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Baby whale shark at Roca partida but diving is otherwise a bit slower than normal – dive guide, crew and guest log – 18 MAY 2010

Wednesday, May 19th, 2010

We started of with our first day in San Benedicto after a smooth ride down from cabo San Lucas. canyon did not get so much so we moved over to the Boiler and had both better vizibility and one big black manta that got interest of us , but went off after an 10 min. It was a female and we recognice her from  before.

As weather is staying calm we moved over night to Roca partida and got into the water and had a baby whale shark!  We did not get as much shark as usual , but a bit better then last trip. Last trip we had tousands of yellowfin Tunas houndreds of Wahoos and the false Orcas.  This time so far the whale shark, and as well a group of dolphins that came by spinning around us and then left us.  There are still a good number of wahoos around. We wispered in a couple of silver tips and Galapagos sharks. We spotted hammerheads , but very deep at ca 160-180 ft. The animals are there just did not get in real close to day. We are staying one more day tomorrow so let us see how it goes then.

Surface conditions: 15 knot wind, wind waves , but very shalloow swell/surge. Mostly cloudy. 26 C
Underwater conditions: Weak to medium current, not much of surge 24 C ca 75F Good viz ca 30 m , 100Ft No real termaclime.

Dive guide Sten

Hostess Blog
The first day of a new trip is always exciting for me. A brand new group of divers from different backgrounds with different stories to tell. 25 smiling faces walk through the door – 25 new names to remember! Everyone buzzing with anticipation of the adventure that awaits them at the Socorro Islands. Everyone is excited to see and interact with our “Friendly Giants”, the mantas. One woman has already told me that she is most excited to see the sharks. This is great news because we have 6 different species of sharks here at Socorro, including hammerheads which you can often see in large schools. In fact, just last week I was enjoying a dive at ‘The Canyon’ when I came upon a school of hammerhead sharks that was easily 40-50 strong!! I love watching them move through the water – stealthy and effortless – even though their head seems to be so awkwardly shaped! haha! Oops! Time to go bake today’s snack – cherry crumble!  ’Till next time.

Hostess Ashley

Before I started working on the Nautilus Explorer the last dive I made was 15 yrs ago in Campbell River, BC. Last week I made my first dive since then, at Roca Partida, Mexico. I saw lots of white-tip reef sharks, my first sharks ever seen underwater! I also a 10′ Galapagos shark! That got my adrenaline going. We saw big schools of wahoo, and a lot of other fish I’ve never seen before. I’ve been working here almost 2 months now and have enjoyed all aspects of the job immensely. The crew (especially Captain Gordon <–inserted by Captain Gordon), have been great to work with and I’m learning about a whole new work experience. A little different from the tow boats back in BC. Chief  Engineer Larry

This is Gabriele from Germany:

This is my first trip to Socorro and my first trip with the Nautilus Explorer. Within 2 days I had everything You could wish for: Starting with the Marine Life: 2 Baby Whalesharks, 1 Giant Manta, lots of sharks (tiger, grey, white tips, silver tips, longimanus), lots of swarm fish, makrels, tuna, You name it. But: This would not be possible without the help of this perfect ship: There is hardly a vessel that can match with the Nautilus Explorer: the expirience of the staff is excellent, the service is extraordinary. You always feel welcome and looked after, the courtesy and friendliness of the staff is unmatched, I enjoy every minute on board (and I only checked in two days ago….;-)))) ) Thank you very much.

El viaje ha sido espectacular. Estamos en el segundo dia y ya hemos visto tiburon ballena juvenil, mantarayas, tiburon martillo, miles de tiburones puntas blancas, tuna, makarelas. La vida marina de las islas del archipielago es impresionante, aun es posible ver predadores tope algo que es dificil encontrar en lugares costeros. El staff es muy atento y te ayudan en cualquier problema (van mas alla de lo necesario para hacerte sentir bien, GRACIAS!!); el barco es bastante comodo y es mas amplio de lo que se pudiera pensar. Uff, pensar que aun faltan 10 dias mas en este paradisiaco archipielago y barco!!!  Laura Escobosa

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Posted in Animals, Cabo San Lucas, Captains Log, Destinations, Galapagos Shark, Giant Mantas, Guest Blog, Hammerhead shark, Nautilus Explorer, Orca, Roca Partida, San Benedicto, Socorro, The Canyon, Tiger Shark, Tuna, Wahoo, Whalesharks, dolphin, mexico, shark | No Comments »

Checkout first dive of the trip with whaleshark, giant mantas, galapagos and scalloped hammerhead sharks!!!! May 6, 2010. Captain and diveguide log.

Friday, May 7th, 2010

What a difference one charter can make:  we were out at the Boiler by San Benedicto Island and had variable sea conditions and challenging diving for our film production crew, today nothing but flat calm and sunny. In fact, what more can one say about a 26 hour  transit from Cabo San Lucas, South to Socorro when there is not a swell to roll you, not a cloud to shade you, not even a wind to stir the seas. The Pacific surely lived upto its name as we slid over the horizon. Not exactly the proverbial ‘painted ship on a painted ocean’ but you can really appreciate the smootheness of the seas when Venus makes a gloaming trail across the sea. And Stars, exceptional clarity of the Milky Way as we were without Moonlight for the duration of my watch. Firstlight finds us 45 nautical miles out but San Benedicto stood out in bold relief on the horizon before us; we circumnavigated the island close aboard to take in all the impressive colours of the cliffs and Volcanic caldera. An unusual Southern swell made the ‘leeward’ side of the island seas rather like a glacial lake.. pretty Jade waters to look at from above but too low vis to bother with from below. ‘The Boiler’ was our better choice and now Sten will take you below for the checkout dive. Captain Marco

The crossing from Cabo San Lucas down was like a mirror. Nice flat and calm. And sunny. When the sun went down the horizon was so clear that you could easily see the green light just that microsecond before the sea swallowed the sun. Larry our canadian engineer who have just started with us have been at sea for 25 years and today was his first time he saw it! Must be a bit more clouds up in canada probably…

We had a strange south swell that had stirred up the water in the south by the canyon to a greenish soup that we decided as it was so calm that we moved up Nautilus Explorer direct to the Boiler. Visibility in the Boiler was excellent.

We jumped in the blue clear water , today a bit colder then last week ca 2 C colder! We got control over our gear did a weight check and it did not thke long time until we had two giant mantas coming up to us. And they stayed. Enjoying the dive and as well we whispered in a Galapagos shark that took several turns around us. Also hammerhead sharks. Just when our diveguide Pedro signed to me I am going up to the Nautilus Explorer and then we both turned our head and see this huge shadow above us Whale shark!!It was a nice well fed male whaleshark estimated 8-9 m long 25 – 30 feet.   Well Pedro did not return back to the boat. And this whale shark made several turns back to us so we had a good time to take photos and whatched him. It almost looked like the whaleshark was curiouse in to us I had to swim away from his head twice for not colliding in to him. Suddenly the mantas where not so interessting any longer.  Well that was a bit of a check out dive.

The second dive was giving especially the rebreather divers a beautiful scheen of what they said a wall of scalloped hammerheads.  Two mantas still there but no whaleshark came back.  Good start on our trip.

Dive guide Sten

Surface condition: Dead calm , sunny, not so warm in the air though ca 25-27 C

Underwater: Mild current Boiler good viz 100+ ft. Cold water 73 F or 22 C.

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Posted in Animals, Cabo San Lucas, Captains Log, Destinations, Galapagos Shark, Giant Mantas, Hammerhead shark, Nautilus Explorer, San Benedicto, Socorro, The Boiler, Whalesharks | 1 Comment »

Mantas, mantas, manta and loads of in-water time working with a film-crew at San Benedicto Island. Divemaster log. May 3, 2010.

Wednesday, May 5th, 2010

We have had our last two days shooting at the Boiler at San Benedicto Island  and it has been a lot of time in the water.  Our normal day is to start to get a few divers in the water at around 09:00 and wait for the mantas getting in to the Boiler to get cleaned by mainly Clarion Angel fish and Cortez chubs.

When the light and the giant mantas arrive and have been getting more and more interessted in the scuba divers we take out the freedivers and put the film team in the water. It is hectic. The camera just takes 1,5 min and then need to get changed. It is a 35 mm film so very high quality. While the film camera is getting loaded we work with two still cameras and one HD camera. The film team holding the cameras under water are 3 and then two models and one of us from the crew of nautilus as a snorkeler and free  diver. On the surface there are two skiffs. One serving the divers and one serving the cameras and two extra camera crew loading the film for the 35 mm film camera. All this might sounds ok, but with 6 ft and current and wind as the 1 of may. It can get quiet of a hassle and hard work. We never come back to the Nautilus Explorer to eat lunch. Our hostesses Ashley and Silvia and Chef Enrique serves us with food packages that we take aboard the skiffs.

We work just with ambient light so we try to squeeze out of it as much as we can. It is also not all the mantas that are so cooperative, so of what I counted about 6 days in the water an average of 8 hrs non stop a day and a lot of swimming!! I got around 20- 25 individuals of them. there where 3 that where extremly curious . One small female chevron manta visited us 5 days of 6 and a big black female Obama visitided us 3 days in a row. An other 5 that approaches us repetedly and the rest stayed circuling us on a bit of a distance.

Other things that you see while sittiing 7-10 hr in the water around the boiler was many big Wahoos, and Yellow fin Tunas. Two mobulas that I cant say wich kind. While diving. 1 Tiger shark, a few galapagos sharks and silky sharks and white tip sharks. A big group of big eyed jack is always somewhere close to the rock. And I think we heared the last humpback songs for this year! They have almost all gone now.

It has been a fun week, the filmteam are happy of the images that they got and it was a brake in the routine for us as crew. Also to spend so much time at one site is interessting. I named a cortes chub with one yellow dot on its head for smudgy, as it was seen every day all the time…

A few of us actually even a bit exhausted went for a last dive before dinner at the canyon and we got a beautiful dive with a few hammerhead sharks getting in close on the cleaning station. Good way to finish the week.

Dive guide Sten
Surface conditions: 1 may windy and very choppy and lot of clouds and current on top of that. 2 may much calmer, sunny temp 26-27 C

Underwater conditions: May 1 current and some big breakers on the boiler. may 2 sunny weak current ok surge both days 25-26 C ca 76 F Viz good ca 100ft

Photos by Sten Johansson

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Posted in Animals, Captains Log, Destinations, Galapagos Shark, Giant Mantas, Hammerhead shark, Humpback Whale, San Benedicto, Silky Sharks, The Boiler, The Canyon, Tiger Shark, Tuna, whitetip reef shark | No Comments »

The baby dolphins is almost full size now and it seems like the mother is pregnant again – San Benedicto Island, Socorro – divemaster log – May 1, 2010

Tuesday, May 4th, 2010

So up to the boiler at San Benedicto again for the 3 day. This morning when we where checking out the boiler we got saluded by a school of bottle nose dolphins. They stayed around for quite a while. One is a mother and baby I ve seemn for 3 years and the baby is almost full size now and it seems like the mother is pregnant again. The dolphins were swishing by and turning around us and after a while the calmed down but where staying close but deep trying to call us down to the deep. As we are looking for mantas we stayed shallow to save air and bottom time. First just two chevron giant mantas passed. The came the same chevron female manta that we have filmed for two days and to day she stayed the who;e day again, each time we drifted off the boiler she got tired and disapeared , when we went back to the rock, it did not take long time until she was back again, over and over again.  In total we spotted 7-8 individual mantas today, but noone as friendly and curiouse as this girl.  Most has been females. only 1 male today.
Me and mate \Sandy where down to rerig Dr Bob Rubins transiver that got the float broken. It was set on 130 ft. While we worked on it we spotted a hammerhead shark. So on our ascent we went that direction. We wispered in the sharks and Oboj! It was sucsess full!! We got 5 silky sharks around us , very friesky and came charging at us in full speeed that we blocked them with our fins and camera. A medium size galapago shark came in and the two big guys, A bit intimidating, And on top of us a hammerhead shark where cirkiling around us. Not a bad dive just for resetting a receiver!! Nice to see there are sharks out there. I think that it was a evening dive helped. And there are a lot of yellow fin tunas and big and several wahoos out there as well.

Surface conditions: 27-28 C bit windy cloud and sunpoy but not bad for diving and small swell.

Underwater conditions: 25-26 C. Good viz 70-110ft. Very little surge and a bit of current

Dive guide  Sten

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Posted in Animals, Captains Log, Destinations, Galapagos Shark, Giant Mantas, Hammerhead shark, Silky Sharks, The Boiler, Tuna, bottlenose dolphin, shark | No Comments »

According to the size of the uterus, these sharks are ready to give birth + unbelievable humpback whale behavior around divers. April 24, 2010. Guest log.

Wednesday, April 28th, 2010

My God!! Easily one of the best whale encounters of my life. A mother and calf humpback playing and relaxing around our ship, approaching snorklers for over an hour. At one point, the calf approached me to within a meter or two to look me directly in the eye. An amazing experience!!!!     Scott Davis

Today we started the shark tagging program in Mexican waters! One receiver was set on the west side of Roca Partida at 127 ft. The location is excellent and a shark cleaning station is very near from it. After we set it we saw three scalloped hammerheads 50 ft north of it. The sharks species seen during these dives were: scalloped hammerhead (Sphyrna lewini), Silver tip (Carcharhinus albimarginatus), Silky (C. falciformis), Galapagos (C. galapaguensis) and White tip reef (Triaenodon obesus). All the different individuals from these species were adults and in the case of the white tips two pregnant females were seen on the middle of the island at 50 ft. According to the size of the uterus and the behavior of the females (occasional movements out of their caves) they were ready to give birth. By 11:15 am we saw a humpback whale with her calf. They spend more than two hours very close to the Nautilus Explorer making the day unbelievable. The calf made several excursion to the surface in front of the divers and a few full body breaches were seen by free divers just in front of them. Several jacks (big eye trevally) were seen close to the surface traveling in pairs (female silvery and male dark) because they are on the reproductive period. A very nice day for science at the rock! Dr. Mauricio Hoyos

Another busy day. It started with last minute preparations for the deep dive at Roca Partida. Camera batteries and chip, programming the Sonde, Final prepping of the rebreather, readjusting my weighting for an additional layer of wetsuit for the colder water here at Roca Partida.  I am always ambivalent about deep diving here. The bottom is beautiful, and lush. It is mixed sand and rock topography, fairly flat at 255 feet deep. It has many animals absent from Clipperton, and uncommon in the rest of the Revillagigedo Islands, like gorgonian coral and basket stars. I enjoy the fauna and vista. The downside is it is colder, always very rough with up and down motions that make it impossible to hold a steady depth, and usually has a strong current running. All of this makes decompression not only difficult, but more dangerous than calmer water.

My goal for this dive was to shoot photographs to document the bottom for a paper being worked on by Gordon Handler at the LA Natural History Museum. I also carried the Sonde to collect water chemistry data.  The descent was uneventful, except I could not get the strobe tied to the anchor. It is a bright flashing light that I was going to use to help me find the anchor at the end of the dive so I could go back up the anchor line. The problem was that even at 250 feet deep the chain was moving up and down so much I could not thread a tie wrap (zip tie) to secure the strobe. After a few minutes of trying I gave up and continued the dive without the safety strobe.

While attempting to affix the strobe, my camera dome port hit the moving anchor chain, and was severely scuffed. This put a blurry place in all of my photographs, where it obscured the lens. That is about a $700 fix. Ouch!

I was somewhat narced on the dive, as I did not have enough helium in my supply cylinder. (“Narced” refers to narcosis, the feeling of being drunk from the nitrogen in the breathing mix at depth.) This made it more difficult to focus on my objectives and to make observations. In fact, when I looked at my photographs after the dive, I saw star fish in almost every picture that I did not see during the actual dive.

The ascent and decompression were as awful as I anticipated. I tried to stay at least ten feet below where I was supposed to be so as not to violate my decompression ceiling (that’s REALLY bad), but even with that the waves would occasionally kick me too shallow. It required a lot of focus and effort to maintain proper depth.

During one of the few lulls of relatively calm water, while I was 45 feet deep and minding my own business, I looked away from my depth gauge and my oxygen display and glanced about. I turned around, and noticed that someone had put a big mural of two humpback whales behind me. “That’s odd,” I thought. “WAIT!!! THERE ARE TWO HUMPBACK WHALES STARING AT ME!” They were less than ten feet from me, a momma and a calf, just hanging right in front of me, not moving at all. I started fumbling for my camera, which was hanging on a line from my rebreather harness. I quickly turned it on and took a few pictures.

Just so you know, this is NOT a common event. I have seen humpback whales out here before, once, but to get pictures of them I had to snorkel for nearly five hours, and I only got to glimpse them for maybe two minutes of that time. These two were just hanging there, staring at me! I hurriedly snapped off about 40 pictures before they swam off.

Needless to say, from this point of the decompression on, I was more attentive to my surroundings. Usually I just kind of zone out, letting my subconscious attend to depth, time and air. Not today. The humpback whales returned two more times, and I actually managed to grab a few decent pictures. It certainly helped make an activity that is usually as boring as watching paint dry far more entertaining! The crowd on the boat was also entertained. They had all been snorkeling and watching the whales from the surface. They said that the whales had been sitting right behind me for several minutes before I noticed them. They could tell the instant I saw them, because I gave a violent start. A moment or two later I started grabbing for my camera. They all thought it was very funny!

This dive was a little over four hours long. I sat out for an hour, and put new carbon dioxide absorbent in my rebreather. I then went back down with the group. The whales had gone, so we dove along the sides of the rock. I took pictures of white tip sharks, Clarion angelfish, and a pair of mating octopi. I surfaced after an hour and was ferried back to the boat.

We packed up, and left for San Benedicto Island. A night crossing to shorten the trip back to Cabo San Lucas.

April 23-24, 2010:  From Nicole

I did 4 dives today at San Benedicto; a place called the Canyons.  It was fantastic.  The wind was up a bit, and as the gusts blew across the water, they would sweep across the stark volcanic island and clouds of volcanic ash (from the 1954 eruption) would spill out in a plume and land on the water – and on the boat, in our eyes, in our teeth, and on our dive gear.  It was surreal, and sometimes dropped the visibility in the water.  It would go from being a deep clear blue to looking like someone had spilled flour in it.

I saw a few big hammerhead sharks.  They were a bit deeper than I was willing to go (I did not have a rebreather or mixed gas), so I descended to about 110 feet for a very short time and saw them just below me.  It was pretty cool.  They are such strange creatures with their giant hammer head shaped head with eyes way out on the ends.  These are scalloped hammerheads.

Then I turned my focus to all the amazing fish and the invertebrates.  Apparently, only about 50 feet away, 5 huge manta rays visited the other divers and came very close.  The mantas here are known for that behavior.  I had to settle for catching a glimpse of them from the surface.  But for me, coming here is way more than seeing mantas, so I was thrilled with my dives!

I am tired, pleased, and exhilarated.     Jeff B.

Photos courtesy of Jeff Bozanic, Scott Davis and Captain Gordon Kipp

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Posted in Animals, Cabo San Lucas, Clipperton Island, Galapagos Shark, Guest Blog, Hammerhead shark, Humpback Whale, Nautilus Explorer, Revillagigedos, Roca Partida, San Benedicto, Silky Sharks, hammerhead, shark, silvertip reef shark, whitetip reef shark | 1 Comment »

Impressions of 6 action packed dive days at Clipperton Island – it doesn’t get any more off the beaten track than this expedition. April 25, 2010. Diveguide log

Monday, April 26th, 2010

Our arrival was impressive we just got in to a massive bait ball with thousands of boobies falling like a massive waterfall pounding in to the water. Dolphins every where and down under must have been tunas and sharks. The bait ball moved fast in a 2-3 knots in speed. When we decided to try to take snorkelers in to the inflatables it stopped and it was over.

During our remaining days we never spotted a bait ball like that size again. In 2007 I remeber we had a bait ball as well but smaller, it also stopped before we got out , jumping in to the water all we spotted was a couple of silkie sharks.

The topography that we seen around the atoll is pretty the same Very deep approaching the island slooping sand that turns to a coral reef at the depth at 130- 180 ft with a steep slope (Some areas less then others) up to where there is a plateau that starts at 50-60 ft and slowly comes up to ca 25 ft and then the barriar reef that surrounds the island almost completely that makes it very hard for an landing on the island.

We have not spotted any real pinnacles sea mounts and solo boulders. The reef is quiet uniform in its shape and the reef building corals there are only detected 8 different species maybe 10. The coral reef is very healthy , no real signs of coral bleaching. In bedded in the coral there are traces of long lines all over. We did not see many new once. If that is a good new that long lining is getting less or is it bad that it is to much effort and to little sharks for getting out here?

Critters
There is a difference between the windy wavy side (the north) and the leward side (South) We had probably the most and best diving on the north side. Seems to be more sharks and a bit more of the pelagic animals.

Sharks
Though of what I could  hear a saw my self the hammerhead sharks, the biggest group where seen on the south side of the island. All the hammerheads that we saw were fully grown up big scalloped hammerheads. In three occasions we spotted big groups of silkie sharks. In one moment “whispering in sharks” We had easily 50 silkie sharks cirkiling us, they dissapeared as fast as they appeared! 1 Really exiting and a bit intimidating!. The silkies where not of the size that we see in Revillagigedo Islands. Still think we saw adults and also pregnant females.

Juvenile silvertip shark where everywhere and very curiouse as well sometimes laying in the blue we had up to 20 silvertip around us! We wonder where the grown up once where and the last dive of the trip we got to learn to meet the mother of them all small guys!!  She came in close and really nice and stayed with us for a while. Juvenile galapagos and we have spotted one shark that even our shark expert Mauricio cant identify. We see this species of shark in 3 different locations in two days , but always on the north side. Its  eyes where like a soup shark but the fins where different, the anal fin was huge.We will try to find out.

One diver John saw a big shark that had stripes ..so we think he met a Tiger shark.
A few white tip sharks came by as well. So we had Silkie, silvertip, galapagos, white tip, Tiger and maybe an other species we are not sure of.

Moray eals. We got the finespotted moray eals (starry muray some people calls them) that dominates, yellow edge muray also where among the finespotted murays Their behaviour of both of the species where very bold we actually had our dear repeater guest and filmer Harry got bitten in his hand and we had our other dear repeater guest and Doctor David (David Long fin) stitching harry up under educational instructions of a crew hungry of learning how…

We never saw an octupus and I think this would be a hell to live for an octupus with that many muray eals. This eals are known to get up in the tidal pools and grabbing the red land crabs on the island on land and crwl down back with the crab in the water.

Other species. Lots of leather bass. We saw Wahoos, yellow fin tunas and big guys. This trip we did not se either mantas or whale shark that we did in 2007.

I don’t think the amound of species are that many. I would guess about the same as revillagigedos and what I could see two endemic fish one is the Clipperton Angel fish . beautiful blue angelfish with a neon blue stripe on its fin and a white spot on each side. And a kind of white tail damsell fish I never seen before called Balwins Mayor this two are endemic for the island. There are other species that exist in other areas , but the coloration, and sizes and behaviour are different. Like the mexican Hog fish in Clipperton is very shy when it is even biting us sometimes in Revillagigedo islands and is very curious. Nicole has made a taxonomy and are up to about 60 species for now, we can probably get up to about a 100. Wich is not a lot and a bit typical for the islands on this side of the pacific.

Turtles.
We did see last trip a green turtle , none this trip.

Mammals. There are a lot of Bottlenose dolphins around the islands. It was easy to get in to snorkel with them. No whales what we could see. On our trip in between we came in to a pod of the smaller spotted dolphin.

Dive conditions. The current acted a bit funny in its directions, as being a round island, we got in split currents , meand that at one time the current moves one direction , then a bit further it goes 180 degrees on the other direction. Also seems like the current is more decided by oceanic current more then the tidal one. We never had real hard dive conditions. A bit of surge on the shallow and of course bigger waves on the north side. But the diving is not as demanding as our normal dives in Revillagigedo islands.

And warm!!! shorts and tshirt or a shorty. 28-29 C.

Surface conditions. We had mostly calm seas a swell at 5-6 ft at north side . Most was 8-10 ft first day. Mostly sunny and just a few drops of water. 2007 we had more rain. Normally more wind in the afternoon. Hot! 35 C and very humid.

There are more to tell. But I think our diving was more interessting this trip and also that we where not having as high expectations as last trip where we would see thousands of sharks and find a new under water Eden. But with open eyes and mind take in what we see and we had more action this time, learning from our last trip and this time we even documented more our dives and GPS ed them and add that in to our knowlwdge of Clipperton. We had some really beautiful and exiting dives during this 6 days! This was my 2nd trip to Clipperton. If I want to go again? Absolutely!! I love this trip exploring and have the privilege to go where very few people ever been and  dive it!

On our way to Roca partida.

Dive guide Sten

Shark photo taken by Jeff Bozanic.  All other photos by Scott Davis.

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Posted in Animals, Captains Log, Clipperton Island, Destinations, Galapagos Shark, Hammerhead shark, Moray Eel, Revillagigedos, Roca Partida, Silky Sharks, Tiger Shark, Tuna, bottlenose dolphin, dolphin, shark, silvertip reef shark, turtles | No Comments »

Hammerhead shark field report – big jump for shark research project conducted onboard the Nautilus Explorer on the Clipperton Island expedition – Guest blog – April 23, 2010

Saturday, April 24th, 2010

We are coming back from Clipperton island by now. This was a small step for our project but a big jump for shark research. We set three different underwater receivers located to the NE, south and NW of Clipperton. In previous years we have tagged several species of sharks in different island from the Pacific. My colleague James Ketchum has tagged scalloped hammerheads and galapagos sharks in Galapagos, Cocos and Malphelo. They have found connectivity between this three islands of the Pacific but the puzzle its bigger than that. We have the theory that long migration species such these follow a “migration corridor” in the Tropical Pacific from these islands on the south as north as Baja California including The Sea of Cortez. Because of this, we have started a project covering all the Mexican Pacific islands. Clipperton (previously Mexican) was the most ambitious project that we included on the project. Thanks to the support of the Nautilus Explorer we started with a great success. All the crew from the boat was very supportive with our research and without the help of every person on the crew this endeavor would have been impossible. The shark population looks better than on the last trip of the Nautilus Explorer on 2007. In that trip the sharks were not seen often and they thought that it was because of the illegal fisheries. We could witness in all the diving sites long lines on the bottom that are used to target sharks. Fortunately we saw several sharks in almost every dive including the following species: Carcharhinus albimarginatus (silvertip), C. falciformis (silky), C. galapaguensis (galapagos), Sphryrna lewini (scalloped hammerhead), triaenodon obesus (white tip reef) and one that by now is unidentified. We have pictures and footage of one shark that looks like a requiem shark (Genus Carcharhinus) but with two conspicuous characteristics that do not match with the species recorded for this island: its anal fin its almost as big as the second dorsal fin and its eyes are maybe three times bigger than the eyes of most carcharhinids. I am going to send this pictures to Dr. Jose Castro and Dr. Leonard Compagno (both shark identification specialists) in order to identify this weird looking species. Maybe we will have a new species named Carcharhinus nautiliensis!

Dr. Mauricio Hoyos (responsible on the field of the project: Clipperton and Revillagigedo shark tagging program)

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Posted in Animals, Baja California, Clipperton Island, Destinations, Galapagos Shark, Guest Blog, Hammerhead shark, Nautilus Explorer, Revillagigedos, Sea of Cortez, shark | No Comments »

First dive reports are in on Clipperton Atoll, the Island that time forgot and a dive destination visited only twice before — by the Nautilus Explorer and by Captain Jacques-Yves Cousteau. April 16, 2010

Friday, April 16th, 2010

It was 3 years since we came here the very first time and the island still exists! A big group of bottlenose dolphins piloted us in to the islands. We are finally here! And I am excited to be back again to learn a bit more about this very remote coral atoll.  And the water! In to shorty , the 7 mm will be hanging in the scuba room! 28 C or 87F!!  And clear blue, On some of the divesites up to 50 m, 150 ft.

We started of on the south side of the island and dived direct under the boat. We whispered in sharks and a bunch of juvenile silver tip just 2 feet long comes curiously in to us. As well we got leather bass and bllue fin  travelly. As much as 50 each just swarms around us. And the starry moray eels are just crazy down here , they go after you and sticking the fin out at them some takes a bite at your fins!!
It was a great start of our diving here! On our last dive of the day we got in 6 hammerhead sharks in good full size 7-10 ft in lenght just cruising by the coral wall at 120 ft, just below a thermaclime that occured with colder and greeen water at 100 ft. Nice to see they are here.  Diveguide Sten.

Surface conditions : A bit windy 8-10 ft swell on the windy side, calm on leward side. Sunny and hot! 35 C

Underwater: none to medium current, that constantly changes directions. Viz 50 ft to easy 100ft 28 c at therma clime it goes down to 25 C.

Today we moved up and explored more of the north part of the atoll. Last year it was in this area we spotted giant mantas. The topography is a bit typical what we have seen around Clipperton so far. Coral reef with the edge att 50- 60 ft that droppes steep down to sanda t ca 12- 130 ft and continuis to slope down to many places more then a 1000 ft . The north side is a bit less drop though. We had a bit of current , but not so bad that we could not swim against it. We dropped under the boat and some of us just stayed by a cleaning station with a lot of barberfish. Lots of leather bass and blue fin Travelly and first one moray eal then an other and an other and then it can look like a snake nest up to 20 m0ray eels at one spot.  Very very curiouse. during the dives today it seems like the animals have not much of fear and are very bold compared too other places I have dived. I  call in predetors by making sound and here we swam out a bit called and at a moment I had 15-20 juvenile silvertip sharks comiong rushing up to us from the deep!!  They are cute 1- 2 ft big no more. Did the same with a silky shark it rushed straigt up and had to wave at it to back off! But where are the adult animals? The hammerheads we saw yesterday where big, but the silvertip and the silkie where just small guys. We have seen so far seen 4 or 5 species of shark so far. Silky , silver, hammer, white tip, and maybe galapagos but we are not sure yet.

In one of our dives up in the north we could hear dolphins under water the whole dive and finally we saw them . But even better was snorkelling with them, the pod was huge. But in water we saw them 30 and up over 50 at the time. More crazy you where behaving crazier they did , swimming and spinning and sounding us. A great experience. And there are many of them around the atoll. Last we did this day was a night dive under the Nautilus Explorer. Lobsters, shrimps and brittlestars came out, Some fish where in a sleeping mode, but it was not so much of change of behaviour. It was a nice long day and time to get some sleep for next day.

Guest comments……

Welcome to Clipperton Atoll!!! After crossing from Socorro, we arrived to a beautiful atoll. We were greeted by dolphins in our wake.  A first was noticed upon our arrival when we saw a ‘bait ball’ being attacked by booby birds and dolphins. Diving along ‘Turtle Wall’ today produced lots of free-swimming morays, several silver-tip sharks, the endemic Clipperton angelfish, and a school of hammerheads. No turtles, but there’s always tomorrow! What a unique opportunity to dive a remote atoll aboard the best liveaboard in the pacific! Stay tuned for more updates! Doc Dave

Clipperton es una isla Mexicana! Vienen los chilangos! Saludos a Mama y mi abuela desde la pared de los Tortugas. que viva México…. y que corra bala!!!!!  Marcos

Comme le drapeau francais flotte fierement sur l’ile de Clipperton!  Pierre

It was nice to get into the water, and it’s definitely a unique spot, like a doughnut in the middle of the ocean. There’s a lot of fish down there!  Steve

A few photos from our 2007 Clipperton adventure taken by Chris Grossman and others.

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Posted in Animals, Captains Log, Clipperton Island, Destinations, Galapagos Shark, Giant Mantas, Moray Eel, Nautilus Explorer, Silky Sharks, Socorro, bottlenose dolphin, hammerhead, silvertip reef shark, turtles, whitetip reef shark | 1 Comment »

Diveguide Sten speaks candidly about diving Socorro + guest logs in spanish and english – April 10, 2010

Saturday, April 10th, 2010

After my time diving and guiding here on the Island of Socorro and the Revillagigedos. It is now my 5th season and my trip number 54 down here. I skipped my work in palau to come back to Socorro. It is not easy diving and getting in to big animals are not easy. It takes patience. As a guide it gets sometimes a bit frustrating. Big animals are often careful, and you have to read current, water temperature, fishlife and look around and UP! I see often scuba divers being far to much speeding around , going deep for no use wasting their bottom time and air for no reason, and with jerky fast movements making big animals move on or not approach. Chasing animals does not work either. I use to compare it if you want to see a deer in the forest it does not help if you are running like a crazy breaking branches and scream at the same time… The same in big animal diving. Go slow, look around, if it is sharks and especially hammerheads ..hide , giant mantas let them come to you, stay as shallow as you can. Over and over again I see divers swimming fast away from me when I got a animal just in front of my nose and then divers comes up and say they did not see anything. I wished sometimes that people used us guides a bit more and followed us instead of running away from us. My time as a shephard is over with following divers My work is to go go where I beleive I find the animals and hope that our divers will trust me and look where I am looking;)

So yes we have schools of 100 hammerhead sharks here at Socorro, we just have to find the hot spot!

So we are back with two nice days with calm seas finishing up at Roca Partida. We got a few repeaters who has been come to be Roca Partida Junkies. I am admitting I am one..

Each dive each dive is different. And learn to searching of this special spot where current, temperature and fish life makes a certain spot hot. And when it is hot….WOW!! This time we managed to get on the spot a few times and in a time we got in just in a massive wall of hammerhead sharks, 100 and more, just turning up from nowhere and as well we have been taken by surprise they are gone again. We have some massive Galapagos and not afraid at all, i whispered them in and a few time s it got enough excitments and stopped when they got to close. Interesting to see yellow fin tunas following Galapagos sharks and strike them self against the shark. Why do they do that? Is it a defense or to scratch parasites of them. Seen them do the same against the great White shark when we operate in Guadalupe Island.

The beautiful silver tip shark was there as well. Great two days diving at the rock. We could see a few humpbacks and hear a few, but not that many as last trip. We had one pass by a manta, it did not want to stay and play.

After last dive we started to go up north back to Cabo San Lucas. We are having a calm trip going up north, charing pictures and sleeping , reading books amd a few films and talking before we get back to Cabo San Lucas. No wish to go there..after days like this at sea. Diveguide Sten

Surface conditions: Long medium swell, did not bother much our loading of divers. 30C and mostly sunny

Underwater condition: almost no current at all, almost to calm under water. 24-25 C 75-77F Viz between 50 and 60 feet and up to 100 foot on the best dives.

Guest logs….

Perfect day of diving at Roca Partida! Four dives each one as exciting as the others. More sea life than one can comprehend at one time. Delicious yellowfin tuna, hammerheads, Galapagos, whitetip sharks and a supporting cast of thousands. The boat is wonderful and they give us cookies after every dive, what a perfect slice of life!!

Wow! What a day at Roca Partida. The Hammers were out in force today. We also had a few encounters with Wahoo. jodi

Excellent day, super visibility, and several cool shark encounters with Hammers, Galapagos, and the white-tips stacked on top of each other on their balconys. Huge schools and highways of massive fish – Wahoo, Tuna, Jacks, etc. Wasn’t totally over the top for us, but Sven and the Italians claim to have seen a wall of 100 maybe 200 hammerheads at the end of the 3rd dive (when unfortunately we had to surface due to empty tanks)… Too much fun!!

Un dia lleno de tiburones, emociones, profundidad y mucho buceo no paramos de asombrarnos de ser invitados por Galapagos, Silkies, Hammer a una fiesta de excitacion y excelentes fotografias.
Susana B.

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Posted in Cabo San Lucas, Captains Log, Destinations, Galapagos Shark, Giant Mantas, Great White Shark, Guadalupe Island, Guest Blog, Humpback Whale, Revillagigedos, Roca Partida, Socorro, Socorro Island, Tuna, hammerhead, shark, silvertip reef shark | No Comments »

Diving at Rocal Partida with a Tsunami warning – what it was like. Divemaster Log for 27 – 28 February, 2010.

Tuesday, March 2nd, 2010

Location: Roca Partida, Socorro island, Baja California, Mexico

Approaching Roca Partida in the morning we got a Tsunami warning via our Inmarsat communicating a earth quake outside of the coast of Chile on a scale of 8.8
We got the information that it would arrive around 1045 AM at our site.  We are in this time very thankful of Nautilus Explorer’s well equipped communication possibilities. At this time we could as well warn a neighbouring dive vessel that did not have it and assist them getting out of problems. So they stopped their operation and got out on deep water.

We decided to stay  2 Nautical miles from Roca Partida at 10000 ft of water and wait it out while we waited for more information from our head office. We could not be in a safer spot and everybody was calm.  What we where worried about would not be a big waves but a stronger current and better to be safe the sorry as they say.  Well after a bit of drama in the morning we approach the rock and started diving. The visibility was actually poor for Roca Partida , but the action was there! Lots of sharks!! And the second day was even better. Big schools of hammerhead sharks. A bit deeper down big Galapagos sharks. And cruising silvertip sharks.

Some of our scuba divers came up shouting of happiness after been diving with a humpback whale a mother and Calf and had also film of it.   The humpback whales came very close to us when we were out in the zodiac inflatables and we heard them singing the whale song on almost all dives. It is the male Humpback whale that stayes on his head and sing.

The last dive was probably the best one , the water got clear and we had so many sharks mostly hammerheads and we saw them over and over again. Last was a group of maybe a houndred. Nice ending!  Divemaster Sten

Surface conditions: 3-5 ft swell , sunny and 30 C , very nice and calm

Underwater conditions: viz not so good, about 50 ft when better up to 90ft. slow easy current very little surge.

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Posted in Animals, Baja California, Captains Log, Destinations, Galapagos Shark, Hammerhead shark, Humpback Whale, Roca Partida, Socorro Island, hammerhead, shark, silvertip reef shark | No Comments »

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