A perfect checkout dive at San Benedicto Island!

Hi everybody!
After a successful first trip we are back at the Revillagigedo archipelago planning on more spectacular diving with the best service on board of the Solmar V willing to make every journey a life experience to everyone who wants to come and discover the great life waiting at this magnificent destination!
We had a calm crossing from our departure point at Cabo San Lucas, the wind is dropping and we wait to have great diving conditions, especially with the winter approaching we hope the water temperature could be colder and we could encounter even more marine life, is it too much to ask?! Anyway, we wait the best for this trip from friendly mantas, playful dolphins and thrilling sharks.
Today he did one day after arriving to San Benedicto Island, the checkout dive went just perfect. Great divers with lots of experience, most of them had come to Solmar V at least one time so they know perfectly what to expect about the service and the diving, so they make everything to works smoothly and with the best attitude. From the beginning of the dive, when we were setting the descent line we had a good glance at some silky sharks at the surface waiting for the divers so we knew this was going to be a good day to get wet! Once at the bottom, we could see many different things, huge trumpet fishes, white tip sharks, guitar fishes, some rays hidden in the sand and the occasional moray eel between the rocks. At the end of the dive, going up along the line the visibility became a little blurry and while we were doing the safety stop, two silky sharks came out of the blue to make some unexpected company to our group. Our guests just loved it!
We hope tomorrow the day will be as good as this one, this time we are heading straight to Socorro Island where we are going to spend the whole day diving at Cabo Pearce waiting to have our first encounter with our beloved mantas!  Keep in the loop with us, we will have more interesting experiences along the trip and we are more than pleased to share them with all!

Rodrigo Marroquín, 
Solmar V
Dive Instructor.

Another great day at Roca Partida, next stop San Benedicto!

Hola!
One more day at Roca Partida and it was another good one, we woke up to rough seas four to six foot waves witch made it very interesting to go in and out of the pangas the good thing is that as soon as we got in the water it was nice and calm as usual. The temperature was warm again 83F/28C with a thermocline that dropped a couple of degrees at depth, the visibility was very good as usual in roca up to 100 ft/30m of blue water.
On the first dive we had a pod of dolphins join us at first there were 15 of them that showed up and did a couple of loops around us after that they scattered we still saw them for a while just in small groups of two or three at the time. On the second dive there were two mantas and we saw our first school of hammerheads of the season there were at least 20 of them just about 20ft/6m below us with 3 of them coming closer to check us out. The third and last dive of the day was calm but very relaxing we stayed close to the wall on the shallow zone checking out the white tip reef sharks and the lobsters that hang out in the holes and ledges of the rock.
Now we head back to San Benedicto for our last day of diving planning to do some dives at el cañon hoping for some mantas and maybe some more hammerhead, but one thing is for sure this seems like the start of a good season to come.
Thiago Mendonca
Dive Instructor

Hammerheads, mantas, and more on our first day back to Roca Partida!

Hi everybody!
Thanks for following us on our first trip of the season on board the Solmar V, is a pleasure to let you know that we have arrived to one of our favorite stops on this journey, ROCA PARTIDA!
The days have passed and our guest have enjoyed great diving, exquisite food, incredible marine nature and the magnificence of the ocean, but the best is about to come cause this place gives some many surprises and the first day wasn't an exception!
We arrived at sunrise to Roca Partida which invites our guests to take many pictures of the scene before getting into their wet suits to start the diving of the day. Once the briefing has been given explaining all the procedures, possible encounters with the marine life, and planning the groups to get started, we jumped into the zodiacs and approached to the rock to start descending into the blue. The conditions were good, a mild current let us descend easily and the first group is in the water with great expectations about the place. Immediately as we are going down we saw the caves where the white tip sharks usually hang around, this is a good scene for a picture and our guest didn’t miss the occasion. They come out of the caves and start to swim around us and the feeling is incredible, you can see how happy the people is for being so close to this beautiful animal. As the dive went on we go deeper to try to find some hammerhead sharks because everybody knows this is one of the best places to see them in Mexico! This great species like to be in currents so we make some extra work to try to find them swimming into the current for a while, and suddenly at a distance we could see the silhouette of some of them. So great to see them again! Let’s hope tomorrow we can see more!
The time goes on and we suddenly see a shadow that is familiar to us, big black mantas getting close to us just like the ones that we had the past days in Socorro Island. How great is to experience the gentleness of these huge animals, how they interact with the people in a friendly way and full of respect for each other, it’s like they invite you to get closer and blow some bubbles in their belly. They kept coming on and on, when a silver tip made his appearance out of the blue. Then another one comes to swim close to the divers, enough to see how perfect their design is.
The place is full of life, wherever you look at you find something interesting to see. Schools of red and yellow tail trigger fish are everywhere; you can see trumpet fish hovering, groups of white tips swimming across the current and big moray eels hiding into the cracks of the rock are just some examples of the great nature that reigns here.
All the groups are happy with their dives and we are willing for more diving tomorrow morning because there is so much to amaze us at Roca Partida, and the feeling of our guests about being here is full of respect for the place and unique opportunity for being in this diving paradise, away from the crowds into an environment that invites us to think about the life complexity and how we are the main reason to help these endangered species to survive. It is just trough this experience that many people realizes what is our impact in the nature, and how as the most “intelligent” been on the planet, the human is here to preserve not to destroy.
Tomorrow is time for more diving, hope we have great conditions and plenty of life out there!
Rodrigo Marroquín, 
Solmar V
Dive Instructor.

We had a Mantastic day at Socorro Island!

Hello Hello!!
It is good to be back at the archipelago!! Today we dove Cabo Pearce at Socorro Island and we had a mantastic day, the water is worm 83F/28C many of our guests are diving just with rash guards and shorties, the conditions over all were very good not much current throughout the day and good visibility around 60ft/20m!
Cabo Pearce is a place where it is common to see the mantas being cleaned by the endemic clarion angel fish and because of this they usually do not interact as much with the divers here as they do in other places like at El Boiler, but today was different we had lots of mantas all over the dive site many of them being cleaned and enjoying the dives bubbles at the same time. Today we heard many comments about how great the manta dives are here things like, everybody had their own manta, they followed us over 60 minutes all the way to the end of the safety stop, it is amazing how they look at you and many more. Beside the 10 different mantas that we saw there were lots of octopuses, moray eels, tons if reef fish, some with tip sharks, one hammerhead and to finish the day 3 dolphins at the end of the last dive!
Now we head to Roca Partida and we are anxious to see how it is going to welcome us on this new season, I am sure there will be lots of action.
Thiago Mendonca
Dive Instructor

We're back at the Socorro Islands, our favorite underwater paradise!

Greetings from San Benedicto!
It´s time for more action in the ocean and the Solmar V is ready for a new experience for the upcoming season at the Revillagigedo Islands! After spending the last several months at Guadalupe Island watching great white sharks in the solitude of that beautiful place, we are happy to inform you that we just arrived to San Benedicto Island after a successful cruise thanks to our experience and reliable crew!
The excitement for this trip is huge and we have an amazing group that almost arrived to our boat with their wetsuits on, waiting anxiously to get wet and experience for themselves the Socorro islands they have heard so much about! Everything is ready to start this amazing opportunity once more to experience the diving paradise and get in touch with the marine nature, the impressive volcanic topography and the deepness of that blue that make us feel privileged.
After departing from Cabo San Lucas, we headed straight to San Benedicto which is our first stop on the trip plan. On the way coming here we made sure that everything was ready for our first dive of the trip; the tanks are full, the equipment is ready, the plan has been set up and the mood of our group couldn´t be better! Now just to get in the water!
The first dive spot of the trip is el fondeadero, on the southeast side of the island, which is a rocky reef with sand lines in between and is situated very close to the island. With lots of red tail trigger fish and parrotfish around  we started our descent down the line one group at a time. Once we were at the bottom we could feel a slight surge caused by the wind coming from the south, at this moment we had visibility of around 35 to 40 feet and the marine life was spectacular! There were tons of fish everywhere you looked, a funny octopus close to the rocks didn't mind us being around and lobsters walking here and there during the day time.  The place is spread out but we didn't have to swim far enough to encounter the first shark of the trip! This time is a white tip welcomed us to Revillagigedo. At the end of the dive we could spot a great variety of fish at surface, a big school of chumps and huge surgeon fishes were all around us at our safety stop. Later at dusk we could see some silky sharks right at the surface trying to catch their own meal.
This could last forever but the trip is waiting for much more during the next days. At this moment it’s just great to be back in the water and finally at the Revillagigedo archipelago.  Now it is time to change tanks, get some sleep and be ready for tomorrow’s journey that is going to be really exciting!
Stay tuned! We would have more experience for you the next days, cause the best is just waiting for us.
 
Rodrigo Marroquín
Solmar V
Dive instructor

I wonder what are great whites thinking when they make eye contact with us?!...

Hi all!

Oct 21,  2015

Wind from NNW makes us feel like real adventurous explorers in the ocean In route to Isla Guadalupe, white bellied Dolphins escorting us along the way! A sun fish rests on the surface sideways probably enjoying of the swells and water temp of 74F, a sky covered with clouds in grey color lets the thin light break thru, some boobies don't waste time to play In the wind gliding just over the surface without touching the water!

Our new first day at the island started with lots of enthusiasm from our guests wanting to see great whites! The clouds and thin rain didn't let the sun break thru at first, air temp was 21C, underwater was a whole other story! Water temp 24C, vis 20m, submersible cage started to descend very early while divers on the surface cage were  already immersed. At depth our first visitor arrived very curious about the submersible cage,  Gunter, a male white shark kept coming at us repeatedly with a smiling face, a pilot fish rubbing its little tail against shark's snout! They know the area! It seems he doesn't have rush or stress by the way he swims, other male comes in, keeping distance from each other they shared the swim area below SOLMAR V! Which was very good for us, after being absent for several trips, a shark named Horizon shows up with fresh bites on its right flank, at least today they are pacific swimmers, Andy another male white shark got in the area once the other two disappeared, surfaces cages were slow active hoping these shark will come up to break surface but they didn't, so 3 other sharks including one female made appearance by the submersible cage, it was fun to see interaction, at times  how they measure one against other to keep status! 

The following day  “Legend” a male shark recently acoustic tagged showed up, after a few weeks of being absent he came back keeping every one happy putting on a great show from about 7:30 in the morning to around 12 noon! He is a speedy guy, barely taking a break, he kept circling surface cages very focused on how to get the bait! In the end he always did it! Launching its body in different angles got the bait by doing vertical rapid ascend breaking surface half of body out of the water, wide open mouth showing teeth and splashing such amount of water! Many other times coming straight at the cage open mouth, swimming slowly, very close to cages was also one of the things he liked to do among so much more! The "Watch what you wish for" became reality for our guest. Submersible cage was as good as on the surface. Having up to 4 sharks circling at the same time, and providing a different perspective to see them from this cage, that smiling face never disappears, barely open mouths, that big eye definitely is making contact with us, I wonder what are great whites thinking when they make eye contact with us!?!?...

Dive inst

Daniel Zapata, Solmar V.

We are on our 14th trip of our 2015 great white season, just two trips left before we head back to the Socorro Islands!

Hola amigos!

We are on our 14th trip of our 2015 great white season, just two trips left before we head back to the Socorro Islands! But first, let me tell you how the trip went...

To start we left with great weather which gave us nice smooth crossing to the island, by 9:20 am we already had the bait in the water!  About an hour later, the first great white showed up! A few minutes later, a second shark showed up!  We had arm water at the surface, 74F/23.3C, the action kept going with these two males that were 10-12'/3-4m were very feisty and gave a great show!  They did some partial breaches and quick turns, the submersible cage was busy, when the sharks weren't at the surface cages they were circling our submersible cage a bit deeper!  The submersible was a great place to be all day long to get another perspective on the great whites!

On the second day we started a bit slow, but after a while the two males from yesterday showed up and gave us a good show for a few hours!  When the action at the surface slowed, the submersible cage had good passes.

Our last day of diving we moved to a different dive site, as the visibility was not that great at the dive site from our first two days.  At the second site, we had similar conditions with lower visibility than usual, but after a bit we spotted our old friend Bruce aka Zapata!  He's a massive great white we've that always puts on a good show, he stayed around the cages for nearly an hour, especially around the submersible cages!

For the last part of the day, we had another 10' male that came to the boat, and stayed for the last hour, a very agile shark that made quick and sharp turns around the cages!  It was a good way to end the diving activities!

On the way back we again found a great weather and made it back safely to Ensenada and now we are ready for our 15^th trip! So stay tuned because there is more action coming our way!

Antonio Romero

Dive Instructor

Solmar V