 |
| La Vela from Lolo's Cove |
We are back in the Sea Of Cortez!!!!!!
On our first trip to the Sea of Cortez this season we were excited to welcome back some of our favorite Dive Masters, Bob Defeo and "Mayo" Ismael Hinojosa. Bob is a veteran divemaster with Rocio del Mar and has been leading our Sea of Cortez dives since our first season. Mayo, a favorite among our passengers, can't stay long. He has become a daddy - again! Congrats Mayo!
 |
Bob, Brooke and Mayo
The Chicken Divers, who just a few months ago dove the Socorro's with us, are back again! We hung up our chicken swag and were ready for them. The entire group of passengers became fast friends and we were off. Our second dive was at La Vela, one of my all time favorites and it didn't dissapoint. The water was full of salps, jelly fish and La Vela itself was covered in Spanish Shawls!
|
 |
| Spanish Shawls |
 |
Salps
|
 |
| Salps |
 |
| Mayo - preparing for whale shark briefing |
We've heard that the salps were quite tasty treats for whales sharks so the next day we headed to Baja de Los Angeles to look for our Whale Sharks. We did our best and searched for hours - finally we found two. We hopped into the water and were hoping for the hours of enjoyment we have come to expect from the Whale Sharks but after about 30 minutes our sharks left us and we were sent back to Rocio a bit dissapointed. We quickly geared up and headed to another of my favorite dive sites El Pesacador. El Pescador was full of life and we had a great time with Giant Jaw Fish, Spotted Jaw Fish, a ton of Sea Hares, litterally piles and piles of them and octopus.
The group enjoyed themselves so much we decided to dive here again and do a night dive too. But the creatures of the sea had different plans for us. As we were suiting up for our night dive, our dive master Mayo jumped into the water to put on his wet suit, in that in-water upside down way he does in record time, when we looked next to him and saw a humbolt squid. We pulled a reluctant Mayo out of the water and cancelled the night dive. Before we knew it we were surrounded by humbolt squid. It was amazing. We sat on the dive deck, passengers on their bellies with cameras in the water and it was three hours of humbolt excitement. We even had a Bull Sea Lion come for a late night snack. The squid must have hit the spot!
Humbolt Squid
.jpg) |
| Click the Link above for the video |
We had some great dives at Sal Si Puedes (Get out if you can). Our divers weren't intemidated in the least by the islands name and we continued to see a variety of Nudibranchs, Eel Sea Snakes, Garden Eels, Mexican Horn sharks and a thrill for both fish and diver was the Giant Jaw Fish. I believe this fish missed us while we were diving in the Socorro's. As soon as the giant jawfish saw us they were swimming out to meet us.
 |
| Giant Jaw Fish |
We had a wide variety of nudibranchs this trip and our macro photographs were ecstatic. Along with some fantastic night diving full of crabs, horn sharks, lobster and don't forget piles of Sea Hares.
We had some amazing guests on this trip who were happy to share their experiences, such as Butch excavating dope lake, (that's quite a diving story), Dennis hiking Everest, Gene's amazing underwater videography and Bob's encounter with a Blue Footed Booby Bird (you'll have to ask him yourself about this).
Our Fourth of July trip started out with our season with a trip that will be hard to beat! Can't wait to see what adventures next week will bring.
.jpg)
