Photo: Brandon Cole

Writing from San Benedicto Island on our way to Roca Partida overnight, but we have to say that it has been such an amazing day full of mantas and sharks at El Cañon, hope the expectations stay high and we can offer the best diving at Roca.

The day started with cloudy weather, big and long clouds cover the sky and everything seemed to be a bit gray but things are different underwater so we didn´t loose any time to unload the pangas, set the anchor and prepare the groups to get in the water. The conditions this time were good, with long swells coming from the south east, no current for the first 3 dives and a little bit of it coming from the south for the last dive, the visibility was ok for the first 2 dives (50 ft / 15 mts) and really murky on the third but thanks to the strong current on the last we got good visibility because it cleaned the water, the temperature about 26 C / 78 F with thermoclines all over the place.

For the first dive we got down to 30 mts / 90 ft right on the edge of Cañon, trying to see some hammerheads but our surprise was big when a black manta made its appearance right away, so we got distracted for a while with this beautiful manta, blowing bubbles, taking photos and sharing a great moment with this amazing being. As the dive continued we found more mantas, white tip sharks, moray eels and many jacks swimming around the site. The divers had a great time trying to get themselves under the mantas and some of them really got the technique, so the mantas just loved it and kept coming towards us.

For the second dive, we found some hammerheads and the big school was moving away from us but we got to have a clear view of them, some shadows showed that the place was full of sharks when the silkys appeared next to some big black tips that show themselves most of the time. But the best of the day was the mantas indeed, when more than 8 kept swimming between us getting closer each time to the divers and even coming to the safety stop with us looking straight into the eyes and even sharing some special feeling with some of the divers.

For the last dives we got to see more sharks, silkys, white tips and even a baby tiger shark came close to the divers, we cannot overlook the mantas that kept coming during the whole dive.

Lets see what Roca will bring to us tomorrow, hope we have another epic day at this unique site.

Rodrigo Marroquin, dive instructor, SOLMAR V.