San Benedicto

It's been an action packed few days here at Isla San Benedicto. If you consider mantas, sharks and whales action-packed!
We had some amazing manta interactions on Saturday at the point near the anchorage. We had loaded up the dinghy en route to the boiler dive site, but on our way we encountered a full-blown manta gathering. There were seven or eight relatively close together and it was a feeding frenzy. The manta's were swimming in circular patterns scooping up zooplankton and filtering huge amounts of water through their gills. It was an unbelievable sight, and like nothing we've seen out here before. In between feeding, they were playing with us and showing off their incredible underwater skills, doing flips and swimming upside down to get a better look at us. All in all, an incredible day!
On Valentine's Day, which Chris doesn't believe in because "everyday is Valentine's Day" we celebrated our love...underwater! Trust me, wetsuits are sexy :)

Then, we packed up the dinghy and headed up to the boiler for a wonderful deep water pinnacle dive. We spotted whales very near our location when we were suiting up. It was incredible to listen to them underwater. The sounds of a mother and baby grunting back and forth to communicate was so loud it was literally pulsing through our bodies. When you dive it's normally so quiet that all that noise was almost disorienting.
We also got the chance to test my new shark shield in action. A large silky shark came in for a too-close-for-comfort look and I turned on my "force" as I like to call it. The shark did an abrupt 180 and took off, never to be seen again. I guess that thing really works!
Following our dive, we took a leisurely dinghy ride to circumnavigate the island, seeing around 10 more whales and a few manta's.
Today, we went out in search of manta's - big surprise! I snorkeled with an all-black manta that had to be between 16-18 feet across. It was massive as it came up close underneath me to check me out. It was busy feeding and swimming too quick to keep up. Chris snorkeled with another one up in this cool little bay we found on the northwest side of the island. We came back to our bay and dove at the anchorage bommie, seeing lots of fish and eels.
After a lunch of leftover  chile rellenos, we were back in the water, looking for more dinner.  We saw two beautiful turtles, loads of fish and six white-tip reef sharks. After returning to the boat, the whales put on another show, featuring a mother and baby simultaneously tail slapping and breaching.
I'm sure there'll be more to come....