Unguided boat dives

[shopguy]

I would like to dive the Sea of Cortez eventually, probably starting in San Carlos area because I can drive there while visiting family in Tucson, AZ. I prefer shore diving, but there doesn't seem to be much of that, so looking at boats.

So far my boat experience has been 3 trips off Puerto Rico. They were all small groups (thanks COVID), but all the same style of "jump in and follow the guide(s)". I much prefer being able to explore on my own, with my buddy (wife & children), at our own pace.

In your experience, are most boat tours usually the more rigid "follow the guide" style, or more free for all? If it varies by region (probably), how about Mexico/Sea of Cortez?

A couple people at LDSs and my wife's instructor in Puerto Rico all said stuff like "call Joe, he goes out all the time and would let you tag along and do your own thing while he works with his students/customers"... but that never seemed to work out, they never really wanted to talk about that (or anything) and were more like "just go online and book your tour, show up at the right time and do what we tell you to do". They were all super nice, but very much "by the book", and liked to talk more than listen.

 

[WarrenZ]

In San Carlos dives are all pools open type dive boats.

 

[shopguy]

In San Carlos dives are all pools open type dive boats.

Well, that makes it easy... thanks!

 

[CycleCat]

Jose at El Mar dive center in San Carlos will take you out to good dive sites but he will follow you around and let you explore once he knows you know what you are doing.

 

[Damselfish]

As far as other places, it totally varies with place, operator, and even individual dive. (And sometimes, there are good reasons to follow a guide or have a group stay together. It's the ones insisting on it for no good reason I like to avoid.)

 

[Centrals]

My personal experiences:
Only GBR would allow that(boat dive unguided) but that was 20yrs ago.
Some places would allow limited unguided shore dive from the resort ONLY.

I would also avoid any diver who insist on diving unguided.

 

[Germie]

In Europe: no, no guides on most boat dives. For sure not in the Netherlands, not in France, not in Germany. Italy depends. I go normally to divecenters where you don't get a guide. But in other countries: sadly yes, most times guided. But if you are good in loosing a guide, or tell them you don't need one, then most times no problems. Last year we dove with a guide, but told them our dives will be at least 60 minutes, and we do our own things. And we did. Guides shallower, we in our own pace following, so the guide had to wait for us. After 45 minutes his tank was empty, we dove the other 15-20 minutes. Deco? No problem. He told for every dive no deco, but knew we are used to do deco, so he did his briefing as he had to do from the boss, we could do our dives.
If it is a guided dive, I tell what I expect: at least a 60 minute dive. My pace, waiting if I want to take pictures, not going up if others have drained tanks and I have plenty. Then you don't have problems.
Guides are always optional for me. And if they insist you have to dive with, they must know that I pay, so he is there for me and not for his own dives. We had only 1 time a bad guide in Thailand, but that was no problem as diving on your own was also allowed. Just the first dive was officially with a guide.
Most guides like to show you things. And as soon as they know what you like it is ok.
Groups must be small. That is most times no problem.

 

[AZTinman]

If you're visiting family in Tucson, there are a couple of dive shops that regularly make trips to San Carlos, Sonora.

72 Aquatics in Tucson has a tight relationship with Ocean Sports in San Carlos. Ocean Sports runs a dive boat. The Dive Shop in Tucson also takes groups frequently and uses boats from Gary's Dive Shop in San Carlos.

The El Mar Dive Center in Mesa, Arizona, has a sister shop in San Carlos. El Mar runs a dive boat in San Carlos. The Mesa shop regularly runs trips during the summer months.

If you make a trip to San Carlos when El Mar or 72 Aquatics are running shop-sponsored trips, the shops will have a dive master on the boats. Dive masters do a briefing at each dive site. They also offer to lead divers who aren't familiar with the dive sites. Often, there are multiple qualified dive masters on the boats when the shops are running trips. Having a guide isn't a bad thing for divers who are new to the area. There are sites where the bottom drops pretty quickly and currents can be an issue. This is particularly true of sites at Isla San Pedro Nolasco. The island is surrounded by very deep underwater canyons.

Diving at Isla San Pedro Nolasco is usually high on the preferred list of dive sites for divers who are familiar with the San Carlos. If you are not familiar with diving with California sea lions, it's not a bad idea to get briefed about what behaviors to watch for. Diving with sea lions can be an absolutely incredible experience, but I've seen divers get hurt when they fail to read behaviors correctly.

Keep in mind that you must have an FMM (tourist visa) for travel in Mexico and Mexican auto insurance is legally required. Most U.S. insurance policies aren't valid in Mexico. The FMM thing is pretty easy. You just stop at the immigration office after crossing the border and they issue you a free one. I usually cross at the Nogales-Mariposa crossing and watch for the immigration office on the right side of the road. It's a ways in and not signed very well. Dive shop sponsored groups usually caravan down and the trip leaders know where the immigration office is.

Some of the little towns immediately south of the border have really wicked speed bumps. You can easily damage a vehicle if you hit these too fast.

The road to San Carlos is a toll road. A U.S. twenty dollar bill used to give you enough Mexican change to pay the tolls at all of the toll booths. During my last couple of trips, the toll collectors were on strike at the second and third booths. If the strike is still on, the official toll collectors aren't there to collect.

There's a nice bypass to get around Hermosillo. It's a toll road with toll collectors, but it's way better than going through the city.

San Carlos is a great place to dive. The water substantially warms in the summer and fall. I'll be down there during the last week in June. Fun stuff!

-AZTinman

 

[shopguy]

Thanks again everyone! Great info.

I lived in Mexicali for 6 months, and lived near the border most of my life, so familiar with travel/etc in Mexico, and my wife was born and raised there. I agree with the info though, and it hasn't changed much in the last 15 years, so probably be valid in 15 years for future readers of this thread. Main difference is that you can't get back in to the USA with just blonde hair, blues eyes, and a smile -- so bring your passport.

I think guides can be great, and in some situations the best choice. I mean, if I was looking for a shipwreck, or even just a small reef or hole in a reef/rock, or anything not easy to find, then I'd be happy to have a guide lead me to it. Or if I was diving a place that going 100' in the "wrong" direction was easy to do, and would put me in a dangerous spot, then I'm happy to have a guide that can smack me and say "hey, go this way, dummy". That isn't the kind of diving I want to do though, with or without a guide, I don't want to trust a guide or myself in those conditions. While I've done some of those things in my 500+ dives, at this point I just want to hang out in 15-30' of water and explore large open areas with rocks, reefs, kelp, and really no chance of strong currents -- protected bays, great! All of my favorite things are at that depth, so why go deeper or push limits of safety? I don't feel like I need someone to guide me around for that type of diving, especially not with the amount of caution, research, prep-work I put in to every dive, especially at a new site. The few times I have gotten in to current, I've noticed the signs before the guides did. The most recent time I remember all 3 guides (DMs) saying "sorry for the work-out swimming back, that current came out of no where" -- actually, it didn't, I noticed the signs before we even started the dive, mostly all the fish facing the same direction. It wasn't strong or any danger though, but not "out of no where". To be fair, there were a lot of bikinis to distract them -- being married and diving with my wife, avoids that danger for me.

 

[AZTinman]

Just an FYI... you can get back into the U.S. without a passport. The U.S. Customs/Immigration agents at the border cannot deny a U.S. citizen entry even if the citizen has no passport. They have to accept alternative identification for entry. Now, this doesn't mean you won't get hassled by the U.S. officials for not having a passport. Having the proper paperwork eliminates the you need a passport lecture.

Of course, the U.S. agents are generally, in my experience, not a fun bunch. I spent some time in 'the cage' when crossing from Mexicalli a few years ago even though I had a passport. We aroused suspicion when an agent asked us how long we had been waiting in line. My spouse and I hadn't paid attention to our wait time and couldn't agree about how long we had been sitting there. If she had just parroted my answer, we would've been just fine. They decided to paw through all of our stuff.

Fun stuff!

-AZTinman