Hi all! Dec 16, 2014
Roca Patida this morning seemed like a place where no one has been before, partially clouded, in a remote area, completely isolated.
Water temp is getting colder a bit 25˚C/77˚F, with it good things will come soon, more specifically hump back whales!
In the mean time, we had mild current from the east all day long and water temp changes at depth made us enjoy of diversity of life! Hammerheads appeared on each dive, schools of from 60 to 100 sharks each time from depths of 21m/70 to 36m/120ft. The second dive became a drift with them for as long as 20 minutes, a wonderful view we had when just hovering in mid water watching the world of fish moving so slow adopting different formations. At times we followed the black jacks with no direction apparently but in the end they lead us to more hammer heads! The return to the rock from drifting was amazing, it transitioned from a blurry image vision in front of you until its real solid rock you can almost touch with lots of creole fish surrounding it. Galapagos sharks are a very important part of the rock, coming from all directions swimming slowly, wagging their tail in a slow motion we saw them go away and return, coming close many times only 2m/6ft from our divers! Breaking through the school of fish in shallow water activity was on as well silky sharks active chasing a school of yellow fin tunas, a chevron manta appeared slowly swimming as well to make a few circles around and goes away.
The surface intervals were something really to enjoy too, enough sun temp for a good tan!
The last dive today since the sun is setting on the west the east side was a bit darker, day time yellow fin tunas as big as 60kg/130lb approx like to chase and hunt, sharks like that as well and got excited for or if any leftovers, those10 tunas were the bad guys of the area, attacking in horizontal, descending and ascending positions, other times just cruising along checking thins out for the next attack! Obviously, we were there to enjoy and eye witness how fascinating underwater life behave when it comes to feeding.
Tunas were not the only thing here, the Galapagos shark still there, even some pregnant ones. So the highlight of the day lots of Hammer Heads, Tunas and other sharks.
Dive Inst
Daniel Zapata
Hola!
After the great manta day we had yesterday at Cabo Pearce we decided to stay one more day!
We spent the night next to the dive site and this morning as soon as the sun was up we went in the water we had planned 4 dives and on the first three we had a quite strong south current, so on the first dive we decided to head east to the deep area of the dive site and go into the current looking for hammerheads, on the way out we found 2 chevron mantas that hovered over the divers to feel their bubbles on their belly before it kept going on its way to the blue waters away from the dive site. When we got to about 80ft/24m there was 8 white tipped reef sharks circling around a rock in between a lot of reef fish, after taking a few pictures there we kept going east and when we got to 100ft swam into the blue, not much luck this time as we only found a couple of hammerheads and the strong current made it hard to keep swimming into it, so we decided to head back to the shallow area of the dive site and spend the rest of the dive there, on the way back we found a lot of lobsters, a diamond stingray, green morays, giant electric rays and more mantas! This time 3 mantas came to play with our bubbles and followed us all the way from 80ft/24m to 40ft/12m, and once there, there was a school of clarion angel fish waiting for the mantas to come and get cleaned. For the rest of the dive we only hovered at 40ft/12m watching at the mantas getting cleaned and every time they headed into the blue there was enough lobsters, octopus and a bunch of reef fish to take pictures of until the mantas came back, and that went on until we had to come up!
For our second and third dive current was still very strong so we spent both dives hovering on the north west side of the dive site were the mantas were getting cleaned, there was so many clarion angel fish, it was a great show! We counted up to 22 clarion angel fish cleaning a single manta!!! That show made our dives very easy and looong, we spent up to 80 minutes watching the mantas, taking pictures and video! Oh! And I forgot to mention that on our third dive 2 bottled nose dolphins came to quickly say hello, that was awesome!!!
For our last dive of the day the current changed, there was almost no current when we went down, but it picked up a little bit coming from the north west, this made the visibility go down a little, from 70ft/21m that we had on our first three dives to about 50ft/15m, but water was still warm!(26C/78F)
So on this dive we decided to give another try to the hammer heads and 2 groups went down deep looking for them while another group stayed shallow playing with the mantas. The 2 groups that went looking for hammerheads found 2 chevron mantas on their way out at about 80ft/24m, they only went by and into the blue the first time, after a few minutes they came back and passed a few centimeters/feet from the divers and kept circling them and going in between them before they headed back into the blue waters. Once at 110ft/34m one group spotted about 8 hammerheads that quickly disappeared, the other group didn't see them so they drifted away from the rocks into the blue and for their surprise when they went up to their safety stop, looked down and there they were!...2 schools of about 30 to 40 hammerheads!!! Obviously they swam back down for a few seconds before they had to come up! The others 2 groups kept enjoying the manta cleaning stations until they had to come up.
All to all another great day diving of the Solmar V!
Now we are heading back to Roca Partida for more shark action, so check us out tomorrow to know how that went!
Hasta pronto!
Antonio Romero
Dive Instructor
What a mantastic day we had today at Cabo Pearce at Socorro Island!We did 4 dives total with good water conditions, water temperature of 78F/25C and 50’-80’/12m-24m of visibility. The current blew the reef the entire day, a strong north current probably of about 2 knots, but we could still find shelter on the other side of the cliff where typically the Mantas love to swim up the current to stop and literally hover over the cleaning stations to get clean by dozens of the endemic bright orange Clarion Angelfishes! That is one of the reasons why the Mantas are here in the Archipelago of Revillagigedo, besides they have a food and shelter. Anyways, we had four great dives with these majestic animals that kept coming back and forth to get the parasites and old skin cleaned off and to enjoy our bubbles massage. On every dive we got the chance to see at least 5 different mantas, and every single diver form this group got countless great opportunities to get really good footage of these “sea blankets” and the divers without any cameras of course entertained the mantas with their non stop bubbles massage.Of course when the mantas weren't there at some moments, we were not wasting time! If we were not looking and finding Octopi mating, we were watching for green morays, peacock flounders and also the whitetip reef sharks that reside in the crevices of Cabo Pearce!On one of the dives we used the chance of having a strong current and tried our luck to swim along to reef up to the end of it in the pursuit of Hammerhead Sharks, at the end of the reef we foudn two hammerheads but not the school we were hoping for!.The Dolphins didn’t show up during the dives, I guess they were teasing us because during our surface intervals this porpoises were showing up in the surface left and right.We were planning at the beginning of the day to go this afternoon to Roca Partida, but considering that we had great dives at Cabo Pearce, we changed our mind and made the decision to stay another day just to have another mantastic day and who knows, maybe schooling hammerheads? Or dolphins? We will see! So stayed tuned for tomorrow’s adventures with the Solmar V folks!Hasta la próxima!Erick Higuera
Hi All!
Dec 13, 2014
Roca Partida Today.
A unique diversity of life above and below the surface! We had partially cloudy morning with sun light breaking through, underwater, the lack of light due the clouds and current from East all day made the dive interesting and active for all creatures. Life underwater was abundant, the vis 15 to 24m/50 to 80ft, water temp from 26.6˚C/80˚F to 25˚C/77˚F, heavy surge. The was current rich in nutrients made it all happen on the East side, packs of Pacific creolefish, Blackjacks, Big eye trevally, cottonmouth Jacks, yellow and red tail trigger fish, barber fish everywhere, they were all moving in different directions slowly with Fish feeding on other fish, always alert for signs of weakness, and obviously the ones that rule the place are always present. Sharks, on the South and North point of the rock the action was on! We found lots of Galapagos, silver tip and silky sharks at any depth and using the congregation of fish to come from behind. Today the change in water temp made every single fish active, white tip sharks were also congregating on the ledges by numbers of 20 to 30 of them. Lots of Leather Bass using the wall to lessen the effort of facing the current in what seem to be another thermocline at depth. Along with it camesome green water. In a slow non threatening approach these fish give you the opportunity to get great shots since they come really close to you! Another great fish we saw were the yellow fin tunas! We watched as they launched attacks at a bait ball, coming from shallow to deep water in a matter of seconds, displaying different coloration on their body markings! Also the Pacific Creolefish retracted from the imaginary line of protection. It felt like being in an aquarium of fish, with the sound travelling so fast underwater dolphins were sending out the message ----we are here---- so loud! In the search for Hammer Heads we swam into cold water pockets we found them 2, 3, 4 here and there.
By the end of our day of diving at 16:00, the light penetrating into the water was less, and those gigantic 4 to 5 ft long Yellow Fin Tunas were returning to the rock. They were swimming in 3m/10ft of water from North to South made all fish in the area feel terrified, they were just like the bad guys of the movie! Two Wahoo were very comfortable swimming around divers during our safety stop and not only that, Steel Pompanos also made those 3 to 5 minutes go by fast by staying close enough for video filming!
Just by surfacing near the rock something trigger all the frigate birds making them take off from the rock, magnificent birds reaching wing span of 217cm/85in, Boobies as well, smaller birds reaching wing span of 74cm/29in, so we ended up being on the surface with lots of birds flying over our heads!
Dive Inst
Daniel Zapata.
Hello Hello!
Last night we left San Benedicto island and made it all the way out to Roca Partida. The crossing was 9 hours of very smooth seas and this morning we woke up next to the rock ready to go diving and see what the rock had for us!
At 7:45 we did our dive briefing and by 8 o'clock we left on the pangas! As soon as we reached the north east side of the rock a pod of dolphins came to play at the front of the panga, every body geared up very quickly and back rolled into the water. As we descended we could hear the dolphins singing but no sign of them in the warm water, 78F/26C. We kept swimming north east and after almost breaking our necks of turning around over and over looking for them, they finally showed up! A pod of 12 bottle nosed dolphins came up from the blue waters, the good visibility of about 80ft/24m made it easy to spot them from the distance. They came very close to the divers and played for a few minutes, they would go up to the surface catch a breath and come back down to keep us entertained. With that start, we were already spoiled but that was not all for this dive! We drifted with the dolphins and reached the north point of the rock were we found a lot of white tip reef sharks circling close to the rock, we then went around the point to the west side and there we found galapagos and silver tip sharks that were at about 90ft/27m swimming in between schools of jacks, creole, and trigger fish. So we made it all the way to the south end of the rock and after hovering there looking at more galapagos sharks we started heading out into the blue towards our safety stop, but first when we were at 50ft/15m we spotted a silver tip shark and as we turned around there was a hammer head too, but that was not all! There was a whole school of about 80 to 100 hammer heads at about 80ft/24m!!! We kept swimming on top of them for a few minutes before we reached the surface, obviously with a smile on our faces!!!
For the second dive some groups went north and another group south, all looking for the hammerheads, and we all found some, the big school was on the north now and came very close to the divers so they all got quite nice pictures and video! On the south there was little groups of 2,3 and 4 hammer heads at the time. On the north point we also found a lot of galapagos and silver tip sharks swimming in between jacks and creole fish while a single dolphin played belly up, down deep at about 130ft/40m, and around the north west corner again 2 hammer heads came very close kind of checking us out while some galapagos swam around them.
Our third dive of the day was full of fish and a few sharks, with a strong current coming from the east, but no hammer heads this time, till today was another very good day of diving Roca Partida, so guess what? We are staying here for another day of diving so stay tuned to know how the diving goes tomorrow.
Antonio Romero
Dive Instructor
Hi folks,Today was the first full dive day of the trip and we started diving early in the morning at El Boiler, actually we spent the whole day doing 4 dives there.The first dive was done at 7:00 am and while we had the briefing, the resident pod of bottlenose dolphins awaited our return, already swimming around the boat as if they were all anxious to hang out with us! Anyways, as soon as we descended along the stern anchor line, these playful dolphins escorted us all the way down to the anchor! We were just about to get into position when 4 Mantas showed up swimming immediately over everybody’s bubbles, while some of the divers hung out with any of these four Mantas, others drifted along the pinnacle with a single dolphin that stayed in the typical vertical position like if she was mimicking us! Wait until you see Adil’s video trip report to see this amazing behavior, he captured it all with his camera for about a 45 min of non stop action with dolphins and mantas that we could see them all at the same time and perfectly thanks to a great visibility of 100’/30m, the water temperature is still around 78F/25C, but his time the current was blowing hard from the South. I think that is why they do this unique behavior every single time they encounter us at any of the dive sites in the Archipelago.By the second dive the water conditions had dropped drastically, the current had picked up even stronger and brought murky water of about 30’/10 m, even so, the mantas stayed around and we could still see them. This time, they kept hanging out away from the pinnacle. I guess because of the strong current and a very deep and also strong surge. Even the mantas not only us have a hard time trying to keep up within tough water conditions.By the third dive the current had stopped but the visibility was still limited, however 3 Mantas kept us busy wasting our air due to the huge amount of bubbles that we all divers gave them. The bigeye jacks were piling up this time and close to the pinnacle, which gave us great opportunities to take dozens of pictures.By the fourth dive, the visibility was still the same as the third dive, and at the beginning of the dive, we didn’t see any mantas at all, so we swam around of the pinnacle looking for some hammerhead sharks, finding only one at a distance. When we did all the way around, 5 mantas were already delivering incredible close up passes to every single diver! That is how El Boiler received us on this first day of the trip.Tonight we’ll head to Roca Partida, we have to use the chance while the weather is still in good conditions.Thanks for tuning in, stayed tuned for the next Roca Partida report.N
os vemos!Erick Higuera
Hi All Dec 10, 2014
San Benedicto Island.We had a beautiful journey traveling south to this Volcanic Island, the Ocean treated us with no swells since our departure yesterday from Cabo San Lucas, a vis ahead of us of miles, no wind and some clouds that made the island look like it had just rained.
Las Cuevas was our check out dive of the day, one of the things that made our dive very exciting was to find blue water in this area, as we are descending we found a water temp of 27.2˚C/81˚F and just to keep was working out a bit of current from north that made our dive easy to drift back to the anchor line after have done the 2 swim-throughs that for many was something remarkable! The white tips were part of the welcome to the dive area by being all over, a silky shark was also part of it swimming above the divers, hiding behind the big boulders area at 20m/66ft of water a very good sized green turtle saw us go by! It swam away slowly swimming leaving a trail of fine sand that was covering its shell as it continued moving ahead. Not shy at all were the green morays that were out of home swimming free, it seems sunset time is party time! Lobsters did the same thing, they were out walking backwards doing what seems to be a confrontation of antennas against antennas and front legs fight! Other areas were covered with lots of reef fish finding shelter in the green and brown hard coral. Sandy areas are also the home for giant electric rays, there are many all over so stay out of reach! You really feel it so we have to remember to be careful and calm down electric ray, we are just passing by! More white tip sharks swimming around us to make that shocking experience go away, the giant Diamond head rays crossed our trajectory leaving the trail of sand that was covering it while on the bottom. Back in the swims through the white tip sharks are resting on the bottom left and right side of it, we took the time to stay inside of the it, its amazing how just by having a solid structure of rock over our heads is enough to separate the noise from the surface! Its so quiet in there! Fish and lobsters don’t move inside, well they do it to let us go by, once out of it we were back in our noisy atmosphere, there were more sharks in the area 2 juvenile silver tips were making some circles around us Tou know they play the game as usual... You see them they swim away, you don’t see them they come closer and so on…..Well by the end of the dive an area of green water, less vis was moving in by then we are doing our safety stop using descend and ascend line, out of the water the sunset was gorgeous combined with red wine and a delicious Mexican BBQ in open area as the bow of the Solmar V, prepared by our Chef Tony. Dive Inst Daniel Zapata
