This has been a really amazing month for diving in Cabo San Lucas. We had bait balls of sardines in the bay and the Corridor area for a while now, and we were really excited for diving with Amy and her family during the week. On their last day, she decided to finish her diving holidays with a visit to Gordo Banks followed by a night dive in the bay.
Our divemaster Jenny made sure all arrangements were done before embarking on a 1-hour boat ride to Gordo Banks. Our dive boat for the day is the Aurora, a 28ft super panga with a very comfortable guest area in the stern, a tank rack in the bow, and a maritime toilet. We left Cabo San Lucas Marina at 7 am heading to Punta Gorda.
When navigating the Sea of Cortez you can be surprised any moment by crossing animals such as whales and mobula rays, and today we were awarded with a visit of a small pod of bottlenose dolphins, and two of them even came close to us.
We arrive in Gordo Banks and set up the marks for the first dive on the Outer Bank. We descent into the blue and here the depths are over 100ft, we let ourselves go with the current and stay focused for any sign of the marine fauna. Our first dive wasn´t really lucky. Apart from one friendly mackerel who followed us either by curiosity or trying to protect itself from a predator (which never came out). We spend our 45 minutes dive looking into the blue and all we could see to distract us were some pelagic jellyfish.
We had a 30 minutes surface interval and readjust our drop spot to a different mark on our GPS. Our second mark was more shallow than our first dive, and we could see some topography at 85ft deep. We were seeing some black corals and creole fish, and didn´t took 5 minutes till we could see a first hammerhead shark which leaded us to the big school.
A little patience rewarded Amy and her family with a very close encounter with these elusive animals. This was their first time diving with hammerheads and in blue water drift. The expertise in pelagic dive and safety briefing from our DM Jenny made them feel confident and comfortable during their dive, while keeping the trip fun and exciting by sharing stories of underwater adventures and spotting us animals on the surface or underwater!
Now Amy and her family are getting some rest for their nightdive, and we are already on our toes for our next Gordo Banks dive this week!