T
he Travel
Socorro features surge, strong currents and endless horizons;
it’s a destination for experienced divers. The boats that serve
the Revillagigedos Islands leave from Cabo San Lucas. Most
depart in the morning so they can arrive early enough the
next day to allow for three dives. While there are plenty of
airlines and flights that serve Cabo, lost baggage remains a
nagging issue because of the hub system and connections
involved, especially with travel during the winter months to
see humpbacks. Several divers on this trip connected through
Dallas/Ft. Worth, which usually isn’t adversely affected by
weather, but snow events there triggered baggage delays and
forced one of the guests to travel without his personal dive gear.
There are so many nice resorts and so much that’s fun to do in
Cabo San Lucas, arranging to arrive a day or two early is not a
bad idea, especially in the heart of winter.
The following is a dive diary written at sea, Feb. 8-16, 2014.
D
ay 1:
The Canyon
Following a full-day steam, which allowed plenty of time for
dive-safety briefings and assembly of our cameras and dive gear,
we awoke to discover a large school of dolphins frolicking in our
bow wake, heralding our arrival at San Benedicto Island. The
island itself is largely devoid of vegetation, and even a superficial
glance reveals its volcanic origins. This was fine with me, as less
vegetation means less particulate matter in the water after it
rains and thus, better visibility. We didn’t have rain all week, so
that wouldn’t have mattered anyway, but you can assume 75- to
150-foot visibility most of the time in the Socorros, with the
clearest water on any given day at Roca Partida.
The crew chose
The Canyon
for our checkout dive due to
its lack of current and typically benign conditions. An easy first
dive to work out weights was helpful as most of us either had
new wetsuits or were wearing more layers than we usually did.
This is not to say it wasn’t an interesting and productive dive
though; The Canyon has offered some of the best hammerhead
sightings I’ve had in the Socorros. The bottom is at about 80
feet, and there is a ridge of boulders gently sloping down from
50 feet to meet the dropoff, a place where a diver could secret
himself behind a boulder in hopes of a close shark encounter.
While normally an active place for hammerheads, the water
was warmer this year than we had anticipated, only dropping to
77°F during this trip, and the sharks mostly kept to the cooler,
more nutrient-rich waters below.
I had a nice octopus sighting, which was very exciting until
later in the trip when I realized I was seeing octopuses on
every single dive. There were as many as six at some sites,
and once I even encountered a mating pair. I have never seen
so many octopuses so consistently anywhere in the world,
70
|
spring 2014
