Diving Cabo San Lucas

May 26th, 2007

In the past I’ve written about the great diving on the Caribbean side of Mexico, the Mayan Riviera, Cenotes and Cozumel. Though the Pacific side of Mexico is generally thought to be much worse in terms of visibility and marine life, I found diving out of Cabo to be better than I expected. If you can get past the fact that you’re asked to buy a time share 4 times an hour in this town, you’ll likely also find some great fun to be had in CSL, including some pretty good boat diving.

Only doing a handful of dives there, I did shoot a good number of photos. I did my dives right out of the harbor in CSL, about ten minutes by boat out of the marina. I dived with an operator called Baja Dive, owned by an American ExPat named Devore, they were friendly and the Divemaster Meno was very knowledgeable about the area. This dive operator is about to launch a new dive vessel soon as well.

There are only six or so dive sites around the area I was diving, off of Pelican Rock near Lover’s Beach. The steep outcroppings of rock lead down to walls that went right down into the abyss. There is an interesting phenomenon there called the Sand Falls, which is sand that falls down the walls underwater and indefinitely.

In general, the visibility wasn’t that good (about 35-50 feet in most cases), but once we descended down past about 100fsw it opened up much further. The cold water current from Alaska resulted in colder than normal temperatures for this time of year. The thermoclimes resulted in temperatures ranging from 65 – 70 degrees Fahrenheit. Though chilly, I survived in my 5/4mm Pinaccle wetsuit, 2mm gloves and 5mm hood. The best time to dive off of CSL visibility-wise is during the summer, when the water temperatures can reach the low 80s.

The waters off of Cabo are known to be some of the saltiest in the world, and so I had to dive with considerably more weight than usual, tucked into the quick-release weight system of my SeaQuest ProQD BCD. I got by just fine with a backup light instead of the bulkier primary torches we use around the Pacific Northwest waters that tend to be much darker.

In a mere 4 dives, I saw tens of species of tropical reef fish such as triggerfish, angelfish, moorish idol, grouper, jackfish, goatfish, puffers, filefish and many more. I also saw one reef octopus, a couple electric rays, a banded cleaner goby on the cheek of a green moray eel and held a guitarfish. I only saw one nudibranch, but it was a beauty.

During my deepest dive of the trip, at 130fsw, we followed the granite walls that opened up into beautiful canyons. It was on this dive that I realized that Cabo San Lucas deserves a better reputation for diving than it enjoys. Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to make it up to Cabo Pulmo on this short trip, but I’ve heard good things about diving up in the Sea of Cortez. This trip was definitely too short to get to know the place, but from my brief impressions of the diving there, I definitely recommend trying to get a dive or two in if you’re in the area – especially if you can hit CSL during the early months of Summer.

View my Cabo San Lucas Photo Gallery

Entry Filed under: Travel