Hi there!
This time the diving conditions at Socorro were not as they were last week. The visibility had dropped a bit, basically down to 30’/10m and also a thermocline of about 24C/75F. All of this is because there was a quite strong current that had brought an upwelling to Cabo Pearce. Normally an upwelling comes in together with cold waters that are fool of nutrients and also green water. Well, it is not a bad thing; one of the reasons why this underwater ridge is so attractive to the Mantas is due to these constant upwellings. However we could only see two Mantas that got cleaned together at one of the several cleaning stations at 130/40m, it was definitely kind of deep to be able to stay long time with them.
The dolphins showed up when we were been picked up already by the pangas. Well, hopefully we ‘ll get to see them tomorrow morning at El Boiler.
We did a third and last dive of today at Punta Tosca; basically the water conditions were the same as in Cabo Pearce, we saw several baby Galapagos Sharks though that patrolled the shallow parts of Tosca.Tonight after the inspection at the Mexican Navy Base, we’ll move back to San Benedicto planning to start dicing at El Boiler.
Thanks for tuning in, don’t leave and stayed tuned for tomorrow’s Solmar V dive news.
Nos vemos en la proxima!
Erick Higuera
Friday, May 1, 2015
Thursday, April 30, 2015
A shark filled 2nd day at Roca Partida!
April 29, 2015
Hola amigos!
Today was our second day of diving at Roca Partida, the conditions this morning indicated another great day of diving, and it was exactly like that! The water was still very warm, 77F/25C, and clear, with about 80ft/24m visibility. The current was coming from the west and it stayed like that during the whole day.
On our first dive we went into the water on the south west corner of the rock and we went straight out into the blue looking for the hammer head schools and we found them! At about 120ft/36m there they were, a school of about 50 sharks circled in front of us back and forth slowly getting closer and closer, suddenly they got a little shy and they started going away... The school actually split about 20 headed south and the rest north, so it was time for us to head back towards the rock, once on the rock we went around the south end where we found several galapagos sharks, all of them quite big, especially a couple of pregnant females! After checking them out, we headed to the west side where we went to check out the white tip reef sharks laying on the little ledges, and they were packed as usual, and not only with sharks, also several lobsters were in there!
For our second dive, we dropped in on the west side, this time we stayed closer to the rock in between the thousands of creole fish, and after waiting patiently for a few minutes sharks started showing up, some silver tips and Galapagos were cruising a little deep and 3 or 4 silky sharks would patrol shallower waters. While the huge yellow fin tunas would make their appearance looking for a prey, shooting from deep waters straight at the fish, and actually swimming very close to us! It was a nice show to watch! After that excitement, we went around the south end again to check out the Galapagos sharks, and they were still there! It was time to start coming up and once we got to about 30ft/10m a chevron manta showed up, it came close and we thought that it might wanted to play, but then it then dissapeared into the blue.
On our third dive we decided to go look for the hammer heads again, but this time we had no luck, so we came back to the rock on the west side and there we found many silver tip sharks, a couple of silkys, and galapagos, not as much action as we were hoping for so we headed north, and there the action started! It was only for a few minutes but it was worth it to watch! A school of little anchovies came close to the rock being chased by 4 huge yellow fin tunas, those tunas are really really fast! It seems like they got tired quick as well and they came to check us out, before going for a second try at the anchovies. Next we headed back to the west followed the wall all the way to the south end, on the way we saw a couple of silver tip sharks and huge schools of black and cotton mouth jacks, once we got to the south we found another school of black jacks and we noticed a couple of hammer heads among them so we followed them and suddenly our patience paid off a school of about 30 hammerheads came from the deep and circled right bellow us for a few minutes, like they were saying "Goodbye and come back to Roca Partida!"
Awesome day and the best way to finish it... with a sunset BBQ on the bow of the boat!
Now we head towards Socorro island to dive Cabo Pearce, so stay tuned because there is more action coming our way!
Antonio Romero
Dive Instructor
Hola amigos!
Today was our second day of diving at Roca Partida, the conditions this morning indicated another great day of diving, and it was exactly like that! The water was still very warm, 77F/25C, and clear, with about 80ft/24m visibility. The current was coming from the west and it stayed like that during the whole day.
On our first dive we went into the water on the south west corner of the rock and we went straight out into the blue looking for the hammer head schools and we found them! At about 120ft/36m there they were, a school of about 50 sharks circled in front of us back and forth slowly getting closer and closer, suddenly they got a little shy and they started going away... The school actually split about 20 headed south and the rest north, so it was time for us to head back towards the rock, once on the rock we went around the south end where we found several galapagos sharks, all of them quite big, especially a couple of pregnant females! After checking them out, we headed to the west side where we went to check out the white tip reef sharks laying on the little ledges, and they were packed as usual, and not only with sharks, also several lobsters were in there!
For our second dive, we dropped in on the west side, this time we stayed closer to the rock in between the thousands of creole fish, and after waiting patiently for a few minutes sharks started showing up, some silver tips and Galapagos were cruising a little deep and 3 or 4 silky sharks would patrol shallower waters. While the huge yellow fin tunas would make their appearance looking for a prey, shooting from deep waters straight at the fish, and actually swimming very close to us! It was a nice show to watch! After that excitement, we went around the south end again to check out the Galapagos sharks, and they were still there! It was time to start coming up and once we got to about 30ft/10m a chevron manta showed up, it came close and we thought that it might wanted to play, but then it then dissapeared into the blue.
On our third dive we decided to go look for the hammer heads again, but this time we had no luck, so we came back to the rock on the west side and there we found many silver tip sharks, a couple of silkys, and galapagos, not as much action as we were hoping for so we headed north, and there the action started! It was only for a few minutes but it was worth it to watch! A school of little anchovies came close to the rock being chased by 4 huge yellow fin tunas, those tunas are really really fast! It seems like they got tired quick as well and they came to check us out, before going for a second try at the anchovies. Next we headed back to the west followed the wall all the way to the south end, on the way we saw a couple of silver tip sharks and huge schools of black and cotton mouth jacks, once we got to the south we found another school of black jacks and we noticed a couple of hammer heads among them so we followed them and suddenly our patience paid off a school of about 30 hammerheads came from the deep and circled right bellow us for a few minutes, like they were saying "Goodbye and come back to Roca Partida!"
Awesome day and the best way to finish it... with a sunset BBQ on the bow of the boat!
Now we head towards Socorro island to dive Cabo Pearce, so stay tuned because there is more action coming our way!
Antonio Romero
Dive Instructor
Wednesday, April 29, 2015
Once again, it's amazing to be at Roca Partida!
April 28, 2015
Today we woke up at Roca Partida and once again its amazing to be here. The day started a bit cloudy and windy but it got better and it ended being a beautiful day. The water temperature was 24C/75F and visibility was around 100ft/30m!
On the first dive, we started on the south point of the rock where there was a huge cloud of creole fish, triggers and jacks, in the middle of it lots silver tip sharks and some big tunas hunting! It is always nice to see the sharks swimming by the schools of fish and everything looks calm then suddenly you hear that loud explosion like sound and everything hiding close to the rock and a couple of seconds after you see that it is the yellow fin tuna hunting. From there we went to the north part of the rock looking for some dolphins that we had heard and we found them, 15 bottlenose dolphins.
For the second dive we saw the clouds of fish again, some big Galapagos sharks, a school of 20 hammerheads and a big manta, but the highlight was something really rare to see around here a molamola this very weird prehistoric looking fish. The third dive was all about the tunas hunting again this time on the north part of the rock on shallow water and also some small schools of bonitas passed by.
Tomorrow we have planned one more day of diving in Roca Partida hope it will be as good and as unusual as today was.
Thiago Mendonca
Dive Instructor
Today we woke up at Roca Partida and once again its amazing to be here. The day started a bit cloudy and windy but it got better and it ended being a beautiful day. The water temperature was 24C/75F and visibility was around 100ft/30m!
On the first dive, we started on the south point of the rock where there was a huge cloud of creole fish, triggers and jacks, in the middle of it lots silver tip sharks and some big tunas hunting! It is always nice to see the sharks swimming by the schools of fish and everything looks calm then suddenly you hear that loud explosion like sound and everything hiding close to the rock and a couple of seconds after you see that it is the yellow fin tuna hunting. From there we went to the north part of the rock looking for some dolphins that we had heard and we found them, 15 bottlenose dolphins.
For the second dive we saw the clouds of fish again, some big Galapagos sharks, a school of 20 hammerheads and a big manta, but the highlight was something really rare to see around here a molamola this very weird prehistoric looking fish. The third dive was all about the tunas hunting again this time on the north part of the rock on shallow water and also some small schools of bonitas passed by.
Tomorrow we have planned one more day of diving in Roca Partida hope it will be as good and as unusual as today was.
Thiago Mendonca
Dive Instructor
Tuesday, April 28, 2015
Mantas, silky sharks, and more on our first full day back at San Benedicto!
April 27, 2015
Hi folks!
Today was our first full dive day of this trip. We started diving at El Cañón at 8:00 am, we jumped off the back the boat, since we had good weather, we could anchor at the dive site from the stern, too! We descended to 70’/21 m and hit the bottom with a chilly water temperature of 24C/75F and a visibility of over 50’/15m.
So, we swam up to the typical cleaning station that the hammerhead sharks use on a regular basis, however, this time they weren’t there. We headed to the other corner of the cleaning station and saw the glimpse of a lonely hammerhead that got cleaned by few butterfly fishes; it hung around for a bit for later disappeared in the dark deep blue. We started to getting low on air so we had to swim back to the boat, on the way there, we intercepted a chevron manta that was begging for some bubble jobs :), of course we immediately pleased this 14’/4m majestic animal and it followed us all the way to the ascent line! That was how our first dive of today ended. The second and third dives were a bit sharky. 5 Silky sharks swam back and forth to the boat just to hang out right under the boat, they literally stayed around for almost 3 hrs. These curious sharks gave everyone very close-up passes, and made for some thrilling diving! We spent the entire fourth dive checking scorpion fishes, diamond stingrays and one more time the five silky sharks that awaited for us by the hanging air supply system.We had another high-octane dive!
Tonight we’re heading to the grand Roca Partida! Let’s see what awaits us this time! Stayed tuned and don’t miss the Roca Partida news!
Hasta la vista!
Erick Higuera
Hi folks!
Today was our first full dive day of this trip. We started diving at El Cañón at 8:00 am, we jumped off the back the boat, since we had good weather, we could anchor at the dive site from the stern, too! We descended to 70’/21 m and hit the bottom with a chilly water temperature of 24C/75F and a visibility of over 50’/15m.
So, we swam up to the typical cleaning station that the hammerhead sharks use on a regular basis, however, this time they weren’t there. We headed to the other corner of the cleaning station and saw the glimpse of a lonely hammerhead that got cleaned by few butterfly fishes; it hung around for a bit for later disappeared in the dark deep blue. We started to getting low on air so we had to swim back to the boat, on the way there, we intercepted a chevron manta that was begging for some bubble jobs :), of course we immediately pleased this 14’/4m majestic animal and it followed us all the way to the ascent line! That was how our first dive of today ended. The second and third dives were a bit sharky. 5 Silky sharks swam back and forth to the boat just to hang out right under the boat, they literally stayed around for almost 3 hrs. These curious sharks gave everyone very close-up passes, and made for some thrilling diving! We spent the entire fourth dive checking scorpion fishes, diamond stingrays and one more time the five silky sharks that awaited for us by the hanging air supply system.We had another high-octane dive!
Tonight we’re heading to the grand Roca Partida! Let’s see what awaits us this time! Stayed tuned and don’t miss the Roca Partida news!
Hasta la vista!
Erick Higuera
Friday, April 24, 2015
Extremely playful mantas and dolphins at San Benedicto Island!
Hola everyone! April 23, 2015
More extremely playful mantas and dolphins today!
This morning started a bit chilly, with high clouds and an external air temp of 24˚C/75˚F and we are all very excited about our final day of diving at El Boiler on this trip!
From the surface we can see the bottom at 36m/120ft, and once in the water, right away mantas were visible. They were out in the distance a bit, we know they sometimes need time to get used to divers, and as the minutes went by we found ourselves 20m/66ft deep on the west side of the rock amazed by the amount of fish in mid water and the great visibility. Big eye jacks for the most part, but everything was so quiet! It is such a unique experience to be part of the underwater world for just minutes surrounded by only fish, and as we noticed jacks started to leave the rock, the mantas were coming closer and closer. We could hear the chirping sound of dolphins and noticed that it was different this morning, because were chasing other fish! So we go more into the blue keeping our eyes open, and we found the school of jacks along with the dolphins rapidly chasing the jacks. The dolphins were not alone, a black tip shark also noticed the activity, so we had a shark chasing the other two! We could tell the shark was really excited, swimming fast with pectoral fins pointing down! Among the dolphins there was one with dorsal fin bent, we were happy to see it, as we haven't seen it in quite a while!
Back from the dolphins and close to the rock mantas were there already awaiting! 4 giant mantas coming from all directions, they were so playful, watching everything from afar everybody was having fun, there was a vertical stream of bubbles, with mantas getting their bubble massages! Minutes and minute of that! FUN FUN!
For the rest of the day we did 3 more dives, and the highlight of each of those dives was the mantas! For most of the dives our lucky number was 4, which means we had 4 mantas... the exception was the last dive where we had 7 mantas together at one point, black ones and chevrons! Water temp did stay the same, vis decreasing a bit towards the end of the day while the mantas interaction was increasing! Today was our second day at El Boiler, an indicator of how good the diving has been. Just below the Solmar V in an area from 24m/80ft to the surface mantas were congregated, they were really coming from all directions, mantas just below divers, mantas just above head of divers enjoying bubbles, a manta sandwich, diver manta diver, at some point it's so much fun that it becomes a scoring points game, make sure your bubbles hit gentle the belly to deliver the joy mantas like! Still in the area an enormous yellow fin tuna that has been terrorizing all fish of El Boiler, every time it passes by all fish retracts to seek protection on the rock, it is easily be 90kg/200Lb, and at the same time such a perfect predator.
Dive Inst
Daniel Zapata, Solmar V.
More extremely playful mantas and dolphins today!
This morning started a bit chilly, with high clouds and an external air temp of 24˚C/75˚F and we are all very excited about our final day of diving at El Boiler on this trip!
From the surface we can see the bottom at 36m/120ft, and once in the water, right away mantas were visible. They were out in the distance a bit, we know they sometimes need time to get used to divers, and as the minutes went by we found ourselves 20m/66ft deep on the west side of the rock amazed by the amount of fish in mid water and the great visibility. Big eye jacks for the most part, but everything was so quiet! It is such a unique experience to be part of the underwater world for just minutes surrounded by only fish, and as we noticed jacks started to leave the rock, the mantas were coming closer and closer. We could hear the chirping sound of dolphins and noticed that it was different this morning, because were chasing other fish! So we go more into the blue keeping our eyes open, and we found the school of jacks along with the dolphins rapidly chasing the jacks. The dolphins were not alone, a black tip shark also noticed the activity, so we had a shark chasing the other two! We could tell the shark was really excited, swimming fast with pectoral fins pointing down! Among the dolphins there was one with dorsal fin bent, we were happy to see it, as we haven't seen it in quite a while!
Back from the dolphins and close to the rock mantas were there already awaiting! 4 giant mantas coming from all directions, they were so playful, watching everything from afar everybody was having fun, there was a vertical stream of bubbles, with mantas getting their bubble massages! Minutes and minute of that! FUN FUN!
For the rest of the day we did 3 more dives, and the highlight of each of those dives was the mantas! For most of the dives our lucky number was 4, which means we had 4 mantas... the exception was the last dive where we had 7 mantas together at one point, black ones and chevrons! Water temp did stay the same, vis decreasing a bit towards the end of the day while the mantas interaction was increasing! Today was our second day at El Boiler, an indicator of how good the diving has been. Just below the Solmar V in an area from 24m/80ft to the surface mantas were congregated, they were really coming from all directions, mantas just below divers, mantas just above head of divers enjoying bubbles, a manta sandwich, diver manta diver, at some point it's so much fun that it becomes a scoring points game, make sure your bubbles hit gentle the belly to deliver the joy mantas like! Still in the area an enormous yellow fin tuna that has been terrorizing all fish of El Boiler, every time it passes by all fish retracts to seek protection on the rock, it is easily be 90kg/200Lb, and at the same time such a perfect predator.
Dive Inst
Daniel Zapata, Solmar V.
Wednesday, April 22, 2015
Back at San Benedicto with lots of manta interaction!
Hola Hola.
Today we were back at San Benedicto Island the day started a bit cloudy and windy but later on the sky cleared and the weather was just perfect!
Our first dive was at El Cañon and there was a thermocline that made the water temperature drop to about 72F/22C and the visibility was around 40ft/12m. On this dive we went to the edge of the reef as usual to try to find some hammerhead sharks but we did not see any this time... There were a lot of jacks and one big manta going around and by the boat three silky sharks swimming in shallow water.
After that dive we decided to move to El boiler because judging by the weather conditions we thought there would be more action on the other side of the island and we were right! The temperature was a bit higher 78F/25C and visibility 80ft/24m. We did the next three dives there with about seven mantas and lots of interaction all the time! Beside the mantas, each dive had a different highlight. On the first one we had some dolphins just off the reef, on the second one four hammerheads really close by and on the third one a huge school of big eye jacks, just amazing all of them!
Tomorrow is our last day of diving on this trip witch has been great with mantas, whales, whale shark, hammerheads, tiger shark all the things that are rare to see plus all of our usual marine life. For our last day we have planned four dives at EL Boiler so let’s see how this incredible trip ends.
Thiago Mendonca
Dive Instructor
SolmarV
Today we were back at San Benedicto Island the day started a bit cloudy and windy but later on the sky cleared and the weather was just perfect!
Our first dive was at El Cañon and there was a thermocline that made the water temperature drop to about 72F/22C and the visibility was around 40ft/12m. On this dive we went to the edge of the reef as usual to try to find some hammerhead sharks but we did not see any this time... There were a lot of jacks and one big manta going around and by the boat three silky sharks swimming in shallow water.
After that dive we decided to move to El boiler because judging by the weather conditions we thought there would be more action on the other side of the island and we were right! The temperature was a bit higher 78F/25C and visibility 80ft/24m. We did the next three dives there with about seven mantas and lots of interaction all the time! Beside the mantas, each dive had a different highlight. On the first one we had some dolphins just off the reef, on the second one four hammerheads really close by and on the third one a huge school of big eye jacks, just amazing all of them!
Tomorrow is our last day of diving on this trip witch has been great with mantas, whales, whale shark, hammerheads, tiger shark all the things that are rare to see plus all of our usual marine life. For our last day we have planned four dives at EL Boiler so let’s see how this incredible trip ends.
Thiago Mendonca
Dive Instructor
SolmarV
Tuesday, April 21, 2015
Two lesser known dive sites at Socorro Island!
Hola again!
Today we spent the day at two different dive sites, we did our first two dives in “Punta Tosca”, where we found a very good visibility of about 80ft/24m and the water temperature was 78F/25.5C. On our two dives there we took our time to explore different parts of the dive site, on the big bar that provides us a very nice wall dive we found many schools of bi-color parrot, creole and trigger fish, a couple of very big yellow fin tunas, white tip reef sharks, juvenile Galapagos sharks and even a shy chevron manta that swam around us for several minutes without wanting to play, before disappearing in the blue waters! On the shallow area of the dive site we found a lot more white tip reef sharks, many very curious juvenile Galapagos sharks, that would get close when you were looking somewhere else but as soon as you gave them your attention they would swim away, we also found another chevron manta there by the end of our second dive, but again no luck on getting it to play, so we left at lunch time to go back to “Cabo Pearce” where we would finish our day of diving.
We did two more dives at “Cabo Pearce”, on the first one we swam around the whole dive site, deep and shallow area, but no luck, until right at then end when we were poking around the rocks looking at octopus, moray eels and white tip reef sharks, first a chevron manta made its appearance, and a few minutes later 3 bottle nose dolphins came and started playing with us! They were circling around us for a few minutes and then they started swimming right next to us slowly and looking at us! It was awesome! This lasted several minutes before we had to go up the line, as we were getting low on air.
For our last dive of the day we spotted the dolphins at surface from the boat, so we jumped in and for our surprise there was ten dolphins this time, and again the show started...swimming up and down, around us, in between us, and then they started going in vertical position and dropping down slowly, all the way down to the sandy bottom where they would lay down motionless for a few seconds before going crazy again to play around us! All of this excitment in the middle of a very strong south current that made our dive a little short, but 35-40 minutes with these dolphins was enough to leave smiles in our faces.
Now we head back to San Benedicto where we will spend our two last days of diving of the trip!
Stay tuned!
Antonio Romero
Dive Instructor
Today we spent the day at two different dive sites, we did our first two dives in “Punta Tosca”, where we found a very good visibility of about 80ft/24m and the water temperature was 78F/25.5C. On our two dives there we took our time to explore different parts of the dive site, on the big bar that provides us a very nice wall dive we found many schools of bi-color parrot, creole and trigger fish, a couple of very big yellow fin tunas, white tip reef sharks, juvenile Galapagos sharks and even a shy chevron manta that swam around us for several minutes without wanting to play, before disappearing in the blue waters! On the shallow area of the dive site we found a lot more white tip reef sharks, many very curious juvenile Galapagos sharks, that would get close when you were looking somewhere else but as soon as you gave them your attention they would swim away, we also found another chevron manta there by the end of our second dive, but again no luck on getting it to play, so we left at lunch time to go back to “Cabo Pearce” where we would finish our day of diving.
We did two more dives at “Cabo Pearce”, on the first one we swam around the whole dive site, deep and shallow area, but no luck, until right at then end when we were poking around the rocks looking at octopus, moray eels and white tip reef sharks, first a chevron manta made its appearance, and a few minutes later 3 bottle nose dolphins came and started playing with us! They were circling around us for a few minutes and then they started swimming right next to us slowly and looking at us! It was awesome! This lasted several minutes before we had to go up the line, as we were getting low on air.
For our last dive of the day we spotted the dolphins at surface from the boat, so we jumped in and for our surprise there was ten dolphins this time, and again the show started...swimming up and down, around us, in between us, and then they started going in vertical position and dropping down slowly, all the way down to the sandy bottom where they would lay down motionless for a few seconds before going crazy again to play around us! All of this excitment in the middle of a very strong south current that made our dive a little short, but 35-40 minutes with these dolphins was enough to leave smiles in our faces.
Now we head back to San Benedicto where we will spend our two last days of diving of the trip!
Stay tuned!
Antonio Romero
Dive Instructor
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