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Solmar V starts 2007 with a classic day at San Benedicto's Boiler After spectacular encounters with giant mantas, whalesharks, hammerheads and dolphins in November and December 2006, the crew & clients spent a classic day at the Boiler on Jan 1, 2007... Our season opener in November '06 proved one of the best ever with seven whalesharks and lots of mantas and hundreds of other sharks! In fact, whalesharks were encountered on all our November and December trips up until the New Years trip. Roca Partida proved to be the hot spot during these months with Solmar V spending up to three days on some trips out at this remote pinnacle island. Besides the usual large schools of hammerheads and a favorite spot for whaleshark encounters, this season we found an unusual amount of friendly giant mantas at "the rock". Throw in the consistent bottlenose dolphin encounters experienced by our divers to top off two months of incredible diving. The water temps have been holding in the high 70's(78-79F) with colder temps expected this month as friendly humpbacks start to arrive on their seasonal winter migration. December also saw the return of our yearly photo tour and contest hosted by well-known professionals Marty Snyderman and Bonnie Pelnar. The trip was a great success with Bonnie mentioning that the number of sharks at Roca Partida were some of the best she has ever seen out there! Patti & David Gross teamed up to take Best of Trip by Patti for her video and Third Place by David for his still shot. A complete list of winners & trip details will be posted the week of Jan 8 on our photo tour & contest page. After a very successful 2006, new owners Jose Luis & Leslie Lee Sanchez hosted the popular New Years trip Dec 26 - Jan 3. To help bring in the New Year right, Pedro our chef prepared a special holiday turkey dinner on Dec 30 and topped everyone's expectations with a scrumptious lobster and filet mignon dinner on Dec 31. We toasted the New Year under a San Benedicto full moon with champagne for everyone! 2007 started on a very positive note with fantastic diving all day at the famous Boiler. The Boiler was in classic form with 6 to 7 giant mantas hanging around the pinnacle all day long to be cleaned by endemic Clarion Angelfish. Many clients were able to video & photograph up to 4 or 5 mantas in one frame! Also consistent were the hammerheads if you decided to kick out into blue water to search for them. One client from Japan, escorted by en experienced Solmar V divemaster, was able to capture hundreds of hammerheads on video just off the Boiler. On top of all this action, we were visited throughout the day by pods of inquisitive bottlenose dolphins. We look forward to sharing our experience and knowledge of these very special islands will all our guests in 2007...
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