Rocio Del Mar - Sea of Cortez Midriff - Trip Report & Photos

[BoundForElsewhere]

One of the most enjoyable reports and photos posted. Thank you.

 

[Shasta_man]

Came back to reread again. Thanks for the report.

Two things:
- if you want to just get encounters with cool big stuff like whale sharks, it's easy. Just leave your camera on the boat for that dive.
- people don't like long reports, they like long reports with appropriate well organized details.

What is considered long these days is kind of a sad statement on attention spans. I read fast without skimming. Maybe I'm different.

 

[drrich2]

I’m certainly not a liveaboard convert. I much prefer the freedom and ease of shore diving.

I love shore diving, too; the freedom of solo shore diving is wonderful. But there aren't all that many really good shore diving destinations (I'm talking all shore diving, not just supplementing the boat diving), and hauling gear around an changing tanks is more work than live-aboard diving. There are things to be seen on some live-aboard trips, particularly big things, that likely won't be seen shore diving.

I was somewhat surprised that there wasn’t more diving, but during the week we did 19 dives.

Some Caribbean live-aboard offer around 4 day and 1 night dive per day most days, getting up around 25 to 27 dives for a week, but those I had were diving from the main yacht, not a RIB. When I spent a week about the Humboldt Explorer in the Galapagos, 20 dives were offered, of which I did 19 (ear trouble one dive), via RIBs...and I was worn out! The added hassle of getting in and out of and riding a RIB added more strain than I expected. Previously I was annoyed at reading of live-aboard offering 'only' 4 dives/day, and IIRC, I was reading about RIB-using far exotic trips. Now that I've been on one, 4 sounds like plenty.

It's not just RIB diving; 4 dives/day on a land-based Cozumel trip wiped me out worse than 5 dives/day in Bonaire. Differences in 'workflow' add up.

There were 2 RIBs, which were easy to embark/disembark from the stern deck at water level. The 2 RIBs would get each group in the water, with about 30 minutes between each group.

FYI, the number of dives offered per day was the least of any live-a-board we've been on except maybe the Sea Hunter in Cocos after night dives were ruled verboten.

I think most liveaboards are 4-5 dives, with 4 dives during the day and an optional night dive.

 

[The Chairman]

The Rocio del Mar was a wonderful experience for me... I've been twice. Did you see the Velvet Elvis? It's a black or dark blue flat worm.