Blue sharks are in my honest opinion one of the most beautiful sharks in our seas. The blue shade on their backs and the slender elongated bodies are aesthetically perfect if you ask me.
It also makes them perfectly adapted to roaming the vast oceans, far out at sea in the blue.
The Boiler is the hotspot at the Socorros for diving with the biggest Manta Ray species in the world, the Manta Birostris. During our dives we also encountered a more rare color variant, a beautiful melanistic manta ray.
One of the main highlights of our trip through Central America was our (first ever) live-aboard trip with the Nautilus Explorer to the Socorros. The week long trip aboard this ship to this remote archipelago was wicked. The Socorros are known for the encounters with big pelagics like sharks, manta's and even whales. The trip proved to be nothing short of spectacular with the highlight being diving with the biggest manta species in the world; the Manta Birostris.
I am happy to share that I am nominated as one of the 25 finalist in the Frans Lanting Award 2014. The theme of the competition is "Where the land meets the sea". My picture of the Californian "posing" sealion was nominated by the jury and the announcement was done live in the RTL4 Late Night Show last Wednesday.
My image of a Californian sealion was featured on the cover of the October edition of Dive Magazine lately. It did not look bad at all if you ask me! The whiskers almost jump off the cover :-)
While we continued our stay in Magdalena Bay it seemed the gray whale season was in full swing already. We could see the whales breach in the opening of the bay every day. Different whales were resting at the surface and soon we cruised slowly into the bay in search of some cooperative whales..
During and after the whaleshark adventure windspeeds increased, making other trips on the Sea of Cortez impossible. Quickly we packed our bags to do the only wise thing: drive to the Pacific side of the peninsula in search of more favorable conditions. Within a day we drove to the fishing town of Puerto San Carlos; the step off to tours into Magdalena Bay.
We made the journey from Costa Rica via Mexico City to la Paz in a day. On the peninsula of Baja California the second part of our trip would start. Ahead of us: gray whales, sea lions, mobula rays, dolphins and so on and so on. But first: the biggest fish in our seas: the whaleshark.