Four dives at Roca Partida May 30, 2021

Our third day of diving was at Roca Partida, a large rock that breaks the surface and is located all by itself about 74 nautical miles from San Benedicto Island. The crew cruised the boat overnight so that we could start our morning diving there. Here's a surface view of the rock, followed by an underwater view, looking up so you can just make out the rock above the surface as well.

Here's a couple shots of how we boarded the skiffs, we'd be ready to dive with all our gear on except fins which we handed to the divemaster. Then you swung your legs into the skiff and slid on your derrierre down the tube to make room for the next divers:

Roca Partida has a great reputation for sharks, tuna, jacks, wahoo, and sometimes mantas and whale sharks. We had lots of shark and tuna action. There were huge schools of jacks, in fact, yes, I'd say there was a plethora of jacks!:

Roca Partida has "balconies" scooped out of the immense rock structure. White tipped reef sharks love to pile together to nap in them:

One balcony was shared between a pack of lobsters, one quite large, and a pile of White Tip Reef Sharks:

Our divemaster, Juan, found a huge spiny lobster out for a walk. It's body, not including antenna, was about 3 ft long! It was as big as some of the largest I used to catch off Dunedin in the Gulf of Mexico when I was growing up there:

Roca Partida is a huge rock tower, along with the huge schools of jacks, there were frequently several sharks nearby:

Sometimes the Silky Sharks were curious enough to give you a close inspection:

There were also a few beautiful Silver Tip sharks, here's one in front of the rock in the distance and then as it gave me a close pass. The third photo I like, he's passing just under me, because you can see his eye focused on me, looking up.

Roca Partida is well known for its tuna, there is one particularly large Yellowfin Tuna, maybe 200 lbs or so, that made passes on several of our dives:

The Yellowfin was always coming by fast:

On one of our four dives, a large jack was suddenly attacked and devoured by sharks, it instantly created a fortunately short lived feeding frenzy. Just as things were calming down I saw a pack of four excited Silky Sharks coming tearing through the school of jacks, then the turned and came speeding over to me. They came very fast and I had a brief moment of "Well, this could be bad!" but they soon moved on. Here's a sequence of photos from their visit.

Below is a diver's eye view of Roca Partida when you surface nearby at the end of your safety stop. At the end of this excellent, exciting day of fish action the Nautilus Crew decided with Richard Salas to make an overnight, 117 km, 73 mile, cruise to Socorro Island where very encouraging reports of Giant Manta and dolphin encounters were coming from.

ps I also shot many gopro videos at Roca Pardita. Google has changed the methodology for putting links into your blogs from qick, simple, and easy to a mystery wrapped within an engima. You may have to copy and paste this link to see this video or maybe the second (of 47 attempts) will be active and work, TBD. Here's the youtube location: https://youtu.be/xHTvPZqgWe8 . Here's attempting to use one of two incomprehensible, so far, choices for inserting a supposedly ready to click link: https://youtu.be/xHTvPZqgWe8 Here is their second mystery method attempt: https://youtu.be/xHTvPZqgWe8 Here's another video of a large school of jacks, you'll have to copy and paste to view it because of Google's snafu of process embedding links: https://youtu.be/OdxdQdHsIDg

Revillagigedo Islands, 2nd day, four dives on "The Boiler", one of the famous sites in the archipelago. May 29, 2021

Our second day of diving with the Nautilus Explorer was spent at the well known site "The Boiler" which is a huge volcanic rock structure whose surface is always rough if any seas are running hence, "The Boiler". I'll start with some photos of the immense, unique rock structure followed by the sea life. To see more pictures from these four dives please go to: https://photos.app.goo.gl/4hYZhmYuqLVQkcfRA The first photo is a surface view of San Benedicto anchored next to "The Boiler" dive site, the second is a photo of our dive briefing for the site. Before we start diving on a new site we received an excellent dive briefing and attending the briefing was mandatory for diving that site.

Juan, our divemaster and guide, spotted this pair of octopus. Octopus are usually solitary unless they are mating, on a later dive Audry spotted that the octopus in the back in this photograph was sharing its special reproductive arm with the octopus in the foreground.

Here's a resting White Tipped Reef Shark:

We soon were visited by Giant Mantas, on the left is Audry getting a shot, behind the Manta is Guy Foster.

I was next up to get a shot:

Above, this is a beautiful "mini boiler" off the main boiler.

Above: Giant Manta makes a close approach.

Above: We had an incredible string of Manta encounters most of the day.

When we surfaced after our safety stop, the Manta visits continued:

Here's Richard Salas, our trip organizer and leader for this wonderful trip:

I shot several gopro videos during these four dives below are links to a few. https://youtu.be/-xMpaW0rWa0 https://youtu.be/GhNI6tX8TXg https://youtu.be/UcxP47nxFLY https://youtu.be/A68ovQKeQf4

Diving the Revillagigedo Islands with the Nautilus Explorer, San Benedicto Island, The Canyon site May 28,2021

I'm just home, on June 5, from a great trip to the Revillagigedo Islands on the Nautilus Explorer (formerly the Undersea Hunter, from Cocos) with Guy Foster and Richard Salas. The diving was wonderful with lots of friendly Mantas. The crew of the Nautilus Explorer is wonderful, every one of them are very competent, hard working, positive, and very eager to help you anyway and anytime they can. This first blog from the trip will cover the first day of diving on May 28th off San Benedicto island, at the Canyon site. We arrived the morning of May 28th after departing the evening of May 26, so took a bit over 24 hours to cover the 220 nautical sea miles from Cabo San Lucas to San Benedicto. The blog has several photos from the first day of diving, some with comments. To see more please go to: https://photos.app.goo.gl/keFNSScZT15YnK939 for our first three dives; https://photos.app.goo.gl/swBVz1bXtwStHLjN7 for our fourth and final dive on "The Canyon".

Above, a beautiful Silver Tip Shark followed by a Silky. Below, a shy Scalloped Hammerhead, in the distance. Saw a couple on the dives but no close encounters.

We had a very good set of Giant Manta encounters on our very first dive. Giant Mantas grow to 18 - 24 ft across as adults.

I love this next photo because it shows the Giant Manta ray that has just passed me approaching Guy Foster from behind. His surprise was wonderful.

The next photo shows how a curious and relaxed Manta will stop and play in your bubbles if you stay still and don't swim towards it. Here the ray is enjoying our divemaster Juan's exhaust bubbles. Our group of six divers were lucky to have Juan as our excellent guide for the entire trip. The six of us included Richard Salas, the trip organizer and professional photograhper, his son Richard Jr., Audry, Phil, Guy, and myself, we were very disciplined to not swim at the Manta rays, we waited for them to come to us. Audry is taking the photo.

Here the Manta has slowly come over my head to enjoy my bubbles. You know a Manta is really close when it fills your wide angle lens viewfinder.

On subsequent dives, we made four on this site, we continued to see several sharks. Here are a couple of a curious Silky.

We of course saw a lot of fish besides Mantas and sharks and we also saw unafraid lobsters, since they are protected from human predation in this huge marine preserve. Below.

Above. A large green moray. Below, a pair of large Blue Trevally Jacks.

Below: Pacific Crevalle Jacks

Above: The Reef Cornetfish. I have always found Cornetfish to be very shy but this one was relaxed, perhaps because divers are a common encounter near this cleaning station at the Canyon dive site.

I also shot some gopro videos during these dives, here's one with a curious Silver Tip Shark and a Silky Shark or two. So ends my blog for our first of five days of diving the Revillagigedo Islands. Our second day was four dives on one of the most famous dive sites in the island group "The Boiler"!