Our second day at Roca was even more exciting than the first!

DIVE REPORT JAN 21^ST, 2014

Our second day at Roca was even more exciting than the first! All 3 groups went in  different directions, my group decided to go more into the blue on the South East end to look for hammer heads which we did found some that were in very deep water. I can tell you the vis. was great that we could see the sand patches on the bottom, water temp remained the same 77 ̊F/25 ̊C, another group was also having a great time in shallower water on the west side with a black manta for minutes and minutes, the third group descended on the North point! It was fun and taking lots of shots of some Galapagos shark, last but not least I cannot forget to mention that our safety stops were packed with lost creole fish, red tail trigger fish and even some beautiful and shimmering yellow fin tunas!

Dive Inst

Daniel Zapata.

Sharks down deep and yellow fin tunas on our first day at Roca!

DIVE REPORT JAN 20TH, 2014

On our first day at Roca Partida, the water conditions were calm with 77°F/25°C and a bit colder below the thermocline below 60’/18 m of 75°F/24°C and a 70’/20 m visibility.  This time the sharks were hanging out below our reach, they were too deep probably around 170’/50 m, we pushed the limit of our maximum recreational depth and the sharks were still deep. We assume there must be another thermocline at that depth that is keeping the sharks deep; anyway we could still watch them from a distance. Most of the White tip Reef Sharks were swimming all around the rock, giving us the chance to take great video and pics.

Even though the sharks were too deep in the first 2 dives, by our third dive the conditions changed a bit and as always the Hammerheads showed up gathering together with Black Jacks at only 80´/25m.  Yellow Fin Tunas were cruising by the surface close to the rock, hopefully for the next trips, more tunas will start coming by the rock. The weather conditions are still good, so we’re staying another day at Roca Partida.

Stay tuned!

Hasta la vista!

Erick Higuera

Playful mantas at San Benedicto!

DIVE REPORT JAN 19th 2014

We woke up this morning in San Benedicto; the first dive site of the day was “El Cañón”, where we found nice weather conditions, the water temperature around 74ºF, 50 foot visibility and a little bit of current, but nothing bad.  The first island friends to come to say hello were a group of dolphins, one of our guests counted 12 dolphins, but another scuba divers on the other side of the canyon, counted more than 20 and these dolphins were chasing a group of tunas. We continued the dive and once we got close to the bottom, a couple of white tip sharks were waiting for us.  Hidden on the rocks we found two octopuses and a big fat green moray eel swimming around that were ready to be filmed. When we headed back to shallow waters, a giant manta showed up for the amusement of the group staying with us for more than ten minutes! After breakfast we dove again in “El Cañón”, and right at the beginning of the dive some of our guests saw a hammer head shark out in the blue and latter on a white tip shark swimming around and almost at the end the giant manta came back.

For our third immersion we did “El Boiler”. On this dive site we had the same water temperature and visibility, the current here was less than the first dive site. Right at the beginning two giant mantas were swimming around, everybody went crazy with the cameras trying to get the best shot, but remain respectful with the mantas as always. The giant mantas stayed with us for a long time playing with the bubbles of the divers. Other divers saw some white tip sharks resting in one of the rocks, and took some great photos of them. After lunch, we had the last dive of the day on the same site. We went down and around the rock, there were sharks swimming around the rocks, but few people noticed them as we were focused on the playful giant mantas, and had a phenomenal opportunity to take pictures and video. When we finished the loop the first giant manta came to us and after five minutes or so, the second manta showed up. We had plenty of time with them again, so the scuba divers took more video until some of them ran out of batteries on their video cameras!  Everybody were very happy for the first full day of diving, talking about it and watching the videos and pictures before and after a nice dinner made by our excellent chef Tony. Now it's time to rest and recover the energy for the tomorrow’s adventure.

Pablo

DM onboard the Solmar V

A warm welcome from a friendly manta during our checkout dive!

DIVE REPORT JAN 18th, 2014

Our first dive of the trip, a fun check out dive! Our 3 small groups covered the whole area of EL FONDEADERO (mooring area), enjoying lots of lobsters, green moray eels, and scorpion fish.  We spotted giant electric rays on the bottom, and we just took our time to explore every rock and crevice along the dive site and take in all of the tropical fish swimming around!  As we made our way to the anchor line, a Chevron giant manta made us stop swimming while it kept us company for more than 10 minutes.  The manta was so graceful and swam so rhythmically reminding us to slow down and enjoy our time spent underwater!  After the manta fun, we continued making our way back to the ascent line, and as we got to the line the manta showed up once again, and swam circles just below us! Water temp was 77F with 60'+ visibility and no current at all. We surfaced just in time to enjoy the beautiful orange sunset and filled ourselves up on a delicious mexican BBQ on the bow prepared by chef Tony!  Dinner, Solmar V style!

Dive Inst

Daniel Zapata. 

Mantas, dolphins, and more on our last day of this trip!

    January 13^th

Our last day of the trip started nice and early with a little bit of wind for our pre-breakfast dive. A pod of dolphins was swimming near the Solmar V, trying to hurry us to get ready and get in the water. The visibility was clearly affected by the big swell around San Benedicto and as we went down the stern line it was looking quite foggy. This factor resulted in just one of the groups seeing the dolphins as the other two enjoyed playing at the other side of the pinnacle with a couple of very friendly mantas. After breakfast the wind had increased considerably and we had to set the stern line loose and continue diving off the pangas instead for the well-being of everyone. For this second dive, people continued exploring the area with the company of a school of small tuna, and some nice schools of jacks. Two of the groups wanted to explore further out and headed North West for a deeper itinerary where they came across some hammerheads at about 30m deep.  On the last dive everybody wanted to take it nice and easy so most of the time was devoted to group photos with manta background and a couple of hammerhead sharks came out of the blue to check out what was going on. On the way back the pangas had the cold beer nice and ready to celebrate the end of these fantastic days of incredible encounters with all their favorite wild animals here in the Pacific Ocean.
Adrian
DM on board Solmar V

We started our final day at Roca with breaching humpbacks!

Dive Report Jan 12^th,  2014

This was our final day at Roca Partida so everyone was hoping it would be a good one. The morning started off with some whales breaching close to the boat during the dive briefing. The swell had picked up over the night which made it a little more difficult getting in and out of the inflatables, but it was still very manageable. The water temperature was in the high 70's for all the dives during the day and the visibility on the surface was over 60', both temperature and visibility dropped a little down at depth. All the dives had current and because of the current, there was a lot to see. The first dive there was big yellow fin tunas chasing small bait fish with the sliver tips, silky’s and Galapagos sharks patrolling not far behind them. Hammerheads were seen but stayed pretty deep at 35 meters plus. For the second dive everyone seemed keen on trying to find hammerheads so most divers went out to the blue looking and were lucky enough to see a good school that came a little shallower at about 25 meters which gave everyone a chance to see them a little closer and take a few photos. The third dive was a nice relaxing one with most divers staying around the rock and enjoying the sharks and schools of fish that were there everyone seemed to have good last day at Roca Patida!

Alistair

DM onboard the Solmar V    

Day 2 at roca brough hammerheads, Galapagos, silky, and white tip sharks, plus whale watching during our surface intervals!

DIVE REPORT JAN 11^TH, 2014

3 more dives here in Roca? Siiiiiiii por favor!! The water temp was in the high 70's, we had over 100' visibility, and there was a little bit of current but it wasn't bad at all. 

In general I can say we were covered every corner of Roca searching and found everything we came to see! I am glad to say first thing we saw this morning really near west side of the Rock is mama and calf hump back whale!!!

We did dives into the blue with the idea in mind to find schooling hammer heads (which we did), at first they were in deep water 40m, we watched from above as they slowly made their way up to 27m deep, our reward was they came up to us to a depth of even 27 m swimming in half circles in front of us! So close we counted around 60 hammerheads before returning to the rock to find the white tip sharks having a party with all of them out off the ledges swimming. The East side was our place for safety stops, and was not bad at all watching big yellow fin tunas changing colors while chasing bait fish, plus the lobsters are getting really big here.

Other dives we stayed just in the north end of the rock to see at least Galapagos shark schooling with some hammer heads! Shallow water was so relaxing doing safety stop surrounded by so many creole fish and of course silky sharks not too far away!

Our surface intervals were also enjoyable watching humpback whales around the area, some males displaying strength with big jumps and tail slapping to attract females in the area. The season of humpbacks has just begun!

Dive Inst

Daniel Zapata.