Socorro

So a break from Maui diving. I am heading out on a live aboard trip to Socorro Island, Mexico, with the Nautilus Belle Amie. I leave this evening, Tuesday Feb 14. But I arrived in Cabo on Sunday, so I had a couple of days to dive locally in Cabo, and I have an hour to kill before today’s dive. Here are the pictures from yesterdays dive. I still have to ID a lot of …

2nd day of local diving in Cabo San Lucas. Brr. The water is cold here. Had some great Humpback Whale viewing from the boat (no pics). Guineafowl PufferScenicGiant Damselfish ScenicSpiny LobsterGuineafowl PufferCortez AngelfishThreebanded ButterflyfishGuineafowl PufferKing Angelfish, Scissortail ChromisKing Angelfish, Graybar GruntsYellowtail SurgeonfishPanamic PorkfishBurrito GruntsBlunthead TriggerfishReef Stingray, ?, ?Giant HawkfishYellowtail Surgeonfish School, ParrotfishBanded Guitarfish I used the SportDiver housing on this dive with 2500 and 5000+ lights.

On February 16th, we arrived at San Benedicto Island in the Revillagigedo Archipelago after a 24 hour boat journey from Cabo San Lucas, Baja Sur, Mexico. The crossing was not too bad for me, but a few folks got seasick. The night sky on the open ocean was, as expected, spectacular. The boat is the Nautilus Belle Amie, a 112 foot live aboard dive vessel that carries 32 divers. The crew was fantastic, from the …

The second stop on the trip was Socorro Island, the biggest island and the only active volcanic island in the archipelago currently. We spent 2 days here at two different sites: Cabo Pearce and Punta Tosca, and did a total of 7 dives. This is where we started to see the giant Manta Rays. There are the Black Mantas (solid black back) and the Chevron Mantas (white chevron pattern on their back), though they are …

Roca Partida is a small “parted rock” covered in guano that juts up from the deep ocean floor. Due to many boats around the small area, we could only do 3 dives here so as to not over stress the small environment. This was supposed to be the place for multiple Manta Rays, but I don’t think we saw any, except for maybe in passing (did not get any pics of Mantas here). It was, …

For our last day of diving, we went to The Boiler, a submerged seamount that is just off San Benedicto Island. This again is supposed to be the place for the giant Mantas, and it did not disappoint. CoralDolphins with DiverDolphins with DiverDolphins with DiverBigeye TrevallyBlack MantaBlack MantaDiver with Black MantaBlack MantasBlack MantasChevron MantaChevron MantaChevron MantaChevron MantaChevron MantaChevron MantaChevron MantaChevron Manta RayChevron Manta RayChevron Manta RayChevron Manta RayChevron Manta Ray For these dives I used …

Back in Cabo san Lucas with a day to kill, so I might as well dive again. If you are not a partier, there is nothing to do here on land but eat and sleep, best I can tell. So I went out with SeeCreatures again, the sister company for the Nautilus live aboard company. All kinds of rays today: Spotted Eagle, Smoothtail Mobula, and Cownose Rays (not pictured). Someone also said they saw an …