When's the best time for diving the Socorros?

[ViperDoc 0]

Me and my mates are looking to book a trip on the Solmar V on a 9 day trip to the Socorros. Our 2 options are a Feb. trip or an Apr. trip. Just wondering which date might be the better time specifically which time frame is better for weather, photo ops and big stuff encounters.

 

Figured there had to be some seasoned experts that could give me some good advice.

 

Best regards to all.

 

Dave

[Alex_Mustard 0]

Hi Dave,

 

Late Jan and early Feb is good. This year's Wetpixel trip was in early Feb - often thought of as the best time because it is the peak of the humpback migration. But I think that any time during the season is going to be good out there.

 

One trick to finding out when is a good time to visit a location is to look for the timing of the special photography charters. The week before the Wetpixel trip was Bonnie and Marty's workshop - suggesting this is rather a good time. Although they also have a April trip this year too - so probably both of you options are good.

 

Alex

[Taxgeek 0]

Hi Dave.

Just got back from a mid April trip (April 6-15, 2008) on Nautilus Explorer. (Great boat also, btw).

 

Weather: first four days were very windy, and quite rough, which affected viz, divable sites and animal life. We only got to do one dive at the "Boiler", which is (I think) one of the best dive sites, and it was so rough it was really scary boarding the big boat again (see Ken Kurtis's trip report on here for some explanatory pictures). The last 2 days were calmer, bluer (sky and water) and we saw alot more life (out at Roca Partida), more like what one expects based on trip reports on the web.

 

We were the NE's last trip of the season this year. For every one of those first four days, I vowed never to do a shoulder season trip again. Our trip had waaay fewer Manta "encounters" than I expected. I got to go belly to belly with one once at Roca, and one turned and swam up to me at Canyons before splitting, but that was pretty much it for me - the rest were flybys.

 

You can get an idea of which trips have good sightings by reading all the Captains's Logs on the NE website - you can get an idea which trips had consistent mantas and sharks and which didn't.

 

FWIW, we saw jillions (technical term) of humpbacks on the surface, heard them underwater on every dive, and one diver (not me, grrrr) got to hang with one underwater. I gather seeing one underwater is pretty rare though.

 

It was my first trip though, so I don't have much to compare it to. I've looked into the timing though, and like Alex says, January and February seem like the most consistent, with the December and March trips seeing lots of good wildlife too.

 

HTH

Taxgeek

[Benthic7 0]

We were on the Solmar this past December (our second trip to the Socorros and third time on the Solmar).

 

Humpbacks hadn't arrived yet but there were numerous pods of dolphins. We would see them on the majority of dives and several times they would tag along with us the entire dive. We didn't have as many up close encounters with mantas as we did on the previous trip (which was in April) but we did see them quite often.

 

Weather is always going to be variable. In December the water was warmer but the air temp was cooler while in April, the water was cooler but it was warmer topside. Next time we go, we'd probably do March or early April to see the humpbacks again. Hopefully Bonnie and Marty keep doing their workshops - I would book the week they were onboard. But thats going to be down the road a bit - we are going to Fiji and the Solomon Islands this December and will probably do Cocos after that.

[cozumeldogs 0]

i know you seem to have your dates but i always liked the trips right when the season opened-mid to late November. From talks with the people working on the solmar it seems whale sharks are often seen and the water is a bit warmer (high 70's) You don't have the whales but I am not sure how often you are going to see them on a dive. You will see them all around you on the surface and hear them on many dives. We were on a trip last November and it was &*&( fantastic. First dive on the boiler had a pod of dolphin, 4-5 mantas, hammerhead or two and a whale shark for good measure.

[blueglass 3]

hi,

I have been twice in Revillagigedo, both in April, and saw everything you'd expect, except the whalesharks which are better seen around November, as said.

April is still good for whales and we saw lots of them at the surface, and even underwater.

Although whale sights are always possible during the season, the best years for underwater encounters with humpbacks have been 2001 and 2006. I was lucky to be in the 2001 trip, and when I was doing a slide show during last trip (April 2008), we realized that the friendly whale in the 2001 photos was the same whale that produced amazing encounters in 2006 during three consecutive trips. The markings on her head were very obvious. Of course the baby whale that it was taking care of, was different.

I was so nice to see that this particularly friendly whale was still around after the years !, I hope to be able to see her with her next baby.

 

You can see the trip report here:

link

 

Bye, bye,

 

Carlos