Our Whale Shark Adventures have been spectacular with every day giving us multiple whale sharks (most days between 3-6 different whale sharks!) and tons of time in the water with them. We've also had manta rays frolicking, humpbacks breaching, dolphins cavorting, turtles turtling...you get the idea!
West Side dives have seen everything from 30+m viz to under 5m thanks to a huge swell running over this past weekend. Luckily for us, there are tons of manta rays, turtles, sharks, trevally, barracuda, parrotfish and other reef fish who don't really care what the viz is. On some dives we are having manta rays come so close to the divers they are rubbing their lobes - those funky bits at the side of their mouths - and wings on us as they go past! The big potato cod seem to be pretty abundant this year, too, as we are seeing them consistently on several sites. Overall, the diving has been very good over the past five days, even on the days with less than stellar visibility.
We've added a few more dive sites to our West Side list this week, too. Most of these have been in the 18-24m range and all of them consist of gorgeous canyons and reef fingers filled with all manner of creatures. They've also been hot spots for underwater humpback whale encounters - we've had several days with humpies swimming past the divers or right underneath us while we've been on safety stops!
Our Manta & Humpback Explorers have been incredible. There seem to be 100s of humpbacks heading up the coast right now, including several mother's with very young calves already. They are starting to be extremely active with breaching, tail & fin slapping, spyhopping, flopping (almost a breach but it's like they get lazy and only get out of the water a little ways!) happening every which way you look. Some of them are also being very curious and it's an unusual day when we don't have humpbacks come right up to the boat to check us out as we watch them!
The manta rays on these tours have also been fabulous. We've had singles, small groups of 4-6 and huge groups of 15 or more individuals. A lot of them are feeding along the tide lines and do big loops in front of us, back and forth, with their mouths wide open. Some of the groups look like they are playing fast and graceful games of chasey - it's amazing to see these guys move through the water, it looks like it's totally effortless!
Phew! There's so much more that we've missed out in this round-up, so we'll try to be much better about keeping up!
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