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Travellogue Mexico - Sea of Cortez & Islas Revillagigedos (San Benedicto, Socorro and Roca Partidas)

on the 'Nautilus Undersee' June 2023

Actually, it was the third attempt (cancellation of the liveaboard due to Hurricane Blanca in the summer of 2015 and Antje's illness on the Nautilus Explorer 2018) and all good things come in threes.

Anticipated: This time no illnesses or injuries, however, also this time a part of the luggage had stopped in Mexico City, unfortunately Roland's diving luggage, who had to help himself for three days with the rental equipment of Baja Expeditions. Fortunately the trip was planned in such a way that we spent the first week in the Hotel Catedral in La Paz, from there day trips were made with the day boat "Westerly".

The goal of these excursions was on the one hand the encounter with the sea lions in the Sea of Cortez and the migration of the Mobulas, which unfortunately were further out in Ventana Bay this year. This meant that in the 2nd half of the week we were taken by bus overland to the bay early in the morning, as the trip by boat would have taken 3-4 hours (unavoidable on the way back).

Everything also worked out with the longed-for sightings. Both the playful sea lions at Los Islotes, as well as the mobulas were on site in sufficient numbers. There were entertaining dives and snorkeling, to see were also whale sharks, gray whales, manta rays, dolphins and pilot whales.

The crew of the Westerly was great, a troop of 6 "guys", always in a good mood, helpful and especially unbeatable as spotters.

The weather was mixed, during the day it was quite warm, in the evening then relatively cool, even by European standards. Overall, it was a bit exhausting due to the lengthy transfers, but a great experience to see the many mobulas jump and swim.

At the end of the week, after about 3 hours of driving south over a rather bumpy dirt road, we went to Cabo Pulmo, a National Park with wonderful white beaches and a great underwater world. Here you can see very clearly how through nature conservation efforts the biodiversity grows. We were lucky, especially the wreck dive "El Vencedor" is limited, there are only a certain number of permits every month. We were also lucky with the visibility, which is not a matter of course in this region. is not a matter of course in this region. But the dive with about 25 bull sharks, although limited in time, was really something special. They were everywhere, front, back, side, top, bottom, sometimes a bit curious, but never dangerously close. The following dive at a coral reef was also very nice because of the amount of fish, but could not top the experience with the sharks. but could not top the experience with the sharks. By the way, the sharks were neither baited with food nor otherwise attracted.

Otherwise, the service of the dive center was not exactly to be recommended, the exit from the boat a bit difficult and the accommodations on site quite simple. There was a small compensation in the form that you could watch very nice birds early in the morning, here we would have liked a little more time overall, but directly after the dives it went on to Cabo San Lucas, the two nights there could have been easily skipped, the Hotel Tesoro was already known to us from the stays in 2015 and 2018, it is in a central location, a huge hotel complex, like many there. So La Paz and even Cabo Pulmo had been much more sympathetic to us as a vacation resort.

Finally we were asked to check in at the dive center of the Nautilus fleet, after several hours we finally started in the evening. We had cabin #1 in the lower deck of the Nautilus Undersea, the boat was already known to us from our Cocos vacation in 2010, then it was called Undersea Hunter. The crossing should take about 30 hours with quite high waves, the Revillagigedo Islands are a good 800 km from the Mexican coast.

Our guides were Pascal, Elise and Dani (the latter unfortunately left us after a few days to the Belle Amie), they were all very competent, helpful and friendly. The sailors on the pangas were also always on hand, was also important as we had high swells throughout the tour, which made getting into the dinghies a bit difficult. Otherwise, the visibility was unfortunately relatively poor, especially at San Benedicto, the hammerhead sharks at the cleaning station of the dive site "Canyon" were more to guess than to see.

Already at the end of the 1st diving day we started the several hours crossing to Roca Partida, this is a rocky island in the eastern Pacific Ocean inhabited only by birds and at the same time the smallest of the Revillagigedo Islands (107 km west of Socorro). Due to the exposed location, diving at Roca Partida (=split rock) is very special, here the shark society of the large sea dwellers meets during their passage, the island serves as feeding place, resting place and cleaning station.

We met here again the well-known Galapagos, silvertip, silk and whitetip reef sharks. The latter are always in groups in the overhangs of the rock, together with huge lobsters, a pretty lazy company. In addition, we encountered 2 times a relatively large whale shark, again and again were also schools of fish to see, tunas, stingrays and others.

Unfortunately, our captain decided to leave Roca Partida again at the end of the day due to the continuing high waves and therefore we were back at San Benedicto the following day, where we made four dives at the "Boiler". Here we had many encounters with the "friendly" oceanic manta rays (manta bisostris). The especially friendly behavior of the manta rays towards the divers in Socorro is probably unique, the animals love to approach the divers up to a distance of 1 meter, make eye contact and let themselves be massaged by the air bubbles on their bellies. We have seen many manta rays in different waters (Maldives, Raja Ampat ....), but these manta rays are truly unique.

The next day we dived at the largest island of the archipelago, Socorro Island. Here, after the obligatory registration at the naval base, the dive site Cabo Pierce offered the best conditions, unfortunately it was no longer possible to return to the boiler, it is quite exposed a few hundred meters off the west coast of San Benedicto, where you are relatively unprotected to wind and waves.

We then spent the last day of our tour diving again at Benedicto Island in the hope of hammerhead shark sightings at the cleaning station at the canyon. However, the waves were also quite high here and the visibility underwater was limited, the animals were there, but difficult to see, let alone photograph.

And so began the somewhat uncomfortable return trip, which this time was to last a bit longer than the outward journey. Some fellow divers were hardly to be seen during the crossing, since on the sun deck partly a strong wind blew, some withdrew into their cabins and emerged only to the meals again. The chef at this point a big praise, as in general the whole crew, the boat is a bit outdated, but you still feel comfortable with the Nautilus fleet.

In the morning around 6 o'clock the rocking finally came to an end and we entered the still quiet port of Cabo San Lucas, where we were then distributed 2 hours later on the transfer vehicles to the airport. With stopovers in Mexico City and Amsterdam we reached Frankfurt/Main with the Dreamliner of Aero Mexico after a final return trip without any special incidents.