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Mexico's Revillagigedos on the Solmar V |
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Overview This was a 9 day excursion to the Islas Revillagigedos on the Solmar V. The islands are about 200 miles south of Cabo San Lucas and offer some great big animal diving. We saw numerous Manta Rays and also quite a few sharks. Diving conditions were a bit rough, but nothing too terrible for somebody used to diving Monterey as I am. The boat and dive operation while not great were generally acceptable and a good time was had by all. Of particular note is that this trip is a relatively good value for big animal diving compared to Cocos or Galapagos. The Crew I don't want to say that the crew did a poor job but let's just say that there was a basic difference of opinion between those who were paying for this trip and those who were operating it as to what our priorities should be. The crew seemed to think that a minimum of effort and comfortable anchorages were the most important considerations. Those of us with large investments in camera equipment were under the impression that diving with big animals should be the focus. After much complaining by the crew that the weather was too rough to dive the better spots a near passenger mutiny straightened things out. With some effort we eventually impressed upon them our desire to dive with sharks and mantas, damn the prevailing swell. As it turned out we got most of the dives we wanted but this shouldn't have happened. It may also be worth noting that in 5 1/2 days of diving we hit a grand total of 6 dive spots! At least one was apparently chosen because it offered easy diving for the crew to complete their open water certifications. Now I'm all for the crew learning to dive, but not on my dime, thank you. Pedro our captain was a generally nice fellow and a competant boat operator but as a non-diver he didn't really have enough knowledge of the differences between the various dive sites to make good decisions about where to take the boat. Better divemasters might have helped, but more on that later. Geronimo, the steward did yeoman work keeping things working smoothly and was particularly skilled at mending wetsuits, which he did for several people including me. The panga drivers were also good at their job which is important when you are diving in the middle of nowwhere. Food on the boat was mostly good in a haute cuisine sort of way. Pedro the chef (not to be confused with Pedro the captain) did good work as long as the food wasn't fish which was invariably overcooked or cut incorrectly in the case of the sashimi. If you like steak three times a day with dessert after both lunch and dinner this is your kind of boat. If you're a vegetarian be advised that this word apparently doesn't translate well into Spanish. No, ham is not a vegetable. No, chicken is not a vegetable. No damnit, fish is not a vegetable either! Etc. Pepe, who served as our waiter was polite and friendly but had some difficulty remembering what foods which people preferred or couldn't eat. The Boat The Solmar V is a large comfortable and stable boat. It features a large covered dive deck with individual dive stations, a large camera table and a very nice swimstep. Four rinse buckets are offered, two each for cameras and other dive gear. The boat has two compressors and a bank system and air fills are quick and easy. Nitrox is not available, more on that in the next section. The salon is especially nice with lots of woodwork and very classy etched glass. There is also a large and comfortable sun deck above the dive deck. The only real problem is the size of the cabins, if you could call them that. While they were clean, well ventilated and free of strange smells were incredibly small. I was fortunate enough to have a cabin for myself but I can't imagine having to share it. With very little closet space I used the top bunk for storage and needed every square inch. The top bunk was also marred by a very unfortunately placed reading light which is guaranteed to hit you in the head when you stretch out, or possibly even set your hair afire if the light happens to be on at the time. Diving Operations Divemasters Jose Luis and Rey were probably the weak link of the whole trip. This is not to say that they were awful, which they weren't, but they certainly didn't excel. I got the distinct impression that both were rather bored with their jobs and neither showed much enthusiasm for either the marine life or for diving. Dive briefings were decent but beyond that it seemed that their primary purpose was to record each diver's maximum depth and time after the dive. The boat has a policy against diving deeper than 130 feet or doing decompression diving, points which were repeated ad nauseam throughout the trip. At first I found this to be incredibly annoying but fortunately enforcement of these policies, like everything else, was rather lax and many of us eventually concluded that what they didn't know about our dive profiles wouldn't hurt them. Another complaint was a potentially great dive that was ruined when Rey chased away a small school of Hammerheads by swimming directly at them. Later he lead the group like a pack of wild dogs right over the top of a cleaning station. Worse, he didn't seem willing to concede that this was innappriate afterwards and told us that that was how you dove with hammerheads at Soccoro and that we wouldn't see them unless we swam out into the blue after them. Grrrr. One reason that we felt it necessary to, uhhhhh, occasionally forget some of the rules was the lack of Nitrox fills on the boat. Being in the middle of nowhere most of the dive sites were exposed to quite a bit of swell and as such diving at shallow depths was usually out of the question. Doing 3 or 4 100 foot dives on air per day can get unnerving after a few days but it was the only way to actually see anything. Trust me, there is nothing worse than having to leave a busy hammerhead cleaning station with 1500 PSI in your tank because you are out of bottom time. 10 minute safety stops were the order of the day. A boat this size has plenty of space for O2 tanks or a membrane system and I strongly recommend that they add one. I'll happily stay above 130 feet so long as I can stay at 100 for a reasonable length of time. In addition to the previous restrictions the Mexican government has decreed that no gloves, dive lights or knives are allowed at the Revillagigedos. Video lights and camera strobes are apparently excepted. The light restriction also means no night dives. The diveamasters claimed that sharks in the area were too dangerous to allow night diving anyway but offered no real evidence that this was the case. They did conduct an impromptu shark feeding behind the boat one night but it isn't clear that the sharks would have bothered divers had there not been bait in the water. The Diving By now you may be thinking that I had a terrible time on this trip. Happily this was not the case. Big animal diving doesn't get much better and once we had the dive site issue straightened away we had quite a few very memorable dives. The Boiler, located at Isla San Benedicto, is world famous for encounters with friendly Manta Rays. It is my pleasure to report that this reputation is well founded. I saw Mantas on all 6 of the dives I did here and most of these dives involved extended interactions, sometimes with multiple animals. It's clear that they like to be scratched on their bellies and the big rays would repeatedly visit a group of divers never seeming to tire of our presence. One pair of divers also had a really excellent dolphin encounter here which lasted over 20 minutes. Another nice site was the Submarine Canyon, also at San Benedicto. As with the Boiler we did 6 dives here. 4 of the 6 were really excellent, with one dive being one of my top 5 of all time. On this occasion I spent about 20 minutes at a cleaning station surrounded by Hammerhead Sharks. We also saw quite a few Mantas as well as Octopi, big Green Morays and various reef fish. Roca Pardita was the Piece de Resistance. Dive sites don't get any wilder or woolier than this. The rock has a surface area of no more than a few hundred square feet and is over 100 miles from the nearest island. It literally drops straight down on all sides to about 150 feet before gradually starting to level out. Large schools of Jacks, small Tunas and Creole Fish swim in the blue along with numerous sharks of all descriptions. We saw Galapagos, Silver Tip, Hammerhead, Silky and White Tipped Reef Sharks, often all at once. If you get bored with the sharks the deeper depths feature some really pretty Gorgonians. One thing that needs to be mentioned is that the reef itself at these islands is pretty barren. If you are looking for a coral reef, this isn't the place. While there are some small treasures to be found such as Barnacle Blennies for the most part the action happens in blue water. This isn't quite tropical diving either. Water temperatures varied from about 72 to 78F and visibility from about 30 to about 100 feet. Still, if you like Manta Rays this destination can't be topped. Logistics The boat leaves from Cabo San Lucas which is an easy destination for most people in North America. I took a direct flight from San Jose. Cabo isn't really my kind of town but if golf, fishing or drinking mass quantities of tequila appeal to you then it might make sense to add a day or two on either end. Hotels can be found for any budget. Compared to diving the Western Pacific this is a pretty easy trip to organize. Overall I had good time on this trip. The boat needs to fill nitrox and the divemasters could use some additional enthusiasm but considering the quality of the diving it was well worth the time and expense. Revillagigedos Photo Gallery Happy Diving, Clinton |