F
OLLOWING A 27-HOURboat
journey kissed by a mild sea breeze,
I opened the blinds of my cabin to
be met by a splendid ashen mountain with
the sun rising behind it.
Around 230 nautical miles off the coast
of Cabo San Lucas in Mexico, the first of
the Socorro Islands, San Benedicto,
sprouts from the sea.
Thousands of years of rain run-off and
lava damage have formed the perfectly
wrinkled outer walls of the volcano, which
run down to the water’s edge. Two nights
had passed since my feet had touched
land, and it would be another five until my
terrestrial legs returned.
Often referred to as the Mexican
Galapagos, the Revillagigedo ArchipelagodivEr 38
However many videos
you watch, you have to
dive there to know it –
CATH BATESpays a visit
to the underwater
wonderland known as SocorroSTOPOVERS
ON THE HIGHWAY
Above: A giant Pacific
manta ray.lies in the eastern Pacific Ocean. It
was declared a National Park in 2017
and a UNESCO World Heritage Site a
year earlier.
Some 57,000sq miles around the islands
is now protected from fishing, mining and
tourism development, making this North
America’s largest marine reserve.
These waters, where cool, nutrient-rich
California currents converge with the
southern Costa Rican current, contain
one of the world’s largest aggregations of
sharks and manta rays. Satellite stations
strategically placed at the dive-sites tell us
that many shark species – including silky,
silvertip and hammerhead – migrate
between Cocos, Galapagos, Malpelo and
Socorro. They navigate the corridorsbetween these food-rich seamounts on
what is known as the Shark Highway.
San Benedicto is some three miles long.
The volcano last erupted in 1952, wiping
out most life in the space of 10 months.
Today some plants and seabirds are
about all that lives on the rocky island, the
southern side of which we explored at a
site called the Canyon that was formed by
this eruption. Dive-guide Pedro briefed us
after breakfast, as a curious blue-footed
booby looked on.
Our strategically placed mooring and
the luck of the wind-gods allowed us to
jump in directly from the boat to descend
onto the cleaning station at 24m and
watch some early-morning shark action.
Descending without a reference can bedivErNEt.com