Diving The Revillagigedo Archipelago

Also Known As The Socorro Islands

The Revillagigedo Archipelago or Socorro Islands as they better known are one of those bucket list places thats on every dedicated divers mind, only accessible by liveaboard, unfortunately it has a price tag to match. The Islands themselves are located some 390 miles off the west coast of Mexico the northern part of Mathematicians Ridge, a mid Pacific Ocean volcanic ridge that is now largely Inactive. Owned by Mexico the UNSECO world heritage Archipelago is made up of 3 inner islands; Socorro, San Benedicto and Roca Partida and an outer island, Clarion.

Having booked our ticket we met our boat, the Nautilus Belle Amie (or its Vanuatuan registered name of “wheres John”) at the southern tip of the Baja California peninsula (Mexico), at Cabo San Lucas, a popular resort for American tourists. Completely impressed by the boat itself, a 135 foot wide beam luxury boat complete with 4 decks and an outside jacuzzi was custom built for divers and will accommodate up to 32 divers in varying levels of comfort.

We set sail around 7:00pm knowing we had all of the following day to sort out our dive kit as the crossing takes around 36 hours. Having gone through the emergency procedures and fire drill, mandatory on the boat, we settled down to sorting our things in our surprisingly spacious stateroom, a below the water line room and the cheapest option available. The crossing was made bearable by the anticipation we were both feeling at diving one of the most famous dive sites for ocean pelagics in the world, and by the all too often meals that the crew kept on coming out with, a presentation by the crew of the diving to come and the odd film in the lounge on the large screen TV.

To be continued.........