On the 29th of January we made a trip to Gordo banks with a none profit organization, Mexico Azul. On the boat there was one Scuba diver and two freedivers ready for the excitement of a blue water dive.
Within the first 10 minutes of our boat ride from San Jose to the underwater mounts, we saw 3 humpback whales splashing around at the surface and waving good morning to us. This was a good sign for the day ahead.
The first dive took place over the pinnacle of the inner banks. We dropped down to the dive site to around 80 ft average. Our maximum depth was 100 ft and we had a magical dive experience because during the entire dive, it sounded like we were listening to an orchestra, this is exactly how the diver described it as we surfaced. The whales were singing so close to us, there was so much excitement throughout the whole dive as we were waiting to bump into a whale.
On the safety stop we were joined by mobulas, they swam around us for around ten minutes before we surfaced.
On the surface we watched humpback whales breaching right next to the boat along with two dolphins passing by.
The second dive of the day was over the shallow section of the pinnacle, we reached 100ft and the black coral was as far as the eye could see. There was a huge school of snappers schooling on top of the pinnacle. As we were descending there was a hammerhead passing through the school of fish. We slowly headed towards the blue and could still hear the constant, moving songs of the whales. As we made it to the edge of the pinnacle we were passed by other individual hammerheads. The freedivers met us underwater on the dive and would hang out with us around 80ft. Mid way through the dive, from the blue a whale decided to join us, the freedivers dove down just at the right time to see it pass by.
The life on this dive was plentiful and the experience of seeing a whale, hammer heads and mobulas in the same spot was tremendous. The water temperature was 69°F and the visibility 11M.