vseasport
Nomad
Posts: 322
Registered: 2-28-2009
Location: Buena Vista, BCS
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All of that sounds great but.....
I'm pleased to report that Cabo Pulmo has been clear and blue all week and didn't seem to get stirred up by the high winds of last week at all!
Visibility has been well over 100 feet and bottom temperatures are averaging 85' Fahrenheit, perfect conditions for diving. Yesterday we descended
straight through a massive school of Big Eye Jacks, momentarily losing each other as the throng immersed us. Large Sea Bass and masses of Leopard
Grouper were everywhere, Golden Grouper glided amidst them shining bright like a beacon. Fish of all colours as far as the eye could see, three Golden
Cownose Rays lazily moved towards us, subtly they adjusted their flight path to a more circuitous route. Find of the day for me had to be the tiny
juvenile Rockmover Wrasse that we found flitting around a small rock in the sand. I could have spent the rest of the dive there, enthralled, but I'm
sure our guests would have far rather moved on to check out the Snapper, Grunts, Morays, Parrotfish, Lobster, Moorish Idols etc that we continued to
encounter on this most relaxing of dives.
All of that sounds great but sometimes it makes a pleasant change to head off and look for sharks...big sharks! With that in mind we headed off to
Esperanza reef to check out the Tiger and Bull Sharks that we have been seeing there of late. Sure enough, on descent, I caught glimpse of a shark
which I thought to be a Tiger but couldn't be sure. We arrived on top of the reef and levelled off at 60 feet, all eyes alert for another sighting.
The reef seemed especially lively, more fish than normal and I felt a tingle of expectation in my spine, a sure sign of cool things to come. A couple
of minutes passed before a Bull Shark swam by checking us out....here we go! A trench runs alongside the reef which is nice to swim in and offers
protection from any surge, current or shark for that matter. So we all positioned ourselves in the trench and decided to watch and wait. I found a
nudibranch in a coral head and pointed it out to my buddy. Looked up and there was 7 feet of Bull Shark, in the trench, swimming slowly towards me at
a distance of twenty feet. As I made eye contact he exited and swam past. We all hi-fived, buzzing with excitement and ready for more. Then a 9 feet
long Tiger Shark, above and towards us, once again veering off but this time closer. I turned to see our guests watching it swim past and had the
sudden thought to check behind them. Checking us out was a huge Tiger Shark, much bigger and fatter than I had ever seen, I reckoned it to easily be
15 feet long and pointed it out to the others who couldn't believe their luck and signalled with arms wide just how big it was. This proceeded to go
on for the rest of the dive, one shark passing by in front of us, another from a different angle and then another, all the while we watched from our
vantage point, clinging on to whatever security we could find. Reluctantly, we had to go up so linked arms and slowly ascended together covering all
angles. As we made our way up we could see them moving beneath us and even from the surface the big Tiger looked monstrous, "more like a whale shark
from above" commented our guests. Guestimations in size varied from a conservative 12 feet to an impressive 18 feet so we all decided to agree on 15
feet which was probably fair. I chatted to some Marine Biologists diving the same reef a day later and they sized it at 16 - 18 feet, that's a big
shark!
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estebanis
Nomad
Posts: 279
Registered: 11-11-2002
Location: Stuck North of the Border. They won\'t pay me
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Awesome!
I am just getting back into Scuba diving after moving back to SoCal from Cabo in '91. I just couldn't deal with the low vis and cold water. Now I have
a place in Erendira that has me diving again. I was certified in 1971. I forgot how much I enjoy the "Enchanted Garden" beneath the sea...
Esteban
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gmata
Junior Nomad
Posts: 39
Registered: 10-30-2008
Location: La Paz
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Very nice report, an epic day!
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