Revillagigedos - Part 2 of 4: The Diving

Giant Pacific Mantas are the star of Revillagigedos diving. There was one point at which I saw at least one manta on 11 dives in a row. On the 12th dive, (an early evening dive) there were 3 mantas feeding at the surface, so I could have seen one on that dive as well, though I chose to head away from them to try to get a glimpse of the juvenile galapagos sharks I had seen on a previous dive during that time slot. I've seen mantas before, but I had not seen them a) so large and b) so friendly. There were times when they would literally swim right up to me (or any of the other divers), and hover above me, just asking to be petted. While I am not usually into touching the animals, these mantas do seem to enjoy it so I indulged myself and rubbed some manta belly. Amazing.


Manta

Mantas weren't the only thing to be seen though. We saw numerous hammerheads, galapagos sharks, silky sharks, white tip sharks, silver tip sharks, and tiger sharks. The silver tips sharks are a new favorite shark. They aren't quite as shy as some of the other species, are pretty stocky, and swim around like they mean business. I only saw one tiger, but it was a good sized shark, probably in the 12 foot range, big enough to have lost much of it's stripes. I was kind of disappointed in my shark photography, though I need to keep some perspective and remember that these sharks are not being baited and so do not consistently do close approaches like they did in Guadalupe. Still, I could have done better... yet another reason to go back.

If Mantas were the main course, and sharks the cake, then the frosting had to be the dolphins. While we saw dolphins at the surface several times and a couple of people saw dolphins on scuba earlier in the week, I didn't see them until the morning of the last dive day - though it was worth the wait. The first dolphin I saw started chasing a single black jack out of a school of about 50. It chased a particular jack, staying focused on that individual, and chased it until it tired out. The other jacks seemed do be indifferent to the action. Sometimes the dolphin would coast for a bit, but it stayed after that same jack. Finally, after a good 5 minutes, there was a break in the action as bits of former jack made a little mess in the water. The dolphin left for a bit, then it (or another that looked just like it) came back and repeated the show. To top it off, after that dolphin got it's jack, a mama dolphin with a two foot long baby came and munched on a jack in the same manner, with the baby chasing along with every twist and turn.





Dolphins chasing jacks

At the risk of metaphoric overload, there was also a cherry on top of the frosting. I had spent many of the dives with a family from England (3 boys and their mother) The boys called their Mum "Dobby" after the house-elf in Harry Potter (she had a great sense of humor, or rather humour, about it). We usually took the last skiff together after all of the more gotta-be-first divers left on the first two skiffs. I was pretty happy with this arrangement as it meant that we often had the dive site to ourselves for 20 minutes or so at the end of the dive. The boys were very comfortable, relaxed divers, and seemed like natural magnets for big animal encounters. We spent many dives together hanging out in one spot for most of the dive.

As a great dive at Roca Partida was winding down - after YAECME (Yet Another Excellent Close Manta Encounter) - I was chilling out at 30 feet or so, staring idly at the rock. I slowly spun around and was surprised to see a whale shark swimming towards me. I got a couple of quick shots before watching it swim off into the blue. It was an unexpected visitor - small (18-20 feet) for a whale shark. We weren't expecting whale sharks at all, since under normal conditions, the whale sharks leave the area as the water cools, and the Nautilus stopped seeing them this year in November. Apparently, this particular shark didn't get the memo. The most fun part of the whole encounter was how excited Dobby was about it - it was her first whale shark sighting. She shrieked with joy, danced around the boat and pretty much let everyone know she had seen it and they hadn't. Fortunately, the whale shark made another pass on the subsequent dive, or we may have returned to Cabo short one house-elf.





Surprise Whale Shark

And to top all of that off, much of the time this whole procession of sharks, mantas and dolphins was choreographed to the songs of humpbacks whales, who were nearby with their pups. Watching humpbacks is a great way to spend a surface interval... we were treated to fin slaps and waves and a couple of spectacular breaches. Awesome.

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