Trip Report Socorro Jan 2021 Diving Trip Report

[Fusionfallinfo]

The 15L tank in the boat could be a steel tank that would require less dive weight that you would normally use for Aluminum tank. You’ll find out the appropriate dive weight you’ll need during your check out dive (1st dive of the trip), which is usually in the shallow area in San Benedicto. DM would be diving next to you to help you getting the appropriate dive weight.

Great info, thanks! Did you reserve the tank before the trip or did you book them when you checked in with SeeCreatures? I emailed them to inquire and they just said "we will try our best."

 

[Dan]

Great info, thanks! Did you reserve the tank before the trip or did you book them when you checked in with SeeCreatures? I emailed them to inquire and they just said "we will try our best."

I reserved the tank before the trip.

 

[SophiaaaaaX]

Summary
This is a nine-day (7-15 January, 2021) liveaboard trip to Revillagigedo Archipelago, or it’s a better known as Socorro, with Nautilus Belle Amie. The itinerary, as shown in Table 1, includes 5 days of diving, 4 dives / day, except 2 days during Navy check-in while in Socorro island and a long voyage from Socorro island to Roca Partida, to a total of 18 dives and a snorkeling with silky shark off the back of the boat.

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Figure 1 shows the Nautilus Nautilus Belle Amie cruising routes (marked by red arrows) around the Revillagigedo Archipelago. We did 1st day of diving in The Canyon, northwest of San Benedicto island, 2nd day in Cabo Pearce, southeast of Socorro Island, 3rd and 4th day around Roca Partida, the 5th (last) day in The Boiler, southeast of San Benedicto Island. Some of the special moments were getting very close encounters with giant mantas and friendly bottlenose dolphins, big mama whaleshark and juvenile whaleshark.

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Figure 1: Nautilus Undersea routes in Revillagigedo Archipelago (courtesy of Google Earth)

Here is a short video of the highlight of what I saw during the 5 days of diving in Socorro:


Background
Socorro island is about about 283 miles (468 km) southwest off Cabo San Lucas, Mexico, as shown in red dot, in Figure 2, below. It would take about 24-28 hour voyage from Cabo San Lucas to Socorro Island. There are similar kind of diving destinations around eastern pacific besides Socorro, i.e., Cocos, Malpelo and Galapagos, which are also indicated by red dots on their geographic locations and names in Figure 2.

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Figure 2: Socorro geographic location (courtesy of Google Earth)

Since I live near Houston, Texas, it was an easy 3-hour nonstop flight, which is great way in minimizing exposure to strangers in the airport during this pandemic period.

This is my second time to be in Socorro. The first time was in December, 2018, Socorro 22-30 December, 2018 Trip Report | ScubaBoard So, I know what to expect as far as the water temperature and what wetsuit thickness I should bring. The water temperatures in Socorro then were about 75-77 °F (24-25 °C). I was comfortable with my 5mm full wetsuit with hood. It turned out to be the same case in January 2021, as you see in Table 1, above.

The Liveaboard
Nautilus Belle Amie, as shown in Figure 3, is 134-foot (41m) long ship with 17 cabins, catering for up to 35 guests, along with three rigid inflatable boats (RIB), see Nautilus Belle Amie - Nautilus Liveaboards for more detail info. It is the newest and largest of Nautilus liveaboards. The wide body makes it more steady sailing in the open pacific ocean and the quietness of the engine made me sleep like baby at night. I didn’t even need a motion sickness during the 24-hour crossing.

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Figure 3: Nautilus Belle Amie (courtesy of Nautilus Liveaboards)

It runs by 13 crews (a captain, a mate, an officer, an engineer, a chef, 3 hosts, a deckhand and 4 divemasters) for 20 guests on this trip. So, they work very hard to maintain day-to-day operation of the boat and to serve the guests.

The boat layout is very functional for divers. Galley, dinning, and entertainment areas are on the main deck. Camera station and dive deck are outside on the back of the main deck. Eight staterooms and a triple stateroom are in lower deck. Two premium suites are on the main deck. Six premium suites are on the upper deck. Above the upper deck is a sundeck with open air sitting area for people to relax in between divings and dive briefing, where people can spread out and keep social distancing. Everyone did wear mask in such gathering.

The lower-deck stateroom, where I stayed, has a single bed on the left side with longer leg room for tall person, next to the shower, as shown in Figure 4, below.

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Figure 4: Left side of Nautilus Belle Amie stateroom E

On the right side of the cabin is a double bed, next to toilet, as shown in Figure 5, below.

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Figure 5: Right side of Nautilus Belle Amie stateroom E

I was fortunate to be able to have a cabin alone without paying an additional single supplement, especially during this pandemic situation. There are plenty of closet space and to store our luggage below the bed for 2 divers, as you see in the two pictures, above. The hosts did a great job of keeping our cabin cleaned and orderly.

Setting up our dive gears and handling them were pretty typical liveaboard with RIB. Once we kit up our dive gears at our assigned stations in the dive deck and ready to board on the RIB, the deckhand would take our fins and cameras. We then walked 3 steps down to the loading platform, got on the RIB by grabbing on a rope, put our legs over the side of the RIB (one at a time), sit on the RIB side and slided to the back of the RIB. Once everyone was onboard, the deckhand would then handed over the fins and the cameras and off we went to the dive site.

The RIB can take 10 people (including DMs and the RIB pilot). There were 20 divers on that trip. We were divided, depending on the diver skill levels and preferences, into 3 groups of 7 divers in Shark 1, 7 divers in Shark 2 and 6 divers in Mantas. Shark 1 and 2 are for the experienced self-reliant divers looking for complete freedom on their dives. Mantas is for less experienced (especially in diving in blue water) looking for the reassurance of being with a DM to guide and lead the group.

When we were ready to go diving in a new dive site, we would meet at the sun deck area, listen to the dive briefing and headed back down to dive deck afterwards to suit up. Figure 6, below, shows the dive deck area with dive-gear station on the right side, gas-filling station on the left side, and camera station on the background.

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Figure 6: Nautilus Belle Amie dive deck

For water entry, the RIB pilot would count to 3 and we all backrolled into the water together at the same time. Each group would descend together following the DM.

The meal (breakfast, lunch & dinner) were served by the hosts during this pandemic situation, no buffet. The dining room would be kept into maximum of 14 divers at a time. For example, Shark 1 and Mantas would dine first and after 30 minutes, they were asked to vacate the dining room to let Shark 2 to have their turn to dine. On the next day, Shark 2 would dine first. Shark 1 and Mantas would dine after Shark 2 left the dining room. This alternating order of meal time was conducted for the 8 days we were on the boat. The food were excellent. Special dietary meal were served to those who asked for it.

Everyone wore mask when they were outside of their cabins, except during mealtime, where we were spread over the huge dining area, as shown in Figure 7, below.

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Figure 7: Nautilus Belle Amie dining room

They have a spacious entertainment room, where I hang out mostly when I edited my pictures after diving and meal time, as shown in Figure 8, below.

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Figure 8: Nautilus Belle Amie entertainment room

To be continued to the next post.

Hi Dan,

thank you so so much for such a comprehensive and intriguing dive report! I registered SB so as to say thank you here.

i‘m also about to dive on Nautilus Belle Amie early next Jan, and also booked the warm-up local dive. Difference is that this will be my first time in Mexico.

it is amazing how much stuff you got to see and such great times you had! I am a bit nervous cuz I barely reach the 50 dive limit(tho it is not my first live aboard and the crew said it is okay, plus I still got half a year to improve my skills). I hope I can have as much fun as you did.


Keep up with the good work!
Sophia.

 

[Dan]

Hi Dan,

thank you so so much for such a comprehensive and intriguing dive report! I registered SB so as to say thank you here.

i‘m also about to dive on Nautilus Belle Amie early next Jan, and also booked the warm-up local dive. Difference is that this will be my first time in Mexico.

it is amazing how much stuff you got to see and such great times you had! I am a bit nervous cuz I barely reach the 50 dive limit(tho it is not my first live aboard and the crew said it is okay, plus I still got half a year to improve my skills). I hope I can have as much fun as you did.


Keep up with the good work!
Sophia.

Thanks for your kind words. I hope the report helps you get prepared with the trip.

Make sure keep yourself warm. I wore 5mm full wetsuit with hood for the 66-68F warmup dives in Cabo San Lucas. Even then I wish I had 7mm full wetsuit. However, in Socorro itself was warmer (75-77F) which helped a lot when we did 3-4 dives / day for 7 days.

 

[SophiaaaaaX]

Thanks for your kind words. I hope the report helps you get prepared with the trip.

Make sure keep yourself warm. I wore 5mm full wetsuit with hood for the 66-68F warmup dives in Cabo San Lucas. Even then I wish I had 7mm full wetsuit. However, in Socorro itself was warmer (75-77F) which helped a lot when we did 2-4 dives / day for 7 days.

Thanks for the tips! Your report for sure helped a lot! Will dress warmly then~

 

[JasonWildMe]

Luckily, currents bring pelagic fish. We saw another pod of bottlenose dolphins, schooling of yellowfin tunas, schooling of hammerheads, and juvenile whaleshark, as shown in Figure 26 to 29, respectively, below.

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Figure 26: Schooling of yellowfin tuna in Roca Partida

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Figure 27: Yellowfin tuna in Roca Partida

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Figure 28: Schooling of hammerheads in Roca Partida (courtesy of Nicholas)

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Figure 29: Juvenile whaleshark in Roca Partida (courtesy of Matt Niesen)

Another interesting site to see in Roca Partida is the Balcony, where local resident of whitetip reef shark sleep during the day, as shown in Figure 30 and 31, below.

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Figure 30: First local resident of The Balcony of Roca Partida (courtesy of Bela Asztalos)

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Figure 31: Second local resident of The Balcony of Roca Partida (courtesy of Bela Asztalos)

5th Day of Diving
On this day we went cruising back to southeast of San Benedicto to an underwater mount dive site called The Boiller, as illustrated by Pato in Figure 32, below.

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Figure 32: The Boiler dive site (courtesy of Pato, DM of Nautilus Belle Amie)

We dived 3 times there (Dive 15, 16 and 17). During the first dive of the day, around 7:20ish, I spotted tiger shark at the bottom (at the 140 feet mark in Figure 32, above). It was too deep and too dark to see it closer. I didn’t get a good picture of it, but some other divers did. Other than that, The Boiler was hot with oceanic mantas and again with a pod of dolphins, which at this point I saw enough of them, stopped taking pictures or videos and just watching the show while hanging in the blue water. By the end of Dive 17, current started to pick up and Captain Shep decided to move us back to The Canyon for our last and easy dive, before sailing back to Cabo in the next morning.

Dive 18, our last dive, in The Canyon, I just took it easy and snapping pictures of fish uniquely found in eastern pacific, like the redtail triggerfish and clarion anglefish, as shown in Figures 33 and 34, respectively.

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Figure 33: Redtail triggerfish in The Canyon

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Figure 34: Clarion angelfish in The Canyon

The next day, we headed back to Cabo San Lucas. We had all day to dry up our dive gears in the sun and packed our bags. We arrived in Cabo San Lucas on 15 January morning, disembarked the boat around 8:30am.

Some of us headed straight to the airport to fly home or to Sea of Cortez for their next adventure. While I spent another day in Cabo San Lucas to meet some old friends, Gaby & Rene of Kraken Divers to start planning for our next trip back to Cabo in May.

Conclusions
My impression of the diving and the trip are very positive. If you want to see giant mantas and bottlenose dolphins in close encounter, Socorro is the place to go. The liveaboard is very well organized and programmed to meet the COVID-19 protocols while on the boat. The boat is huge, stable, and quiet. It is the kind of boat we need to have to spread out and keeping social distancing during this pandemic period. I will be coming back for more diving in Socorro, with the same boat in May, as shown here: One spot available in Nautilus Belle Amie May 11-19, 2021 $400 off | ScubaBoard. Hopefully this time we will see the baitballs with birds, pelagic fish, sharks and dolphins shooting through the bait balls, in addition to the usual suspects.

Hi Dan,

I am one of the original software developers behind Sharkbook.ai (https://www.sharkbook.ai; formerly whaleshark.org) where we use the spots on whale sharks as a unique, long-term fingerprint for tracking and population assessment.

I ended up using screengrabs of one of your whale shark YouTube videos:

Sharkbook: Wildbook for Sharks

to "tag" your whale shark from this video:

which researchers now believe has migrated to another research site.

Sharkbook: Wildbook for Sharks

This would be a pretty amazing discovery for science and whale shark migration research. The researchers would like to follow up with you but could not contact you via the YouTube video. Would you be willing to direct message your email address that I could pass along to them for follow up?

Thank you!
Jason Holmberg
Executive Director
Wild Me

https://www.wildme.org

 

[Dan]

Hi Dan,

I am one of the original software developers behind Sharkbook.ai (https://www.sharkbook.ai; formerly whaleshark.org) where we use the spots on whale sharks as a unique, long-term fingerprint for tracking and population assessment.

I ended up using screengrabs of one of your whale shark YouTube videos:

Sharkbook: Wildbook for Sharks

to "tag" your whale shark from this video:

which researchers now believe has migrated to another research site.

Sharkbook: Wildbook for Sharks

This would be a pretty amazing discovery for science and whale shark migration research. The researchers would like to follow up with you but could not contact you via the YouTube video. Would you be willing to direct message your email address that I could pass along to them for follow up?

Thank you!
Jason Holmberg
Executive Director
Wild Me

https://www.wildme.org

Sure. I’ll be glad to. Check your DM.

 

[SOFIGREEN_GWSP]

The diving
We did 4 dives in 3 diving days and 3 dives in 2 diving days, (1) when we were in Socorro Island during Navy check-in and (2) after a long voyage from Socorro to Roca Partida, to a total of 18 dives, with a night snorkeling with silky sharks when we were in Socorro Island. The diving schedule would be posted in the lounge whiteboard and one of the divemasters would announce it to everyone, 15 minutes before the scheduled dive briefing. Typical 4-dives / day schedule was as follows:
06:30 – 7:30 Continental breakfast
07:30 – 07:45 Dive briefing on sun deck
07:45 – 08:00 Suit up dive 1
08:00 – 09:15 Dive 1
09:30 – 10:00 Hot breakfast for Shark 1 & Mantas
10:00 – 10:30 Hot breakfast for Shark 2
11:00 – 12:15 Dive 2
12:15 – 12:45 Lunch for Shark 1 & Mantas
12:45 – 13:15 Lunch for Shark 2
14:00 – 15:15 Dive 3
16:00 – 17:15 Dive 4
18:00 – 19:00 Cocktail hour
19:00 – 19:45 Dinner for Shark 1 and Mantas
19:45 – 20:30 Dinner for Shark 2
We saw 1 to 4 giant mantas in most of our dives in Cabo Pearce and The Boiler (that’s the main reason I came to Socorro), lots of pelagic fish, including 5 species of sharks (galapagos, silvertip, whitetip, silky and hammerhead) and friendly dolphins in all dive sites.
1st Day of Diving
We had a great 1st day of diving in El Canyon, northwest side of San Benedicto island, as shown in Figure 9 and 10, below.
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Figure 9: San Benedicto island
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Figure 10: San Benedicto island (courtesy of Brian Forman, Mate of Nautilus Belle Amie)
Pato, DM of Shark 2 group, turned out to be a great artist and had drawn The Canyon dive site (to be used during the dive briefing), as shown in Figure 11, below.
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Figure 11: The Canyon dive site (courtesy of Pato, DM of Nautilus Belle Amie)
Water temperature was about 75°F. Dive 1 was in The Canyon, 98 feet depth with 40 feet visibility. It was a calm dive site, a good place for a check dive. Some fish worth noting were silvertip shark, whitetip shark, panama graysby, and torpedo ray, as shown in Figure 12 to 15, below, respectively. We also saw lots of spiny lobsters and a few dolphins swam by, checking us out.
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Figure 12: Silvertip shark in The Canyon (courtesy of Bela Asztalos)
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Figure 13: Whitetip shark in The Canyon
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Figure 14: Panama graysby in The Canyon
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Figure 15: Torpedo Ray in The Canyon
Dive 2, 3 and 4 were repeats of Dive 1. We got more day light for better video and picture taking. We saw schooling of cottonmouth jacks, more whitetip and silvertip sharks, a galapagos shark and a green moray. After dinner we sailed to Socorro Island.
2nd Day of Diving
Dive 5 was in Cabo Pearce, southeast of Socorro Island, as shown in Figure 16.
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Figure 16: Cabo Pearce
Cabo Pearce dive site illustrated by Pato, is shown in Figure 17, below.
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Figure 17: Cabo Pearce dive site (courtesy of Pato, DM of Nautilus Belle Amie)
To be continued to the next post (hit the limit of number of pictures in a post).

 

[Dan]

Hi Dan,

I am one of the original software developers behind Sharkbook.ai (https://www.sharkbook.ai; formerly whaleshark.org) where we use the spots on whale sharks as a unique, long-term fingerprint for tracking and population assessment.

I ended up using screengrabs of one of your whale shark YouTube videos:

Sharkbook: Wildbook for Sharks

to "tag" your whale shark from this video:

which researchers now believe has migrated to another research site.

Sharkbook: Wildbook for Sharks

This would be a pretty amazing discovery for science and whale shark migration research. The researchers would like to follow up with you but could not contact you via the YouTube video. Would you be willing to direct message your email address that I could pass along to them for follow up?

Thank you!
Jason Holmberg
Executive Director
Wild Me

https://www.wildme.org

That video was captured during my trip to Socorro in May 2021, not in January 2021, as reported here:

Trip Report - Socorro Real Time Review

Some of us from Scubaboard including myself, @Soloist, @uncfnp and @Nancy MacD will be boarding Nautilus Belle Amie, heading to Revillagigedo archipelago or better known as Socorro. The boat has Wi-Fi access via satellite. So we thought it is a good opportunity to do a Real Time Review (RTR) of...

scubaboard.com

I am planning to be in Galapagos in October (from the 17th to the 31st). Hopefully it’ll still be there for me to capture another video of it.

 

[Dan]

Hi @SOFIGREEN_GWSP & @JasonWildMe

Here are a few more of my Eastern Pacific diving videos where I encountered some whalesharks that could be useful for your data collection. I’ll be paying more attention in capturing those ID marks in the future encounters.

Cocos in September 2018


Socorro in January 2021
A huge & pregnant mama at 131’ depth in Cabo Pearce at 3min 55sec of video & a juvenile one at 119’ depth in Roca Partida at 6min 28sec of the video.


Malpelo in July 2021
Several whalesharks (not sure if they are the same one) at 2min 45sec, 4min 9sec, 9min 44sec. I’ll be glad to add more detail info if that would help for your data gathering.