Lunch had been a dreary affair. Here we were, 250 miles
and five days out of Cabo San Lucas, cooped up on the
Solmar V off barren San Benedicto Island, one of the ecologically-
protected islands of Mexico’s Revillagigedo
Archipelago. The December weather was deteriorating, and
we still hadn’t seen a manta.
Suddenly, one appeared off the stern. I scrambled into
my gear, strode off the dive platform, and dropped to 40
feet. A 16-footer circled at the edge of visibility, 30
feet away. It banked majestically toward me, its mouth
wide enough to swallow me whole -- if that had been its
biological determination. I stroked the rough skin behind
the gills. Its pelvic claspers were bony and
pebble-grained, but at my touch they parted slightly while
its wing tips trembled. Now, there was a G-spot! I spent a
euphoric hour petting and playing with her and three others.
From there, the trip went downhill. My nine-day trip
turned out to be, as a crew member said, one of their
roughest and most disappointing ever. And yet I experienced
most of the big animal encounters these islands are
noted for, if only in limited doses and under less-thanideal
conditions. Consider my report a baseline for the
least you can expect from a trip to “the Galapagos of
Mexico.”
To the eye, the 112-foot Solmar V is a beautiful boat,
with its gleaming forest-green hull and luxurious mahogany-
paneled salon with etched glass dividers, green
leatherette banquettes, and Tiffany-style lights. The
sundeck has a half-dozen lounge chairs, and the spacious
bow is padded for additional lounging.
Practically, however, when she’s
booked to capacity (22 for most cruises,
24 in our case), living space is
cramped, storage is difficult, and bathroom
facilities are a cruel joke. My
buddy and I were crammed into one of six
forward cabins where, as a crew member
put it, “You have to step outside to
change your mind.” Double-decker bunks,
a narrow half-closet stacked atop a tiny
three-drawer bureau, and a claustrophobic
head/sink/shower (a sink faucet, on
a flexible extension, that transforms
into a hand-held shower head) left us
with a postage-stamp floor. (I preferred
the community head off the dining salon
and washed up in the rinse-off showers
on the dive deck.) Fortunately, softsided
luggage and unnecessary gear could
be stored in a forward hatch. For the
upper bunk, the overhead was so low I
couldn’t rest a hardcover book on my
chest, and the gooseneck lamp drooped
down and threatened to burn my ear. The
cabin had no circulation; a small porthole
— it didn’t open — served only to
let me know when daylight arrived after
a fitful night’s sleep. Each cabin has
individual A/C, but roommates squabbled
over which of the two settings to use. Two nights I slept on rolled-up towels
until finally, after repeated requests, a pillow appeared. Each cabin did have an
individual VCR player for the ship’s videos (which ranged from Johnny Carson to
Striptease). The bottom line: spend the extra bucks for a superior stateroom in
the midsection — more space and sinks outside the en suite heads (#404 has a
small fridge and can be joined with #403 to form a suite).
Our trip to San Benedicto began on gentle, following seas. The first morning I
awoke to a gorgeous sunrise on the open ocean. Our group — a Parisian, three
Japanese, two single women, four single men, four married guys without spouses,
and four middle-aged couples — spent the day sharing live-aboard experiences and
getting cameras ready. One of the three divemasters, San Diego ex-pat Scott
Sundby, assigned us individual dive stations with an aluminum 80 and a storage
bin. Two rinse tanks, a pair of shower heads, and a carpeted camera table (no
onboard film development) are just forward of the dive platform (along with clean
fluffy towels). One of two inflatables (“pangas”) was deployed whenever divers
were in the water. Buddies were free to plan their own profiles until the platform
gate closed at 4:30 p.m., an hour before sunset.
Although two safety tanks with multiple second stages hung over the side, the
rule is no-decompression diving. Divemasters log in maximum depth and bottom time
after every dive. Anyone descending below 130 feet is done for the day. Anyone
requiring a decompression stop stays dry the next twenty-four hours. Drink during
the day and your diving’s finished.
Although the Solmar’s T-shirts show divers clinging to the backs of mantas,
this thrill-ride was eliminated years ago. The government rule is “touch nothing,
including mantas, unless one approaches.” Gloves and knives are not allowed in the water, nor are lights, so there is
no night diving. Scott offers a PADI
Manta Awareness Certification for $100,
sharing his extensive research into
manta identification, anatomy, and
behavior. Unlike any other location in
the world, the mantas here seem to seek
human contact. Scott says they seem to
appreciate eye contact, don’t mind
strobes, and get off on bubbles. While
they’re not shy about having their
privates stroked, their tails, backs,
gills, and wingtips are off limits.
But on this trip, mantas were few.
Diving began forty-six hours after
departure (2:00 p.m. on our second day)
at the Boiler off San Benedicto — supposedly
a manta cleaning station.
Three-meter swells made the dive plan
difficult to follow, even with 60-foot
visibility (about average for these
parts). I saw a few big jacks and a
distant shark, but little else of note.
Ten-foot vertical surges down to 70
feet served as reminders to exhale as I
bounced up and down; they also took a
toll on my air consumption. And there
were no mantas on the second dive here,
either.
After a 38-mile crossing from San
Benedicto to Socorro Island, they
served dinner. Geronimo, the indefatigable
ship’s steward, set the banquette
tables with white table cloths and
served up American family food: pot
roast, baked potatoes, carrots, and
broccoli. Beer and wine are complimentary,
so I enjoyed a smooth cabernet
from Baja’s Guadeloupe winery.
The next morning, after a breakfast
of pancakes, bacon, and soggy hash
browns, we had to wait for sailors from
the nearby outpost to conduct their
normal inspection of the vessel and our
papers. The plan was for divemasters to
lead four dives to different sites at
this anchorage; buddies, after the
briefing, could go off on their own. I
joined Roberto’s group. On entry, two
6-foot Galapagos sharks greeted us;
more appeared later, but none ventured
in camera range. I made a gentle descent
down the colorless wall to 109
feet, where only the ubiquitous, bright-orange Clarion angels stood
out. The water: high 70’s.
On another dive (after a lunch of
ham and cheese sandwiches on burger
buns, a chowder, and dessert (which,
would you believe, was always half a
Milky Way)), a couple of mantas appeared
in the distance and a Galapagos
shark made a token sniff at my
fintips, but peeled off before I could
shoot his picture. Since the top of
the seamount was 85 feet below the
surface, this was another deep dive.
Other divers reported an open water
drift surrounded by feisty silky
sharks; however, when I tried the dive
it was an uneventful drift with no
sharks, although there were big
leather bass, bumphead, and bicolor
parrots.
That night the chef barbecued
chicken and a tuna caught that day. At
5:30 the next morning I was awakened
as the boat pulled anchor to get out
of worsening weather and head for a
sheltered spot. After breakfast, the
plan was to dive out of the inflatable
pangas, so they each gave us each a
safety sausage. During the dive, I
encountered a 3-story-high school of
skipjacks. In the middle a 5-foot
silky patrolled like a border collie,
and later I saw a few more silky,
Galapagos sharks, and a 6' hammerhead.
On a later dive a hammerhead circled
constantly (Scott said this was “unusual”
behavior). Better yet, a pod of
dolphins checked us out, drawing close
enough that we could make out scars
and other identifying marks. That
encounter got me so stoked that when I
came across a 5-foot moray lying out
on a shelf, I merely muttered “hohum.”
The crew assisted my climb back
into the inflatable, which wasn’t
difficult because of its low gunwales.
At the end of the day, the Solmar V got underway, beating uphill until 3
a.m. when we anchored off the south
side of San Benedicto. Only then could
I sleep. The weather was too rough to
get to the Boiler — where mantas supposedly
line up and wait for us humanoids,
so we dived here: visibility 40 feet, lots of broken coral, a couple of
lobsters, and a smattering of graysbys,
porcupinefish, tiny Cortez rainbow
wrasse, crevalle jack, and coronet
fish. Initially the next dive seemed
like more of the same, but below 30
feet pumice from the volcanic cliffs
shrank visibility to 10 feet. While
trying to elude the cloud of silt I
lost my buddy, eventually finding myself
at 100 feet — considerably deeper
than expected. I began to see why the
crew was so scrupulous about monitoring
our computer readings.
That afternoon our persistence paid
off with the three-manta encounter I
described above. While watching video
replays during happy hour, we all
agreed that this one dive would make
the trip complete, even if we sawbubkis the rest of the voyage. The steaks the
crew barbecued for dinner topped off the dive.
Although the sun appeared the next day, it was still too rough for the Boiler
and a hoped-for visit to Roca Patrida, which was a major disappointment since a
couple who had been there last year saw hundreds of hammers and other sharks in
200-foot visibility. We were forced to content ourselves with another three dives at what the frustrated crew renamed “Same Place,” dives that brought another
manta, stone fish, 16-inch leopard groupers, brown jacks, goldrimmed surgeonfish,
redtail triggerfish, and typical rocky bottom with sparse corals.
On one dive, Scott advised us to hover at 25 feet to find mantas, but Roberto
led us to the 85-foot bottom, swam us in circles, and then departed with another
diver, leaving the group behind. Roberto’s behavior was apparently the result of
a rift between the divemasters over the choice of sites (some believed the Boiler
was diveable). Although he’d been personable throughout the trip, he now seemed
to take out his frustration on his divers, which I could only view as bad form.
At 3:00 p.m., we battened down the hatches for a rough ride back to Cabo. We
all rinsed our gear and secured it in the only available space: our bathrooms.
Waves were breaking over the bow before we lost sight of San Benedicto. The
Solmar was rolling side to side, but at least it wasn’t pitch-rolling as it had
earlier. Several divers, feeling queasy, hung in their cabins. I took a Dramamine
and a nap, then sat down to a lobster-tail dinner. It took twenty-eight hours of
uphill pounding to get back to Cabo, six hours more than the trip out. Scott
could only recall two rougher voyages in his four years on the boat. We finally
spotted land at 2:00 p.m., and, although the decks were still awash, it was warm
enough to get in last-minute tanning up on the sundeck. Dinner was served as we
neared port, and, when we docked at 8:00 p.m., everyone rumbled ashore to phone
home. My last night aboard I slept blissfully, departing the next morning to the
Solmar Suites, where I picked up an airport shuttle.
Well, I did miss the masses of mantas, hammerheads by the hundreds, and vintage
visibility reported by my fellow Undercurrent readers. I didn’t see whale
sharks or the schools of 400-lb. tuna that are sometimes spotted. My shots are
not clear as I’d like. But I had one hell of an adventure, accomplishing just
about everything I’d hoped for, although not with the frequency I’d anticipat.ed Still, if it doesn’t get any worse than this, it’s a good bet for a trip.
P.S.: Reader Charles
Stearns (Lilburn, GA)
reports that on his
February trip aboard
the Solmar he had tenfoot
rollers on the way
out, but got to the
Boiler. “The mantas are
huge (up to 21 feet)
and delight in coming
up close and personal.
Several days we were
unable to dive locations
because of the
high waves with winds
up to thirty-five
knots! I saw lesser
electric rays, lots of
green morays (four in
my view finder at
once), and zebra eels.
The crew took us to an
enclosed aquarium
filled with clear water
and juveniles of everything.
Clarion angel
juveniles with natural
light are fantastic on
film. The greatest
experience was to be in
the water and hear a
humpback whale singing,
a sensation so intense
your entire body —
including your lungs —
vibrates!”
D.L.
Diver’s Compass: The Solmar V runs 14 nine-day trips from Cabo San Lucas to the
Revillagigedos from November through May. ($2,200 for a standard stateroom,
$2,360 deluxe). Rarely are single accommodations available. During June-October —
hurricane season — the boat makes 8-day excursions in the Sea of Cortez ($1,600
standard, $1,750 deluxe).... Book through any travel agent or Cabo Resort Reservations,
P.O. Box 383, Pacific Palisades, CA 90272, 1-800-344-3349;
(www.solmar.com/solmarV.htm)... The V has a 3 p.m. departure time and it’s your
responsibility to get from the airport to the pier; nearby Solmar Suites, a handsome
beach club, is $190/double/night. I booked an Alaska Airlines Vacation
(1-800-468-2248) that included three nights in a choice of waterfront hotels for
$100/person over airfare. Daytime air in the eighties (warmer than usual, thanks
to El Nino), dipping into the seventies on our return.... In Los Cabos eating and
drinking is a bargain. (Watch out for street pay-phone ripoff; 7 minutes to San
Francisco put $53.15 on my AT&T card.) Cabo San Lucas and neighboring San Jose
del Cabo (known collectively as Los Cabos) are served by Aeromexico, Alaska,
American, America West, Continental, Delta, and Mexicana, or drive the
Transpeninsula Highway, 1,000 miles from Tijuana to Los Cabos....