March 19 - March 30, 2017 #TripReport

The Tiger & Manta Avenue

Hi everybody!!

We've had a relaxing check out dive at El Fondeadero in San Benedicto Island, with lots of tropical fish, blue fin trevalley jacks, white tip sharks, and a black manta.

The Canyon was great for the next two days. Fabulous conditions, water temp72f/23C, average visibility of 50 ft / 15m and a challenging current which brought an explosion of life: mantas right over our heads, hammerheads, white tip sharks, silvertips and a tiger shark!

Cabo Pearce and Punta Tosca dive sites in Socorro Island offered a lot of fun with super friendly mantas, hammerheads here and there, galapagos sharks, and more. In both places the dolphins were very playful and curious to the point that let us pet them for long minutes. The dive was absolutely amazing and out of this world!! A massive tiger shark about 4 m/12 ft came straight to the wall and got the vertical position and we could appreciate the big volume of its body! Big fat guy!! A very playful bottlenose dolphin jumped out of the water in front of us and went down to play with the divers. The fascinating behavior of the 2 chevron mantas we saw continued during the next day.

Amazing roca O'Neill offered a wonderfull wall dive, an arch to pass trough at 100ft / 30m depth and great visibility of 100ft/30m. The wall dive allowed us to entry into another cave and we enjoy the shallow area of the reef with lobsters, moray eels and lots of pacific creole fish.

Then we headed to Roca Partida where we had a very good action with 8 galapagos sharks, schooling cotton mouth jacks in the area, bigeye jacks and tunas .The surge and current were challenging. The area was plenty of life, white tip sharks and a massive yellowfin tuna passed very close to us!! Such a great dive!! We also had a good interaction with 2 chevron mantas.

We then came back to dive the Canyon again. The current was strong and it helped us to find hammerheads, silvertips and mantas. The next day at the Boiler we dove with 4 bottle-nose dolphins, and a chevron manta was near the cleaning station.

To finish our trip we dove the canyon for the last time! A big tiger showed up very close to the reef in a strong current. During the very last dive, the same tiger shark about 4m/12ft came back to us one more time. Meantime, the hammerheads were above us, a manta chevron in front of us, and we were lucky to see the same tiger shark coming back at us to the cleaning station with two silvertip sharks. In between all of this, lots of white tip sharks!!

                                                       Ignacio h.Leyro
                                                       Scuba instructor

March 8 - March 16, 2017 #TripReport

Roca Partida Experience

Photo: Erick Higuera


Hello everybody,

This is the report for the trip number 13, from March 08th to the 16th, nine days of scuba diving on board Solmar V in the Revillagigedo archipelago. The weather was pretty good, and also with good visibility in most of the sites. On this trip we had some guest who were here before with us, so we are very happy to see them again, and flattered that they decided to spend their vacations in Revillagigedo on board Solmar V.

As always the first stop was in San Benedicto, where we did four dives in “El Bolier”. We started at eight o’clock in the morning with some dolphins in the area, so by the time we jumped in the water the first group of divers swam with them. The current was heading north and the visibility was excellent. The mantas were following us and playing with the bubbles of the divers, so we had a great day of diving; everybody was excited and happy with all the mantas we saw.

For the next two days of scuba diving we went to “Roca Partida”, where we had the best dives of this trip. In Roca the current was strong coming from east and the visibility was great. The first dive on the first day we saw a juvenile whale shark! Not too deep and close to the rock. We were hopping that the shark stayed all day but unfortunately we didn’t see him again. We saw Galapagos sharks here and there, a school of skip jacks, huge tunas easily over 100 pounds patrolling the area, and mantas were in the area.

The second day was a blast, on the first dive we went dawn to look for the school of hammerhead sharks on the south side of the rock and we found them at 40 meters! Probably more than 40 animals we saw. On the way back to the rock a black manta joined us for a few minutes and almost at the end of the dive, 12 to 15 dolphins showed up and played with us. But the climax of this dive was when the dolphins left us, and latter on they came back surrounding a humpback whale and her calf! Three guys from my group and me were there to see them! Also, we had some dives with super friendly mantas, two of them stayed with us for over 40 minutes, going from one diver to the other.

After some incredible dives in Roca Partida we headed to Socorro Island, where we decided to go to “Cabo Pearce”. The conditions here were not as good as the previous days, we had strong current most of the dives. We saw dolphins early in the morning, mantas, Galapagos sharks and the school of hammerheads sharks in deep water.

Is not very often to see whales and dolphins at the same time when we are scuba diving. On this trip Roca Partida gaves us the opportunity to have that experience and for that we are very grateful.

Pablo
Dive Instructor Solmar V



Dive Conditions
Current (mild1-strong5) 3
Visibility 60ft/18m
Water temp 73F/23C
Weather
Climate Sunny
Sea (calm1-choppy5) 2
Crossing
to Revillagigedo 1
to Cabo San Lucas 3

February 26 - March 6, 2017 #TripReport

Hi All!
 
A Dolphin and Hump Back Whale trip!

Photo: Erick Higuera

 
Our crossing South to Isla San Benedicto was spectacular, really flat surface ocean
conditions! Las Cuevas our fist dive of the trip as a check out dive in Isla San Benedicto!
Lots of white tip reef sharks, flounders, green sea turtles, 2 chevron mantas, sting rays, lots
of reef fish, in the over heads clusters of lobsters, a great first dive under very friendly
conditions, vis average 40ft/12m, no current at all, water temp 73℉/23℃, air temp 77℉/
25℃, Roca Partida amazing place, great memories to take back home! Lots of videos
and pictures were taken by our happy customers to enter the famous Solmar V photo
contest, as early as 7:20 am we are all ready in the water enjoying the chirping of
more than 15 friendly dolphins for more than 35 minutes, Giant Pacific Mantas as
friendly as always swimming slowly letting us swim under blowing lots of bubbles,
yellow fin tunas hunting, a massive school of stripe bonitos showed up several times
even with dolphins and silky sharks tailing them! A school of 24 Hammer Heads were
there in the South end of the Rock, Silver tip sharks! this is not it! We enjoyed the
opportunity of snorkeling with Hump Back Whales several times, mama, boyfriend
and calf! Even breaches high in front of the zodiacs, other times the came just by our
Boat Solmar V, Cabo Pearce dive site at Isla Socorro, early dives the best! Dolphins
once again! This time one of them came up to us so close so close within inches away
from our hands inviting us to pet, of course we did, we spent minutes and minutes
petting this dolphin while others were swimming circles around us, of course mantas
demanding of our attention above every body! 

Punta Tosca dive site at Socorro as
well made us enjoy of friendly mantas under those easy dive conditions.
Back to Isla San Benedicto to dive El Boiler, the first dive of the morning with
about 14 dolphins chirping so loud! Swimming with them made us go far from the rock
at the same time swimming with them made us return to the rock, the North West
side turned to be a cleaning station not only for mantas but dolphins too at a depth of
110ft/33m, easy 35 to 40 minutes of dolphin joy! Nitrox 32 a great advantage to stay
with chevron and black mantas longer time in shallower water for the rest of the day!
Of course lobsters, octos, white tips jacks and more were there to compliment a
great day!
 
Dive conditions of the trip:
Average Vis 60ft/18m
Air temp average of the trip 77℉/25 ℃
Average Current 2 in a scale from 1 to 5
Average water temp 75℉/23℃
 
Ocean surface conditions: flat.
Weather: Sunny
 
Dive Instructor
Daniel Zapata, Solmar V.