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Trip Report Solmar V Liveaboard Jan 28 2009
We flew in to Cabo the day before the boat departed and stayed at the Solmar Suites, I would recommend it, nice property, rooms are semi secluded with several pools and BBQ pits, staff was friendly and helpful, rooms were comfortable, short distance to the Marina and downtown, walkable or a short taxi ride. No swimming at their beach though, due to rip tides. Neighbor hotel had a challenging miniature golf course to spend a couple hours.
Staff from the Solmar V picked us up on schedule the next afternoon, set us up at the local dive shop to get our Nitrox certs while onboard and welcomed us aboard with a Mariachi band and Margaritas. When everyone was on board we set off for the approximately 24 hr cruise out to the Revillagigedos. The cruise out was full of incredible scenery. The Dive boat setup works very well, we had a full boat, but always had room to setup gear, work on cameras, or get some sun. Shower on the dive deck with warm water to rinse off after a dive. The cabins are, of course, rather tight, but comfortable, we paid the extra for a superior cabin and were glad we did. The food on board was plentiful and generally very good, surfacing to hot soup and/or hot cocoa after almost every dive was much appreciated. The coolers were kept well stocked with soft drinks, water and beer. Wine was available with dinner, Margaritas or other mixed drinks were available nightly also.
We found the crew exceptional. Friendly, helpful, available for questions or just to shoot the breeze. Eric was our dive instructor for our Nitrox and worked with us as much as we needed. We had a great time and enjoyed all of the crewmembers. Every time a diver was in the water a panga was on the water, very conscientious and serious about their responsibilities to the divers safety, but let us dive our computers and work our own dives.
As for the diving..........We saw Giant Mantas on our first dive and on every dive thereafter. They are very friendly and really seem to enjoy the interaction, after all, they have lots of room to be elsewhere but as soon as divers hit the water, they soon appear. We saw somewhere between 18 to 25 different Mantas during our trip, many of them repeatedly. During many surface intervals while up on the top deck you could look out and see the Mantas surfacing around the boat, sticking wingtips above the surface of the water as if to say, "Here we are...come and play."
Ok, if you couldnt tell, I fell in love with the creatures, they are amazing.
We also had some very friendly Dolphins come in close and check us out, even swim in circles with a few divers. Some of them came in and hung around for a few minutes on several dives, very cool.
We saw Hammerheads and several other variety of sharks; silkies, whitetips, blacktips.
Octopus, Scorpionfish, Green Moray's, schools of Clarion Angel fish and a Guitarfish were just a few of the other underwater encounters. We could hear Whales on most dives though none ventured in where we could see them underwater, we did see several on the surface. On the trip back we came upon hundreds of dolphin and the Captain circled a few times letting them play in our wake, never seen so many dolphins in one place before.
My husband and I both have around 200 dives, including a liveaboard on the Great Barrier Reef, Belize, Grand Cayman, St. Croix, Costa Rica and several trips to Cozumel, but this is our favorite trip to date.
We shot video with a Canon G9 digital camera with canon underwater housing, for a small camera we ended up with some great photos and video.
Check out our video on Youtube and vote and give us some stars if you like it, we also welcome comments. We are entered in Solmar's video contest and would love to dive with them again. The original video is very sharp, but I am having some trouble converting it for upload, any tips on this would be appreciated as well.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BU-qYRbt6V8
Thanks,
Don and Marie
