Socorro diving is some of the best in the world. Socorro Island is one of the islands in the Revillagigedo archipelago in Eastern Pacific about 600 kilometers off the western coast of Mexico. The archipelago and waters around it are a marine park since 2017. Since Revillagigedo is not the most friendly word to pronounce, the three islands one can go diving around – Socorro, San Benedicto and Roca Partida – are often referred to as just Socorro islands. Isolated rocks in the middle of the ocean, they attract incredible variety and quantity of marine life on a marine highway with other stops including Galapagos, Cocos Islands and Malpelo. Socorro seems to have the most friendly huge oceanic mantas that stayed with us sometimes for the duration of the dive. Here are highlights from our 17 dives over 5 days in January 2023.
One can only dive Socorro on a liveaboard. Diving season is May through November. Several liveaboards go there, departing from Cabo San Lucas in Baja California Sur. We went with Solmar V which was great. Water temperature in January was C23-25. We dove in 5mil with a hood. We did not get the absolute crystal perfect visibility Socorro is famous for because there was a massive weather system impacting all of the northern Pacific at the time. But we still got 25m+ visibility on most sites. While the sea was not exactly flat and we had 5m swell and more, we still were able to dive safely every day. The liveaboard trip can also be combined with diving and top side activities in Baja. We went on a little road trip around the south of Baja California Sur and dove in La Paz and Cabo Pulmo before jumping on our liveaboard.