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I hope the last trip this season for the Nautilus Belle Amie pulls in behind this
Revillagigedos storm
- Thread starter scubadada
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Ditto as we’ll be on it! Just checked in with Nautilus before lunchtime and my understanding of the plan is to head to Sea of Cortez for first day and then head out to Socorro, so we’ll lose a day relative to the normal itinerary of arriving there tomorrow night.
OP
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Sounds like a good decision, this morning's NOAA forecast. Soccoro is 18.7 N and 111 W
Best of luck, make sure you tell us about your trip
dflaher
Contributor
Good luck!
Just a quick-ish follow up on this until I get around to writing a proper report/review. As I understand it, the typical plan for these trips is to depart Cabo in the evening for the journey to the islands, which takes around 24 hours. We ended up leaving around 9 am the following day -- after spending the first night rolling at anchorage in Cabo. Transit took about 30 hours and our first dive wasn't until around 3 pm on Monday afternoon.
The crossing was pretty rough. I would say about 1/3 of the passengers were in their cabins because of being seasick, another 1/3 were feeling crummy but not actively sick, and another 1/3 seemed unaffected. The "bonus" 12 hours spent rolling at anchorage certainly did not help. It's unclear why we had to spend that time in unprotected water versus at the dock, where it would have been much more sheltered.
Once at San Benedicto, we dove the checkout site twice, which was disappointing but it allowed them to say we only missed 2 dives due to weather. The joys of hurricane season travel! (NB: the storm that caused all the drama was Celia, which happens to be our niece's name -- that provided at least some amusement for us) The rest of the cruise seemed to go off as it normally does. The seas had calmed quite a bit for the journey back to Cabo, which was nice.
This was our first time to Socorro, but from talking to others who had been before, it sounded like we had a good showing with respect to sea life. Mantas appeared more often than not, dolphins on a handful of dives, hammerheads on a few dives, small whale shark, and a tiger shark. Belle Amie is a comfortable boat, but with 27 divers on board it made for congestion both when gearing up and on the dive sites themselves.
The crossing was pretty rough. I would say about 1/3 of the passengers were in their cabins because of being seasick, another 1/3 were feeling crummy but not actively sick, and another 1/3 seemed unaffected. The "bonus" 12 hours spent rolling at anchorage certainly did not help. It's unclear why we had to spend that time in unprotected water versus at the dock, where it would have been much more sheltered.
Once at San Benedicto, we dove the checkout site twice, which was disappointing but it allowed them to say we only missed 2 dives due to weather. The joys of hurricane season travel! (NB: the storm that caused all the drama was Celia, which happens to be our niece's name -- that provided at least some amusement for us) The rest of the cruise seemed to go off as it normally does. The seas had calmed quite a bit for the journey back to Cabo, which was nice.
This was our first time to Socorro, but from talking to others who had been before, it sounded like we had a good showing with respect to sea life. Mantas appeared more often than not, dolphins on a handful of dives, hammerheads on a few dives, small whale shark, and a tiger shark. Belle Amie is a comfortable boat, but with 27 divers on board it made for congestion both when gearing up and on the dive sites themselves.
dflaher
Contributor
Glad you survived and it seemed like a good trip after the first day or two. It does seem like 27 divers on a LOB can be cozy, regardless of how nice the boat is.
Was the checkout dive just meh, or was it nice except for the fact you had to do it twice?
Was the checkout dive just meh, or was it nice except for the fact you had to do it twice?
The dive stations are really cramped and makes gearing up challenging if you have multiple people from the same group in a row. Six of our group were in the same row, which was annoying -- especially when doing it 4 times a day. I wouldn't hesitate to recommend the Belle Amie for the Guadalupe itinerary, since you aren't using the dive stations or sharing the same site, but it definitely felt like too many people for Socorro.
The checkout dive site was just meh. If memory serves, the captain apologized for it that evening at dinner or said something to the effect of we'll start the real diving tomorrow. Again, I don't think this was their fault, but rather was a downstream consequence of the tropical storm. And, once the diving got started for realsies, it was very good.
The checkout dive site was just meh. If memory serves, the captain apologized for it that evening at dinner or said something to the effect of we'll start the real diving tomorrow. Again, I don't think this was their fault, but rather was a downstream consequence of the tropical storm. And, once the diving got started for realsies, it was very good.
dflaher
Contributor
Yeah, probably. Would have been a bit of a pain since you'd need to make sure none of the switcheroos increased congestion among other groups. I guess I just felt like it was something that the crew should/could have done proactively. On the days when our group wasn't first to go out I would carry my gear over to a recently-vacated spot and that helped smooth things out.
Manuel Sam
Contributor
You said: "We ended up leaving around 9 am the following day -- after spending the first night rolling at anchorage in Cabo. Transit took about 30 hours and our first dive wasn't until around 3 pm on Monday afternoon."
I believe that very few of the Socorro liveaboards have a permanent docking berth anymore because it costs money. They use the dock at Marina Del Rey only to load and unload and anchor in the bay. If the boat arrived back from Socorro the night before the morning you disembarked, they probably did the same.
I believe that very few of the Socorro liveaboards have a permanent docking berth anymore because it costs money. They use the dock at Marina Del Rey only to load and unload and anchor in the bay. If the boat arrived back from Socorro the night before the morning you disembarked, they probably did the same.
