ameneon
Contributor
is Socorro starting to get crowded by divers?
I have started researching our next liveaboard trip and Socorro is one of the options.
A couple of things have surprised me. In just a couple of years the amount of boats seem to have more than doubled. Now up to 11 go to the islands at the same time... They call it little Galapagos, but have double the number of liveaboards than Galapagos have. And to make things even worse many of them have ALOT of divers.
I'm used to using and reading about boats with around 16 divers. Or up to 20 sometimes. With 2 dive guides.
But here several of the boats have more than 30 divers?
Bad memories of cattle diving in Ras Mohammed in the Red Sea some years ago comes to mind.
I assume this affects the experience onboard the boats alot, small cabins etc, since the boat seems to be same size as those who have less divers. But my main concern is the diving.
I had the impression this was a couple of small icelands with small and few dive sites?
Has anyone been there last 1-2 years and can comment on how the diving is being done?
I'm wondering about how diving is being done for each boat: group sizes, distance betwen groups, etc.
And also how the boats work together: Number of boats on same site, divers from different boats dive at same time. And if yes to crowded does this affect sea life? Dolphins only interested in first group? Or perhaps even swim away from site? And especially whales are usually scared away very easilly therefore I assume less encounters happen now?
I've also seen quite a few videos of people grabbing and touching the marine life. Is this really accepted by the dive guides?
I have started researching our next liveaboard trip and Socorro is one of the options.
A couple of things have surprised me. In just a couple of years the amount of boats seem to have more than doubled. Now up to 11 go to the islands at the same time... They call it little Galapagos, but have double the number of liveaboards than Galapagos have. And to make things even worse many of them have ALOT of divers.
I'm used to using and reading about boats with around 16 divers. Or up to 20 sometimes. With 2 dive guides.
But here several of the boats have more than 30 divers?
Bad memories of cattle diving in Ras Mohammed in the Red Sea some years ago comes to mind.
I assume this affects the experience onboard the boats alot, small cabins etc, since the boat seems to be same size as those who have less divers. But my main concern is the diving.
I had the impression this was a couple of small icelands with small and few dive sites?
Has anyone been there last 1-2 years and can comment on how the diving is being done?
I'm wondering about how diving is being done for each boat: group sizes, distance betwen groups, etc.
And also how the boats work together: Number of boats on same site, divers from different boats dive at same time. And if yes to crowded does this affect sea life? Dolphins only interested in first group? Or perhaps even swim away from site? And especially whales are usually scared away very easilly therefore I assume less encounters happen now?
I've also seen quite a few videos of people grabbing and touching the marine life. Is this really accepted by the dive guides?