Biology Reference
In-Depth Information
11
THE REVILLAGIGEDO ISLANDS
O
UR DECISION TO STEER
clear of collecting at Cabo San Lucas for a
while, not to mention the ill-fated collecting trip to Los Frailes, led us
to look elsewhere for fish. An opportunity arose to make a collecting
trip to Isla Socorro, the largest in the group of four islands called the
Revillagigedos (pronounced
ray-vee-ya-hee-hay-dos
), located 250 miles
south of the Cape. The trip would be aboard the brand-new sixty-five-
foot sportfisher
El Navegante,
skippered by Tom Beach, the nephew of
industrialist Leonard Friedman.
We jumped at the chance. Not only was the area virgin territory for
diving, so far as we knew, but it was also home to the beautiful, bright-
orange Clarion angelfish (
Holacanthus clarionensis
), named for Isla Cla-
rión, the second largest in the archipelago. Long-range sportfishing boats
had been going to the Revillagigedos for a few years and returning with
great catches of game fish. They also came back with stories of the num-
bers of game fish lost to sharks, adding that we'd be crazy to dive there.
Their tales were a bit unnerving, but we weren't about to pass up such
an opportunity.
We explained to Tom the problem we'd experienced with the cold
water o¤ northern Baja California killing some of the tropical fish we
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