swam from one dive to another to another, giving everyone the ability to get some great belly shots, close up of eyes, and in the background a lonely hammerhead shark came into the area for a quick pass!  After the hammerheads we ran into a school of cotton mouth jacks, before the dolphins showed up again!  This time there were 11 of them, they swam right into our circle of divers, leveling off then posing for our cameras!  They are very social animals and have a very strong link that keeps them together, the males were rubbing fins, snouts on females, swimming belly to belly together, they always seem to be smiling and happy!  Altogether on this dive, we had dolphins, schools of fish, mantas, hammerheads, 80F water temp, and 70'+ visibility! 
On our second dive, we had similar water conditions, everything was happening on the north west side of the rock, we were hanging out with 4 mantas, slowly cruising around our divers.  They almost stop on top of our heads, making you slowly sink with them.  The mantas love our bubbles, and if you blow bubbles along their belly, they don't go away!  4 mantas in a small area means that when you are looking at one, there's another one right behind you!  It was a wonderful dive where no one had to move at all, the mantas came right to us, and there was no current!  In addition, the rock was covered with lots of juvenile pacific creolefish, lobsters, green morays, jacks, and white tip sharks!
 On our 3rd and fourth dives, the mantas moved to the south eastern side of the rock, and were just as playful as our morning dives!  They were gracefully swimming with all of us, gliding in the water where you don't see them move a wing but they're still in motion!  Making everyone of us happy, one group swam out into the blue where they found 4 hammerheads just below their fins!  It turned into a slow drift dive on the west side of El Boiler, with an extended safety stop with 5 juvenile silver tip sharks! We enjoyed of sunny surface intervals in air temp of 27˚C/81˚F, with panga rides, birds observation and identification courtesy of our on board naturalist Geronimo!
Dive Inst
Daniel Zapata