Roca Partida, another incredible day with mama and her calf!

Hi all!
Roca Partida, a mix of emotions today!
Our day started great snorkeling with mama humpback and female calf, the pair that has been hanging around Roca the last few trips. We witnessed a beautiful behavior from a male humpback gently bumping on female’s chin in an act of courting while the calf just hovers next to them! 
While enjoying a water temp of 75°f(24°C), a vis of over 100’ our dive started place on the south point of Roca. A little bit of current made this dive even more interesting, because with current came galapagos, silver tip, white tip and some hammer heads just swimming back and forth behind a school of jacks! The current slowly drifted us to the northern point of the rock where we spotted a black manta! 

We had the chance to SCUBA DIVE with mama, calf and her escort but just for a brief period of time on our second dive! It's impossible to explain the feelings you experience these gentle giants up close, we have no words to accurately describe this relationship between  mama protects calf without saying a word, no vocalizations between them, just hovering watching over her calf.

A third dive today was amazing! From south to north point back and forward on the east side had big numbers of Galapagos and hammer heads! A mean schooling!! We could feel a male humpback was close by because of his very loud and unique vocalization.  They hit your chest  you can actually feel the vibration, it was a symphony of sounds that we were pleased to hear! 

On our safety stop we were happy to be accompanied by mama and female calf, but with no escort this time! The frame of tenderness created by mama and calf turned into tears from a few of our guests to have such a unique opportunity and to have this breath taking experience. 

Dive Instructor

Daniel Zapata.

An amazing 3rd day here at Roca Partida, an experience nothing can beat!

Hi all!
We continue to have amazing dive experiences here at Roca Partida that are simply unforgettable! We had the good fortune of being able to listen to the humpback whale song on every dive! Above the water they were breaching, playing, doing all sort of things we think trying to impress females, but back to underwater we had all day long this nice and mild current from south that brought to us many joyful things. On the south point we found a big number of hammerheads although they were a bit deep, but the water was so clear while our eyes were watching hammer heads our ears were listening unique whales songs!! 

Other dives took place just in one area enjoying the company of a world of fish at depth with Galapagos sharks and silver tips. 

On another dive we literally dropped in just above a beautiful chevron manta, that we drifted with all the way to the northern point of the rock. 

During our surface intervals our phenomenal panga drivers Pancho and Geronimo took us whale watching put us at the perfect spot to snorkel with mama humpback and her calf for extended periods of time. For those that came aboard dreaming to see a humpback in the water, we made the dream a reality with three incredible days at Roca with mama and her calf! Just watching her at 55' still, barely moving pectoral fins, with her calf resting underneath her chin! At a safe distance we were able to clearly make eye contact with her! We know they have a good vision and excellent hearing! After surfacing they came back to where we were! Always the same depth around 50'! A diver guest admitted she was incredibly moved by this tender picture of mama and calf, an experience nothing can beat!

Dive Inst
Daniel Zapata

A Whale of second day at Roca Partida!

What a great day!

We woke up at 7:00 am, had breakfast, suited up and jumped in the water with this friendly momma humpback and calf that have been hanging out at Roca Partida for the last 3 weeks.  The morning sun rays made the light exposure perfect for taking pictures and video, and after a brief encounter with the whales, we moved to Roca to do our first dive of the day. We were lucky because we quickly found about 100 hammerheads that glided the base of the pinnacle. 

On the second dive when we headed to the south point of the rock, we saw the whales that hung out around there waiting for us. We got ready as fast as we could and got in the water to a surprise! There were no longer 2 whales, this time there were 3! A male was performing the escort with the momma and the baby 2 months old whale. Besides this brief encounter with
the whales, we saw again the school of hammerheads, but this time they were closer to the rock.
At 4 pm we were already getting in the water and the escort, momma and calf awaited at 50’/15 m, they were motionless, literally hovering at this depth, which made it pretty accessible to get close ups to this whales. It was honestly tremendous, almost unbelievable! All the passengers decided to do one more day here, at Roca Partida!

Stay tuned for more Roca news!

See you later.
Erick

What a day at Roca Partida!

What a day at Roca Partida!! If the last trip I said that coundn`t be better, let me tell you I was wrong. Nature surprised us one more time with Mama humpback whale and baby that were more confident than last week. The baby didn`t want to stop playing with us at the surface while mama looked on from 40ft/12m and would come up now and then for a breath and head back down again so we could keep enjoying the company of her calf. If we didn`t need to get back aboard Solmar V to fill up our tanks or eat we would have spent all day in the water with these magnificent creatures. The rest same as usual, schooling hammerhead, one manta, some silvertips and
galapagos shark, lots of white tips sharks and tons of fish!

Claudio Divemaster: I love mi vida loca!!

The word of the day is magical!

Hi all! 

Cabo Pearce at Isla Socorro seems to be the place to dive again! So we have our on board Marine Biologist Eric, Claudio Dive Inst and myself Daniel guiding 3 groups and having A WHALE OF FUN diving! 
As we descended on the rope for the first dive we noticed a vis of 80’ and a water temp of 75°F, nice to say there was no current which made the dive easy to many! So the cleaning station was very busy once again, we were eye witness of 2 mantas a black one and a chevron being serviced by 15 to 20 clarion angelfish! The mantas swim so slow and stop right in front of you and right above you because they enjoy the bubbles on their belly, and not even in deep water! We spebt 50 minutes diving with these gentle critters at only 30'! Eventually we had to end our dive because we were getting low on air! This was a great way to start the day and we could hear in the backgroun whale’s song, our underwater soundtrack for throughout humpback season! It was MAGICAL!!!
On our second dive we explored along the reef a bit more, all the way to the end and back, spying a hammer head here and there, white tip sharks, the mantas again, maybe it sounds familiar! But I am blowing out your mind now saying we had the encounter with 3 humpbacks whales at the depth of 50’ one came back 3 minutes later to stop swimming for a second right in front of us!!! IT’S MAGICAL NOW ISN’T IT!!!!
A third dive went easy swimming on the reef, I have to say thanks nitrox for letting stay longer!  As we go lobsters, scorpion fish, moray eels, octopus, lots of reef fish! But then is time to turn around and head back for a nice safety stop,  a nice advice to you is always look below, up,
left and right because we got lucky again! 3 humpbacks again but now they were flying over our heads chasing each other! That is a Whale of power! We feel bad for the fish behind its flukes! So we got out the water with a breathtaking mix of marine life, but we're not done yet! We spotted false killer whales! Let’s go! We got to see them snorkeling although didn’t want hang out for too long! But it was FUN!!!

Roca Partida Mañana siiiiiiiii!!!
Dive Inst Daniel Zapata

What a way to start our 11th trip, with a super friendly manta!

Hi Folks!

We started our latest Socorro adventure with a very friendly manta on our checkout dive!
We arrived at San Benedicto Island at about 4:30 pm, so we had only enough time to dive in the north point of the island. The visibility was about 70' and a water temperature of 75 F/23 C which mean the conditions were good. We checked out the crevices where normally the white tip reef sharks relax on top of each other, also, next to the white tips there was a HUGE green
turtle that slept in the crevice, I said "huge" because it was really big! (Like 3ft of diameter!)
Anyway, we went over the shallow reefs of this dive site just to check what else we could find and there were few other turtles just chilling around. And then, this friendly female chevron manta made her apperance, wow! She stayed, hanging out and paying with everyone's bubbles that were ending at the surface, we run out of air and she was still there wanted to play,
sorry my friend but we got to go! It´s getting dark and we don´t have enough air to stay with you, we´re sorry! That is what we all thought before we got out of the water 
Tonight, we´ll head for Socorro after the Taquisa. Stay tuned for more Solmar V adventures in Revillagigedo´s Islands! What a way to start our 11th Socorro´s trip, with a super friendly Manta!
Erick Higuera

Two unforgettable days at Roca Partida.

Two unforgettable days at Roca Partida. 
This morning began with a momma and baby humpback whale breaching off the bow. We watched on as the baby seemed to enjoy practicing his breaches. They seemed to be frequenting the South side of the rock so we hoped they might visit us with a swim-by. Instead we were witness to thousands of creole fish and red-tailed triggerfish filling the water column. There were sharks everywhere. Countless galapagos, silkies, silvertips, and of course whitetips made their way through the mass of fish. There were of course yellowfin tuna in abundance on the outside of the bait constantly zipping by. At depth we found a huge mixed school of galapagos, silvertips, and hammerheads. It was difficult to count, but in the neighborhood of 75. They schooled around my group a few times and slowly followed along the rock. As the sharks moved around us a Giant Pacific manta made a surprise visit. For the remainder of the dive we just hovered and enjoyed all the abundance of life swimming before s. 
Between dives we had, again, the opportunity to jump in with the momma and baby humpback whales. The baby was playing while momma layed motionless at 30-40 ft. She watched just in case things got out of hand and after 10 or 15 minutes she decided they would move and relax elsewhere. We followed along on the pangas and jumped in swimming with them twice. The baby made very close passes with everyone and then would dive back down to momma, taking shelter underneath her enormous pectoral fin. Then the baby would peek out and come back up for another play and do it all over again. Of course this left all our guests blown away from the incredible interaction we just had and it goes without saying everyone wore a smile today.
The second and third dives were just as good as the first with lots of sharks moving through the bait fish. We found schools of hammerheads on every dive and often times found them mixing with other sharks. On the last dive we had spotted yet another manta. This is rare for us to see
mantas at Roca Partida. We always have sightings in large numbers at San Benedicto and Socorro, but mantas in Roca have been rare. Not long after the manta swam by on our safety stop we caught a glimpse of the humpback momma and baby swimming by. It was very lucky and it was only for a few seconds but it was an invitation. So we put our dive gear away and came back out in the pangas one more time and swam with momma and baby. They allowed us to get very close and I have to say mommma was very tolerant. But we watched as the baby clumsily swam around us and then swam back to momma again and again. This is how we ended our time at Roca Partida. As the sun rays peaked through the clouds this evening we waved good-bye to Roca Partida and we take away some of the most amazing experiences of our lives. What an incredible two days! 
We start our day tomorrow at San Benedicto looking forward to experiencing more of this special place.
Until Next Time,
Dave Valencia