In Febuary we were contacted by Jero Prieto https://www.facebook.com/jero.prieto?fref=ts from www.pelagiclife.com saying they were interested in going to Banco Chinchorro to try to film/photograph the Atoll´s resident Moreletii crocodile population in the crystal-clear shallows near Cayo Centro; around the fishermen´s houses on stilts, or palafitos. He wanted to know if we could put together an expedition for that purpose.
Despite the fact that such a request fell outside our usual comercial offerings, we felt we would be able to pull it off. We decided to head out to the atoll on a relatively windy Maundy (or holy) thursday, spend the night at a fisherman´s house on stilts and look for crocs first thing the next morning. We were lucky to be in Chinchorro during a beautiful clear night with a full moon.
The next morning at first light we went looking for crocs inside the lagoons within Cayo Centro, the largest of the three islands within Banco Chinchorro (Banco Chinchorro has an area of aproximately 800 km2, of which less than 1% is above water), with little luck. We decided to go on a dive to the wreck of the Ginger Sku, on the windward side of Chinchorro while we waited for the sun to be on top of us, hoping for more croc action at midday. She was a cargo ship carrying iron ore amongst other cargo that sank in the mid 20th century. The Ginger is remarkably well preserved and is usually teeming with marine life, as it was that day. Here is photo of our friend Julien Borde https://www.facebook.com/julien.borde.18?fref=ts by the propeller
After a great dive at the Ginger we headed back to Cayo Centro, where, after speaking to some park rangers, we headed back to the houses on stilts to try to draw the crocs out with some fish entrails, which we had procured from fishermen that were arriving back from a day out at sea. It turns out that the daily routine of fishermen cleaning their catch by their houses on stilts made the crocodiles associate the splashing sound of fish insides hitting the water with mealtime. Sure enough, a few minutes later a 1.8 meter croc swam out to us and hung around almost an hour, during which we were able to film and photograph it at will, as you can see from this video, shot and edited by the guys from Pelagic Life:
After our successful encounter we packed up and headed towards one last dive on the wayward side of the Atoll, at a dive site called Punta Irlanda. It is a shallow drift dive on a very colorful reef, with a long, sloping sand bar teeming with garden eels, classic Chinchorro. After the dive we headed back to Xcalak for a few more days diving in Xcalak.
This experience was definitely new and exciting and has opened the door for an entirely new activity in Chinchorro, stay tuned for croc-encounter opportunities at Banco Chinchorro from XTC Dive Center,
Best,
The team @ XTC Dive Center
