A short video about my trip to Revillagido/Socorro in February 2024
The trip
It was about 25 hours of sailing from Cabo San José to the first island of San Benedicto. The sea was rather choppy. I had fled the gray wet and cold Europe and I expected nice and warm weather. But during the trip it was rather gray and rainy. We were not even able to sit outside once to enjoy the nice weather.
Park fees
Park fees have risen seriously recently. I paid 720 euros. And I was surprised that I also had to pay for the travel days when we were not in the park.
Boat
Southern Sport belongs to the Cantamar group who also have hotels in La Paz. The boat is certainly not new but is sufficiently comfortable. The dive deck is very spacious with plenty of camera space. The cabins below the deck are relatively small . But the upper deck cabins are spacious and comfortable. The crew was friendly and the food was good. There is table service. The dive guides Chucho and Mau were excellent.
Diving
It was my second trip to Revillagigedo. The first time was just before the pandemic with Solmar V. The bad weather did not affect diving. But the lack of sunlight made everything seem more dark.
The first island is San Benedicto with 2 famous dive sites: El Canyon and El Boiler. We only dived in El Canyon. Apparently the other boats said there was little to do in El Boiler. And indeed El Canyon was the place where there was a lot of action: lots of hammerhead sharks, whitetips, silver tips, Galapagos sharks and oceanic manta rays. Compared to my previous trip, there were more hammerhead sharks but fewer manta rays.
On the second island of Socorro, we dived at Cabo Pearce and Punta Tosca. With dolphins and hammerhead sharks and a very large tiger shark.
The third island (actually a rock) is Roca Partita. Usually there is a lot of action here. But this time there was little to see. However, there was a current.
This time of year is also the season of humpback whales. We saw many from the boat. But underwater you have to be really lucky to see them I think.
Although it is a protected area I have some questions about the monitoring. Apparently there are indications of illegal fishing on a large scale anyway. So I hope the park fees will be used to effectively protect the beautiful marine life in this area.
