Location: The Canyon dive site, San Benedicto Island, Socorro, Revillagigedos, Mexico
Check out dives on the Nautilus Explorer do not get any better than this!! We arrived at The Canyon divesite at San Benedicto Island last night and after a quiet calm night in the anchorage, our guests eagerly jumped in the water this morning. We were immediately joined by 2 female giant mantas. You could feel the excitement in the water and I hoped everyone would remember what I had told them during our shipboard “Manta 101”. We ended up in a semi circle with one of the mantas talking long slow sweeps around us while the other manta
hovered overhead. The enormous manta rays clearly wanted to make eye contact and would hover right above us, basking in our bubble streams. Back on the boat there lots of smiles and hand slaps and a ton of excitement. We dropped back in for our second dive and the same 2 mantas were under the boat waiting for us. Divemaster Pedro and I decided to gamble on our good fortune and spend the rest of the day diving at the same sight so…… we dropped in on dive 3 after lunch and didn’t see any mantas.. Drat. So we swam off to the closest cleaning station to hunker down and try to spot some hammerhead sharks. After 5 minutes, I was beginning to think we would see nothing when I happened to glance over to my left and there hovering on the ridge next to us – almost like one of us – was one of our new friends, a giant manta. It was all getting very surreal. No mantas on dive #4 but a couple of hammerhead sharks came by the cleaning station. One or our poor guests who had been especially keen to see hammerhead sharks was only a few feet away but missed
seeing the shark swim by a couple of inches from his fin tips. At the end of the dive, he was asking where the sharks were and why he hadn’t seen any!! Divemaster Buzz
Wheater: High cloud and bright sunshine. 15 knots of wind with a swell outside but calm in the anchorage. Air temperature 82 degrees.
Water: Blue water, 75 degrees, visibility 60 – 75 feet.
Amazing check out dive at San Benedicto Island
