Cabo Pulmo - 1st Week Sept 2021

[ceckel]

New member / poster here, very long time reader of SB.

Heading to Cabo San Lucas with friends for Labor Day 2021. We'll have at least one other diver, in addition to my wife and I. All are AOW minimum. So call it 3 of us at least.

What's the best way to dive Cabo Pulmo? Is there a preferred outfit in Cabo San Lucas (since we are staying there) that is known for great day trips to Cabo Pulmo (ideally we'd like to get 3 dives in if driving 2 hours there and 2 back) so we can avoid renting a car?

Will diving first week in Sept be good for vis / marine life?

Thanks!

 

[Jaaron82]

I’m interested to have info on this as well

 

[horn34]

New member / poster here, very long time reader of SB.

Heading to Cabo San Lucas with friends for Labor Day 2021. We'll have at least one other diver, in addition to my wife and I. All are AOW minimum. So call it 3 of us at least.

What's the best way to dive Cabo Pulmo? Is there a preferred outfit in Cabo San Lucas (since we are staying there) that is known for great day trips to Cabo Pulmo (ideally we'd like to get 3 dives in if driving 2 hours there and 2 back) so we can avoid renting a car?

Will diving first week in Sept be good for vis / marine life?

Thanks!

Dive Cabo and East Cape Explorers are who I have used before, Fergus can help you with arrangements.

 

[Manuel Sam]

It is my belief that everyone who comes to Cabo Pulmo to dive has to have one of the local Cabo Pulmo dive operations provide the dive.

I also believe that the best way to dive Cabo Pulmo - per your first question - is to book directly with one of the Cabo Pulmo dive operators. But that probably requires you to drive there and back, which you prefer not to do.

The reason I say this: there is a pecking order to who gets first dibs at the choicest dive sites within the Cabo Pulmo park. For example, when I dove there in 2014 and 2016, I stayed in Cabo Pulmo, booked directly with a Cabo Pulmo dive operator, and always got the divesites that we asked for.

But when I dove there again later in 2016 after our liveaboard trip to Revillagigedo (Socorro) got detoured into the Sea of Cortes due to a storm, we were not able to dive within the park because all of the park dive sites were already taken up. We had the same detour occur due to a storm in 2019, but we did luck out that time and were able to dive one of the choice sites within the park out of three dives.

I suggest that you ask the Cabo San Lucas outfit you are booking with about your chances of diving what I consider the two must-sees in Cabo Pulmo: El Vencedor (good for bull sharks and big schools of snappers) and diving to see what is probably the largest school of horse-eye jacks anywhere (no predefined dive site because they tend to move from site to site and sometimes they are in the middle of nowhere with nothing but sandy bottom).

I was there on a liveaboard to the Sea of Cortes in September 2001 - actually when 9/11 occurred. None of my trips there in recent years have been in September.

September is part of their stormy season but nowadays storms are very unpredictable due to climate change. The two liveaboard trips to Socorro that I alluded to above that got detoured in 2016 and 2019 occurred in November. In the past, storms in November were unheard of.

Conditions were excellent for most of that September 2001 trip, with decent viz, calm seas, and good stuff to see - for one day. And then a storm hit offshore and conditions completely changed on a dime from one dive to the next. Granted, that was then and this is 20 years later.

 

[Don Rogers]

following thread, maybe heading Cabo in Dec.

 

[ibj40]

We dived Cabo Pulmo in November 2018.

We were staying in Cabo San Lucas and did both our Land’s End, Corridor, and Cabo Pulmo dives through Manta Scuba, who apparently had a deal with one of the local shops.

We were three buddy teams (my wife and I being one and two other couples), and maybe timing or fate were with us, but were able to do both of the bucket list dives noted above.

 

[horn34]

These are from 2 weeks ago with East Cape Adventure. DM was Angel, great guy.

 

[dlofting]

The dive shop has to be licensed or certified by the park to conduct dives at Cabo Pulmo. That's why an op from Cabo San Lucas has to use a dive shop local to Cabo Pulmo. The park only allows a certain number of trips and divers per week at each of the dive sites. Each op gets to pick one of the more popular sites and one of the less popular for each 2 tank trip. When a site hits it's allowable limit for the week it is closed until the week ends, when everything starts over again. All of this is to limit the impact on the park and it's resources.

 

[Dan]

I went to Cabo Pulmo 3x, in Sep. 2011, Sep. 2013, Oct. 2015 with 3 different operators. One of them was with Cabo Pulmo Resort, which required ground transportation from Cabo San Lucas (CSL) to Cabo Pulmo.

I plan to go back there again in May after a trip to Socorro and going to Cabo Pulmo by boat from CSL on a 3-tank boat dive. It’ll start pretty early, like 6:30am, and be back in CSL by 5pm-ish.

I would recommend Gaby & Rene of https://www.krakendivers.com/cabopulmonationalparkscubatours I knew them for 10 years.

While we are in CSL, we’ll be going to Gordo Banks with Kraken Divers too.

Land’s End is also a unique dive site to do. I dove there as a warmup dive before going to Socorro, 3 months ago.

 

[Pat85]

Following this thread, probably heading there end of summer (around September) too!