When the Solmar V leaves her home port of Cabo San Lucas for the Revillagigedos Islands, it's wise to leave all expectations behind on the dock. The ScubaCore crew was prepared for a fairly long crossing to a few well-known dive sites, to see big animals. We weren't sure of what we'd see, but the general consensus was that we'd probably see manta rays, and if we were lucky, perhaps a few more large pelagic creatures. Well we did see almost everything we'd wished for, and a lot more; but the one thing that we didn't expect is to make a deep connection with the ocean. No lie.

Once we started diving at "The Boiler" on San Benedicto Island, we started seeing the mantas, and people in our group started to interact with them. The overall feeling was that the mantas allowed us into their world, and they may have been observing us as much as we were looking at them.

Next we were off to Roca Partida, a tiny little guano covered rock, in the middle of the ocean. Here we spent half an hour playing with a pod of wild dolphins. This was starting to get a bit unbelievable, and then the whale shark shows up. The ScubaCore Dive Portrait has all this and more, including a segment on remoras with our resident marine expert, Rachel Feffer. Join us on trip that changed the way some of us feel about the ocean, and how it's filled with new friends to make.