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

Roca was like a dream!

I don´t even know where to start, what a day!!! Roca Partida is hot, we found easily 200 silkies sharks, lots of silvertips, hammerheads and big galapagos along with tunas, tunas and more tunas! One came so close to me that I could have kiss it. On our later dive we saw two mantas, one chevron and one black along with more and more tunas. So far sounds like a great day of diving but it gets better!! In addition to all of this incredible scuba action, we had a mama humpback whale and her baby playing with us all day long, and as I'm writing this some of our guests are still snorkeling with them! They also came to say hello during our dives too it was like a dream!! 

Claudio Divemaster

Cabo Pearce was the place today!

Hi all! Cabo Pearce was the place today!
A nice current from north kept us on the shallower part of the cleaning station using our reef hooks, just hovering there waiting for everything to come to us. We had several mantas hang out with us each for a few minutes, although not all at once. Wild dolphins stopped by for a couple of minutes before rushing off, it seemed like if they were in a rush to get to somewhere! Between breaths were able to hear whales singing, and we were hoping to see them underwater because we spotted them from the boat not too far from the dive area.
For dive #2 we decided to do a zodiac dive. On the way to the second dive we saw a humpback calf resting on the surface, so we took a quick turn and headed in his direction. We approached very slowly as to not startle the baby whale, 6 of our divers got in the water very slowly with cameras and snorkels without making any noise! What they saw was a mother humpback whale with her calf resting just below her fins!!! After this amazing encounter, we decided to put our scuba gear back on and spend more time underwater! At 50`of water and swimming along the wall got to see a school of yellow fin tunas, a hammer head also! We had no current at all on this dive so we all hung around the cleaning station again where we had this chevron manta kept coming back for more bubbles! The vis on this dive was less than the previous one which kept us shallower over the cleaning station area for the whole dive, where we got to know every little fish living here and a black manta! The water temp always from 79° to 77°
Dive Inst 

Daniel Zapata

This trip began with an excellent dive at Isla San Benedicto

Greetings from the Solmar V,
We have a very excited group of divers from the China and the U.S. this week. All of them are new to the Revillagigedos so we`re hoping for the best! This trip began with an excellent dive at Isla San Benedicto. After spotting a few whales here and there we jumped in at El Fondeadero and found excellent visibility. There were many white tip reef sharks cruising the reef and countless eels and scorpionfish. The fish life was abundant with Barberfish, Jacks, and Angelfish just to name a few. There was a lot of action on the reef, but none of our winged friends showed up. So something more to look forward to tomorrow as we`re heading to Socorro tomorrow.
Until Next Time,
Dave Valencia

Hammerheads, mantas and humpbacks on our last day at San Benedicto

Hi all! 

We are heading back to Cabo San Lucas, after another great trip! Our last diving day of the trip at San Benedicto Island started early in the morning with 2 dives at el cañon, where we enjoyed
the visit of hammerheads and SIlver Tip sharks during both dives, plus a Chevron manta. We had the same action on the second dive! The water temperature was 78 and visibility was 80'+  The last 2 dives of the day were performed at El Boiler where we spotted school of hammerheads, several friendly Mantas and a group of three whales close to the Solmar V! Their singing accompanied our dive and it was an amazing soundtrack to our last dive of the day.Water Temp at el boiler was 78F and with 80'+ visibility.

Stay tuned for the next trip! 

Ricardo Tamaño
Dive Instructor

We had a fantastic day at Socorro Island!

Hi all! 

Cabo Pearce was the Dive Site to explore today! We had a fantastic day at Socorro Island! During a 40 minute dive we had the opportunity of seeing the first hammerhead of the day in shallower water we went a bit deeper and found about 7 more!   Over the cleaning station we found 4 mantas that were getting cleaned by clarion angel fish!  The mantas were swimming right over our heads, they love our bubbles!  It was quality manta time!The reef was as beautiful as ever, covered in a colorful variety of reef fish! During the same dive 8 dolphins found us! The playful dolphins swam circles around us, and followed us for a good period of time!  Our divers loved it when the dolphins pause from swimming vertically in front of us, pause, then slowly free fall into the depth!  They are so much fun!

On our second dive the water was so blue that from 40' we were able to see the sandy bottom 140' below! We could see giant electric rays and diamond head rays and into the blue we spotted 15 hammerheads heading our way!  The mixture of large adult hammerheads mixed with a few juveniles swam right under our fins!  They made two passes before disappearing into the blue! We ascended to a shallower depth where we met 5 white tip reef sharks on our way to the cleaning station.  There were 7 mantas and 1 mobula waiting for us at the cleaning station!

The next two dives the mantas were still there, giving everyone a chance to get the perfect manta photo! We ended our day with 8 mantas that couldn't stay long, and listening to the most beautiful whale song for 20 minutes!  During our surface interval we spotted from the bow of the the whales less than 100' from our boat being escorted by dolphins!  Surface water temp was 79F with 100'+ visibility!  It was a great day at Socorro island, next stop, el canyon!

Dive instructor 

Daniel Zapata