The Abundance of Marine Life

Though Peru is not yet a hot spot on the Scuba diving map I find it hard to understand why!

The biodiversity and volume of Marine live here is immense. With more than 1,000 species of fish, 1,400 species of mollusks and 300 species of shell fish registered in Peru alone the sea is teaming with life. That is without mentioning the many species of Whales, Dolphins and Sea Lions also found swimming off our shore.

 

The Humboldt Current

The Humboldt Current, also known as the Peru Current is what makes this stretch of the Pacific the most productive marine ecosystems of the world. Flowing from the tip of Chile to Northern Peru it is the world’s largest upwelling current meaning that it brings the cool, nutrient rich water to the surface where it in turn can support an abundance of marine life. This is occurring off the coast of Peru year round.

Pregnant Seahorse

With such a vast array of life it is easy to understand why our dives over the last few months have been so fulfilling.  Though we are a long way from registering all 2,700 species our count increases with every dive. In the last week we have spotted Pipe fish for the first time as well as Guitar and Trumpet fish. Maurice also swears, though I am not so certain, that he saw a Napoleon Maori hiding in between some rocks at Peña Alta. Frequently we observe Porcupinefish, Seahorses, Octopuses, Groupers, Butterflyfish, Emperor Angelfish and Sergeant Majorfish. Particularly noteworthy this week was the pregnant Seahorse we caught on camera and on my most recent dive not one but two Moray Eels poking their heads of their hiding place.

 

 

 

 

Our different dive locations obviously support different communities of organisms and as we get to know each one better we are recognising the patterns and individuality of each. El Ñuro, with its busy fishing pier, is especially unique with its colony of Green Sea Turtles. While we frequently have the privilege of diving with these endangered Turtles at this location Maurice’s recent spot of a large solitary sea Turtle at our Organos dive location was definitely noteworthy and out of the ordinary.

Come and see this all this for your self with us!!

Maurice’s word of the week:  Octopi – Though I fear I may have mislead him…. Though Octopi is frequently used and accepted the wonders of the WWW has informed me that Octopuses is grammatically more correct based on the fact that Octopus derives from Greek not Latin.

 

 

The First Few Weeks!

On the 28th of July Spondylus Escuela de Buceo opened its doors for the first time to all those wanting to explore beneath the waves of the Peruvian Sea. As the first and only Scuba diving school in Mancora, and in fact the only PADI dive center in Peru, we have been turning a few heads and igniting interest with tourists and locals alike.

Though there have been the few bumpy moments all new businesses experience, the one thing that has not failed us in the last few weeks, in fact, has exceeded all our expectations, is the diving! Divers, ranging from highly experienced to first timers, return from their dives with beaming smiles and stories of the diversity of life that they have seen. Even Maurice, our PADI dive instructor and business owner, who has dived in many exotic locations around the world, has rated some of his recent dives as “his best ever!”.

 
We have made friends with the family of Sea Lions who live at one of our more adventurous dive locations, the Oil Platform. The youngsters now regularly come down to play with the divers as they explore beneath this immense structure. Teaming with life, the visibility here is proving to be consistently good and there even seems to be a certain amount of magic about the location. Caught on our underwater camera is the moment that Maurice discovers a piece of equipment that he had dropped the day before and had considered lost to the depths balancing precariously on one of the rigs beams. The mumbles of his excitement through his regulator are really quite amusing, even more so his dive buddies confusion as to why a metal rod balancing on a beam should be the cause of such a high level of excitement when surrounded by stunning sea life.

 

Most surprising is how rewarding our shallower beach and in particular pier dives have been. In recent weeks the density of fish life has been quite remarkable. Turtles, Sea Horses, Sting Rays, Octopi, Porcupine fish and Moray Eels are just a few among our many sightings at these diverse locations. My own recent dive at El Ñuro confirms this as my favorite dive spot!! A calm sea, sunny day and lots of Turtles waiting for us to enter their under water world what more can a diver ask for?

 

In the few weeks we have been open we have welcomed lots of divers to the Spondylus family, some trying diving for the first time, others becoming certified with us and many many more joining us to explore the local dive spots. We have visited an ever growing number of hotels and businesses and conducted lots of free dive trials in local pools.

In amongst all of this we have even had time to fit in an `clean up dive´! Though Maurice is always committed to collecting anything that should not naturally be adorning our beautiful sea bed, on this occasion he was joined by a team of willing volunteers and they spent a productive morning `under water garbage collecting´. There `loot´ was definitely large if not lucrative but our happy helpers seemed content with their reward of coffee and a cleaner sea, for which we are very grateful!

Our discovery of dive sites continues, only this weekend whilst out in aquandylus (our lovely little boat) with freinds and honoury Scuba dog, Chaska, watching whales and dolphins play in the waves we found a new location, South of El Ñuro, that can be described as an underwater labyrinth with lots of rocky crevices to explore. So watch this space....there are lots more diving adventures to come!

 

Maurices Spot of the Day: A baby Squid!! (Secretly I think that he wanted to bring it home and keep it as a pet!)


www.spondylusgroup.com/diving
escuela@spondylusgroup.com