Friday, December 15, 2017

December 3rd - December 11th, 2017 #TripReport (Socorro Islands)

Dive Report - Trip N ° 4 (Dec 3rd to Dec 11th)

Hi everyone!!

We had a terrific trip!! We dove El Fondeadero at the beginning to do the check dive. The action begun at The Boiler, the bottle-nose dolphins come to play with the divers, at least 30 dolphins were around us. The Pacific Giant Mantas arrived to the cleaning stations and they circled around the site, 5 to 6 Pacific Giant Mantas in a great visibility of 80 ft / 24m of blue and warm water of 80 ° F° / 24 C. We saw 1 Black Manta and 4 Mantas Chevron during the 4 dives. Wonderful spectacle of Mother Nature! This is why the Boiler is one of he best dives sites in the world to interact with this gentle creatures of the Ocean.

We head to Socorro Island to dive the beautiful reef of Roca O’Neil with the majestic arch at the 100ft which make a contrast of lights, with a moon geography at its reef there were plenty of tropical fish, diamond stingrays, silky shark, silvertips sharks and a Chevron Manta was in the area while the whitetip sharks were around the reef. Punta Tosca with its long bar and beautiful reef was a relaxing dive, specially at the shallow area with plenty of hard coral and tropical fish as parrot fish, Pacific trigger fish, trumpet-fish and with lots of torpedo rays, whitetips sharks resting in the caves, lobsters and even a turtle was around.

Cabo Pearce with its lava flow and several cleaning stations was perfect to watch 2 mantas Chevron and a Black Manta as well. Incredibly amazing to watch the mantas coming from the depth to the surface showing us their belly with plenty of white spots and doing circles.

We left Socorro Island to head to Roca Partida to encounter a rough sea in the morning and a strong current to the east side. During the first dive we found a school of Hammerheads at the 120 ft / 36 m. The first hammerheads were shallower but when we look to the bottom and no less than 40 hammerheads were arriving to spent a good time with us. The second dive was easy and relax to watch the site and the schools of cotton mouth jacks, amber jacks, a big Galapagos shark and the whitetips sharks resting at the edges. The 3rd dive was absolutely amazing! At the western side we found a big silvertip shark and few hammerheads close to us and big schools of Big eyes jacks. We went with the schools and the sharks to return in a blue water dive where we found a solitary silky shark, 3 mobulas rays coming from the blue, a couple of wahoo and finally we saw an amazing migration of Mobulas Rays, 40 to 50 of them, passing right next to us and circling in front of us while the silky was around, every time more curious!!

We came back to San Benedicto Island to dive El Cañon and we found 2 bottle-nose dolphins and lot of life. At the second dive we found a very playful Chevron manta. And near to El Cañon we dove at Dos Hermanos to find more Chevron mantas and a tiger shark of 3 m/ 9 ft.

To say goodbye we came back to El Boiler to have a bottle-nose dolphins everywhere! There were lots of them in all the site! They were very playful and curious and the mantas were arriving to the cleaning stations more and more. A tiger shark stayed at least for 3 dives near the mini Boiler. A hammerhead also passed right in front of us but we then decided to continue to the eastern corner because we had more bottle-nose dolphins to play with. Lots of fun at the Socorro Islands!!! See you soon!

Ignacio Hernan Leyro
Scuba instructor
Solmar V

Crossing
Cabo San Lucas to San Benedicto Island: 23 hrs
San Benedicto to Socorro Island : 4 hrs
Socorro to Roca Partida : 10 hrs
Water temperature : 80 f|° / 24 C|°
Visibility : 30 ft / 9 m to 80 ft / 24 m depending the sites

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