Trip Report, Rocío del Mar. Revillagigedo. Nov 22 to Dec 1, 2013

Rocio del Mar is back to Revillagigedo!!! 

Fantastic weather, good visibility ,79 F degree water temperature and lots of pelagic life to see!!

Happy to be back to Revillagigedo ... new season 2013-2014

This trip we enjoyed diving with a very nice group. Divers and friends coming from different parts of the world, different jobs, different ages, but all of us meeting with one single objective: our passion for the ocean, our wish to see giant mantas, sharks, and take with us life time memories and lots of pictures!


Danny, Kelly, Angelo, Phil, Brandon, Patrick and Holly all from the US were diving together with Guarani. Lanny, Peter L, and Peter R, from Netherlands, Baptiste, Time from the US and Alex and Marc from Barcelona were diving in group B with Gil. And Roberto, our new dive master dove with Elliot, John, Bill, Ruth, Cindy, Patrick and Brooke.

Nice crossing to Revillagigedo

Dive teams

Crossing was smooth and we had wonderful weather. Poncho cooked fantastic food and vegetarian passengers on board were very happy with the different choices Poncho had for them. Actually some of the meet eaters changed to vegetarian choice during the trip! Great job Poncho!!

Gear ready to dive: 6.45 a.m.

Finally after about 26 hours we arrived to San Benedicto Island, one checkout dive with turtles, white tip sharks (Triaenodon obesus) and giant lobsters at "Las Cuevitas" and we moved to "El Boiler" to dive with 3 fantastic and friendly Giant Mantas (Manta Birostris)

Friendly mantas at El Boiler, San Benedicto, Revillagigedo

Storm near Socorro Island, Revillagigedo

Our captain Lolo advised for some wind and rain the next days so we moved to Socorro during the night. "Cabo Pearce" was incredible. Mantas coming on each dive, small groups of hammerheads (Sphyrna lewini), silver tip sharks (Carcharhinus albimarginatus), octopus, lobsters, and more! The following day we moved to Punta Tosca, it had less activity but still some divers saw dolphins, mantas and more sharks!

Divers approaching to Punta Tosca, Socorro Island.

Kelly getting close to Galapagos sharks

Third day of diving we arrived to Roca Partida. Slow first dives, but with the sun shinning we started to see huge schools of hammerheads (Sphyrna lewini), big Galapagos sharks (Carcharhinus galapagensis), tunas, green jacks hunting small sandia´s fishes. It was amazing!!

But the best was still to come ....

Good dives! Hammerheads!

We spent the night at Roca Partida and it couldn't be better. The ocean was like a pool. Not wind at all, and silky sharks (Carcharhinus falciformis) came close to the boat to eat dinner :-)

Silky sharks approaching the boat

John getting ready with all his nice "toys"

Danny picking on Phil ... all time! :-)

Second day at Roca Partida one shark was missing to see and he didn't want to make us wait longer: a mid size whale shark (Rhincodon typus) was swimming slowly to allow divers to take lots of pictures and video. It was great!! Was the best of the day.

This is a happy face after seeing a whale shark!

Rocio del Mar offered a special dinner to celebrate Thanksgiving day with our passengers. We all had a great time and enjoyed fantastic dinner.

Our last diving day was at San Benedicto and we head back to San José del Cabo. 

A lot of feelings at the same time when we had to say good bye to Revillagigedo

It was a great trip. Great divers, great people, lots of great moments and memories. Rocio del Mar crew was very happy to have you all on board and we expect to see you all soon with us again.

THANK YOU ALL FOR SUCH A GREAT TRIP

Roberto, our new dive master

Happy Divers!

Beautiful smile ... thanks for sharing these days with us

August 17th, 2013 Charter

This video by Nanette Van Antwerp says it all.

Diving the Sea of Cortez

We are back in the Sea of Cortez

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

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).  

Gene's Video Clips

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.

Some Passenger Pictures.  

Marilyn

Dave and Lisa

John and Deborah

High tech scuba preparation procedure w/Chilli/Helen and me.

Bart and Helen

Spike and Chili

what it takes to film the humbolt squid!

I had a wonderful time with you all and hope you come back to dive with us again very soon!!!  

Trip Report, Rocío del Mar. Revillagigedo. May 23 to 31, 2013

On the last dive of the last day of the trip, we dove the Boiler, at San Benedicto Island. More than 80 feet of visibility and very low current. Divers around the pinnacle swam slow, detailing the marine life in the rock. A big school of big eye jacks created a shadow in the bottom of the rock.
Suddenly a new shadow appeared in the magnificent blue, it approached us slowly, it seemed to dance or fly under water. A giant manta (Manta Birostris) swam directly to the dive site. Friendly, gentle, with slow movements around the divers posing for pictures and video. First, only 6 divers were seeing the manta around them. Then, little by little more divers came closer and after 30 minutes all Rocio del Mar divers were contemplating this fabulous animal. Not trained, not in a zoo, not in a marine park. Not any of that. It is a free, wild animal willing to swim and share some time with divers.

That was the end of our trip to Revillagigedo, our last trip of this incredible season.

Poncho, our chef during the crossing to Revillagigedo

Rocio del Mar just got back to port in San José del Cabo and both passengers and crew returned really happy. It was an amazing trip.
We had on board friends that have come for two or more times (even five times) to dive in Revillagigedo. This says a lot of the importance of this dive destination. There is always a surprise. Some times the surprise is mantas, other times very close encounters with sharks. Some trips there are huge schools of hammerheads, other times just a few of them but passing only a few feet away from divers. Some trips we can dive with humpback whales, dolphins, huge tunas, you name it. But there's always something amazing to see and never forget in Revillagigedo.

These are only a few reasons of why people come again and again to dive here. But not only diving is important, conservation of this reserve is fundamental. The presence of divers and tourists is a big pressure to the federal government to apply more strict laws in the area and the testimony in photos and video of all visitors tells the world that we must protect this archipelago from illegal fishing.

Greg and his toys at Roca Partida

Divers arrived during the afternoon of May 23rd and that night we set sail to San Benedicto after dinner. This time we had three groups:

Team A: Greg (visiting the archipelago for 5th time) with his friends Joe, John, Dan, James, Eldon and Dulce and Drew.

Team B: John A, Rosanne, Pascal, Sharon, Tosh and Thomas. 

Team C: Alfredo, Erendira, Henry, Rod and the huge cameras! :-)

Alfredo is an underwater videographer and Erendira is a cinematographer and both have worked before in marine documentaries. They were here one more time in Revillagigedo to capture the magnificence of the marine life around the archipelago.

Our first stop was in San Benedicto and we dove the "Fondeadero" and the "Boiler". After the first dive the first divers team  found a group of false killer whales and snorkeled with them! Other divers saw dolphins It was awesome!! And this was just the first dive of the trip.

At the Boiler one manta came to say hello to everybody for some time swimming around divers. 

Rossane at Roca Partida

Since the weather was good we headed to Roca Partida. And Roca, amazing as always didn't disappoint us. Honestly some of the better dives of the season happened during this trip at Roca Partida. Numerous and huge galapagos sharks were swimming very close to divers, schools of hammer heads, silky sharks, white tips, no manta this time, but great conditions to see sharks: current and good visibility. A group of divers even had the chance of seeing the white tips trying to mate. Mother nature was very generous with us this time.

Pollo loco ready to dive!

After two days at Roca Partida we went to Socorro island. The biggest island of the archipelago. On board the group's mood was excellent. Very enthusiastic and the pollo loco started to appear in action.

This present the "chicken divers" left for us on board a few trips ago, it is now the trophy for those divers that without paying attention get to the dive site without mask, weights, or with the air off!!! There's someone that is ready to jump off the panga without fins and the "pollo loco" always want to dive!

We had a great time with the "pollo loco" diving with Henry, John F, Greg, Drew, Joe and once with Pedro! 

The contest of the "pollo loco" got very competitive this trip!

In Socorro we dove "Punta Tosca", "Roca O'Neal", "Cabo Pearce" and the "Aquarium". Visibility in general was not good and water temperature was around 70. Some times even high 60's.  And even though we didn't see mantas during our dives we had dolphins and some sharks visit from time to time. Then we decided to go and snorkel with the mantas. They have been swimming and feeding near the Aquarium dive site and ... it was a great experience.
This group of mantas were at the beginning shy and were swimming fast away from divers. But after some time they realized that we were not there to harm them, only to swim and take pictures of them and they started their show!! Swimming very close to divers and spinning while eating. It was in simple words AMAZING!!. Our divers got great pictures and video of this more than three hour experience. Really worth it.

Rey during a dive briefing

Diver during surface interval warming up

The last day of the trip we went back to San Benedicto and dove the Canyon and the Boiler. Visibility was much better and divers were able to see hammerheads and dolphins. The last two dives were at the Boiler.  This was a great dive with more than 30 minutes with a manta but that was not all ... there was more ... swimming into the blue two hammerheads came to say good bye to the divers, to the group, the trip and the season.

See you soon San Benedicto!

The last image of this trip is of two hammerheads swimming slowly in the deep blue with  the sun behind them. Fortunately sea drops are clear and salty as tears and no one noticed how moved and thrilled we were to say good bye to Revillagigedo.

The final count of the "Pollo Loco" contest give us a tie between John F and Henry!!! Congratulations to them and all the "pollo loco" divers!

Thank you to all our friends, divers and passengers for this great trip. We really hope to see all of you diving soon aboard Rocio del Mar in Revillagigedo or Sea of Cortez.

Rocio del Mar will be waiting for you ....

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Passengers Comments

This was my 4^th trip on the Rocio Del Mar and it has been fantastic every time.  This time, I brought 7 of my friends to experinece the Soorro Islands and Socorro did not disappoint.  6 fantastic days of diving with sharks, manta rays and dolphins made this a trip that no one will ever forget.  The highlight was the very last dive when we got to spend 30 minutes with a manta that wanted to make sure we departed with good memories and a desire to return.Greg Sherman

Tucson, AZ, USA

My first rip to Socorro Island and the Revillagegedo archipelago was full of encounters with the big stuff.  Amazing diving and snorkeling with Mantas which seem to enjoy the company of people.  Close encounters with ach one no many sharks, from little White Tips to stocky Galapagos and schooling  Hammerheads.  Dolphin and  big Tuna would cruis by as well.  The reefs here were surprisingly varied and full of little stuff, abundant  nudibranchs, eels and octopus.  Water temps were running in the low 70s and the visibility ranged from 40 to 80 feet with strong current and surge at times.  Great boat and crew made for an excellent experience all around. 

Thomas Jackman
Taos, New Mexico

My 2^nd trip to Socoorro Island. This time on the RDM.

The crew works hard to fulfill a great day of diving & eating. Each one knowing  there roll to help make your time enjoyable stress 

Henry Cook

San Diego, CA

Trip Report, Rocío del Mar. Revillagigedo. May 12 to 20, 2013

Rocio del Mar ready to leave port at San Jose del Cabo

We are very happy to be on land again and share with all our blog visitors our great experiences during the last trip to Revillagigedo archipelago.


We had an outstanding trip to San Benedicto, Socorro and Roca Partida.

This time we had Lavonne and Trux on board for their second time visiting Revillagigedo with a fantastic group of divers.



We divided the group in three teams and the fun started from that single moment using funny names for teams A,B,C.

Lavonne and Trux visiting us for second time

Team Albondigas: Pam and Tony, Barb and Chris, Susan and Neil, Chuck and Kelly.

Team Bananas: Ruben , Larry, Dan and Janet,  Chuck and Janet.

And finally but not last, team Caliente: Lavonne and Trux, Craig, Susan, Lisseta and Dave.

Divers heading to Cabo Pearce, Socorro

Our crossing was great. Excellent weather conditions and a great time aboard Rocio del Mar getting ready with dive gear, dry suits, stills and video cameras. As always Poncho, our chef, surprised us with delicious meals.

Our fist stop was in San Benedicto. We dove fondeadero, punta norte and las cuevas. Due to great weather conditions we planned to go directly to Roca Partida, but one of our passengers got stomach sick and we decided for safety and precaution to go straight to Socorro in case we needed medical attention at the Mexican Navy base.

We stayed two days at Socorro island looking for mantas. It seems they are not visiting the usual diving sites and we had to look for them around the island. Finally found more than 10 giant mantas in the area next to the "Aquarium" dive site and had a great time snorkeling with them. 

Socorro sunset

We dove in Punta Tosca, Cabo Pearce, Rock O'Neal and the Aquarium completing great 7 dives in the island with silver tips, white tips, dolphins and some hammer heads.

Socorro gifted us with a magnificent sunset during the mexican dinner on the top deck. The group dressed up for the sarong night and had a lot of fun.

The next two days we were at Roca Partida. Neil said after the first diving day: "this site is incredible. Probably no other site in the world is like Roca Partida, a tiny rock in the middle of no where, full of sharks and incredible sea life."  And we all agreed.

Big silky sharks around the boat at night in Socorro

We had very good dives with constant encounters of big galapagos sharks, hammer head schools, silky sharks, white tip sharks and ... mantas. At least three different mantas in different dives were very friendly with divers.  The second day at Roca Partida huge tunas were around the place stressing the little fishes.

Dave and Lisetta and the blue ....

Kelly and Chuck at Roca Partida

Neal and giant manta

Big galapagos sharks

We started to have strong wind in the afternoon and prepared to go back to San Benedicto for our final diving day.
Weather didn't allow us to move from the Canyon dive site, but we had four great dives there: dolphins, close hammer head encounters, schools of jacks, giant lobsters and more.

Sadly because the trip was ending we said good bye to Revillagigedo and started our slow way back to San José del Cabo with strong wind from the NW.

Divers waiting for hammer heads.

We all have life time memories after this trip. Some of us made new friends and some others made stronger friendship bonds.

We thank you all for sharing this trip and 23 great dives with us in Revillagigedo. We are already looking forward to seeing you all again soon in the Sea of Cortez.

Finally we have an important announcement to make. Larry found his lost twin brother in Revillagigedo!! Gerardo our captain!!

Twins?

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Passengers Comments

The crew was great! The boat was laid out just right for divers.

Food was excellent.  I would recommend this trip to other divers. 

I suggest a bar in the shower stall to hold on to when the boat rocks. 

Ruben Duran

The boat, the crew and the food was fantastic. I have never seen a crew as helpfull and friendly as the crew on this boat. I had a great time both in and out of the water. Thank you all.

Larry J Trenda.

To all the crew of rocio del mar,

Thank you for a wonderful week. We appreciate all your hard work, level of care

and attention to our safety.

Thank you for making us feel welcome and taking such good care of us during

our stay.

We take with us a week of fond memories, fantastic diving experiences and the

hope that someday we can return to Rocio del Mar and do it all again!!

All the very best,

Lisetta and David Potter.

Crew was excellent they made us feel like part of the family. Dive destinations

were spectacular.  Please continue to focus attention on improving the comfort of the staterooms.

Food was excellent.