LittleNat
Registered
Just got back from a fabulous trip with the Rocio Del Mar. My second time on this liveaboard (first time 2 years ago for Midriff Islands) and it was even better this time. The rooms have their own bathrooms & showers, the beds are comfortable, the crew is amazing and the food is delicious! The guys on the crew do everything with a smile, and are so friendly & helpful. Within 24 hours, they knew all our names and quickly learned all our "quirks." They kept a close watch as we geared up, to make sure everyone had everything we needed. The panga drivers were always right there when we surfaced. And the dive guides (at least mine, Gil) was fantastic, pointing out so many things. Wish I had his eyesight. He spotted things so much earlier than we all did!
The diving was unbelievable. We saw white tip sharks mating!! Since this is so rare, most of us thought we were seeing some sort of death battle. It started with a school of about 30 sharks swimming around, progressed to one shark biting another shark & dragging it to the bottom, and then turned into a frenzy. Luckily a few divers had heard of this and/or seen documentaries, so they filled us in on what we were seeing. The photos & videos are amazing. We feel incredibly lucky to have encountered this bit of nature.
We also saw whale sharks! It's the beginning of the season, so we weren't expecting to see them. It was a treat. Lots of giant mantas...after all the build-up I was worried it wouldn't live up to my expectations but it exceeded them. It was like flying with alien spacecraft. So many turned up at once, and they hung around for our entire dives, swooping and gliding above & below us. We also had a great dive with a pod of dolphins that came to play. And we even saw a few of the elusive hammerheads. I think we saw everything anyone wanted to see....octopus, eels, schools of fish, turtles, wahoo, etc. The only thing someone mentioned, that we didn't see, was a tiger shark. Well, guess we'll have to go back!
The diving was unbelievable. We saw white tip sharks mating!! Since this is so rare, most of us thought we were seeing some sort of death battle. It started with a school of about 30 sharks swimming around, progressed to one shark biting another shark & dragging it to the bottom, and then turned into a frenzy. Luckily a few divers had heard of this and/or seen documentaries, so they filled us in on what we were seeing. The photos & videos are amazing. We feel incredibly lucky to have encountered this bit of nature.
We also saw whale sharks! It's the beginning of the season, so we weren't expecting to see them. It was a treat. Lots of giant mantas...after all the build-up I was worried it wouldn't live up to my expectations but it exceeded them. It was like flying with alien spacecraft. So many turned up at once, and they hung around for our entire dives, swooping and gliding above & below us. We also had a great dive with a pod of dolphins that came to play. And we even saw a few of the elusive hammerheads. I think we saw everything anyone wanted to see....octopus, eels, schools of fish, turtles, wahoo, etc. The only thing someone mentioned, that we didn't see, was a tiger shark. Well, guess we'll have to go back!
