Back Diving Socorro

In April 2025, I joined the Adventure Divers group (out of Peterborough, Canada) aboard the M/V Valentina on a scuba trip to the Revillagigedos Islands aka Socorro Islands.

The ride to the islands took 36 hours and I did get a bit seasick which was cured by a nap. Our first dive spot was at San Benedicto Island, at a site called El Cañon, which would also be our last dive spot later during the week.

Me and my dive buddy, Linda Elliot, ventured into the coolish waters and without fail, within 15 minutes of our dive, what shows up, a majestic giant manta!

In Socorro, there are two color variations of the mantas: chevron mantas and black mantas. Here's a phot of the chevron manta which has a distinctive white marking on its belly.

The black manta is not very common so seeing one up close and personal is something to behold!

I was fortunate to get close to this guy, even capturing his belly! You'll notice the remoras going for a ride. The remoras receive protection from predators as well as access to food. While the mantas benefit from the remoras' cleaning services, removing parasites and maintain good hygiene. 🤣

Our divemaster guides taught us how to anticipate the appearance of mantas. Once we were close to a cleaning station, we observed schools of clarion angelfish start swimming towards something/somewhere.

Sure enough, they were heading towards a manta, where they start cleaning the manta to remove parasites and dead skin.

I tried to take a photo of this behavior but I was a bit too far so this shot was the best that I got.

During our return to San Benedicto, I witnessed two mantas interact with one of the divers in our group, Jeff Kerslake. It was such a delight watching the show. As seen in the photo below, one of the mantas even did a summersault for Jeff! Lucky dude!

I was able to capture some video of the interaction so check it out!

Besides giant mantas, I also saw lots of sharks specifically galapagos, black tip, white tip, silkies and hammerheads (lots of them!!!) 🤩.

Dolphins were also present but alas, we weren't so lucky to see them up close.

The water temperature was on the colder side, averaging 72 degrees fahrenheit. I wore a 5 mm wetsuit with a sharkskin layer and doubled up on my hood.

There were days that I was a bit cold but seeing all the amazing animals made me quickly forget about the temperature.

Here's more giant manta photos from diving San Benedicto and Socorro Islands. Next blog will be about the sharks. 🦈 🦈 🦈

Stay tuned!