Roca Partida April 6, 2018

At the end of our diving day at Socorro we picked up and headed to Roca Partida for our third day of diving.  The crossing wasn't terrible but was rough enough to prevent me from sleeping on my side, unfortunately it wasn't a lot smoother after we anchored around 1:30 am.  In the morning the reason was apparent, Roca Partida isn't an island it is just a rock, and not that large of one, so if the seas are a bit rough there is no shelter to be found.  The three dives we made at Roca Partida were wonderful so well worth the less than ideal night's sleep we had.  Sightings on our three dives included a Whale Shark, a huge Yellowfin Tuna, giant schools of several kinds of jacks, Galapagos, Silky, and White Tipped Reef Sharks, and a wonderful game fish that I never expected to photo, Wahoo.

Here's Roca Partida, when the currents are light, it's small enough to easily swim around on a dive.  When we got up we saw that we were sharing the site with two other liveaboards.

Here's the board for our Roca Partida dive briefing.  A key point was that our dive start times were tightly scheduled so that the dive groups from every boat could dive without overlapping on the site.

 Each group had its own inflatable to dive from, the boat called them pangas.

You left your tank setup on the panga along with your fins.

                                         Napping White Tip Reef Sharks

The crowds of fish at Roca Partida are breathtaking, the view looking up is beautiful.

 While looking up I saw a juvenile (12 ft based on laser measurements) Whale Shark cruising by.

                               We were soon visited by a huge Yellowfin Tuna, a thrill to see.

                                                 The power of big tuna is awesome.

                 An awesome, beautiful fish.  This is the bluest water in the world.

                                Mating pairs of Big Eye Jacks

                        A pair of Wahoo, mistaken by some divers for Barracuda, were patrolling the site.

                               So happy to see and get a picture of this big beautiful Wahoo.

    We also were visited by a couple large, powerful Amberjack (locally common name Almaco Jack), this one being videoed by Caroline with her GoPro....wish I'd had one mounted to my DSLR case...

                                          Black Jack

                                           The End(s) of this tale.

Next up, tails and tales from "The Boiler".

https://photos.app.goo.gl/Cpfmq4aqjDm7qYPf1