I made it back to the Baja in early November after three long months (see my August trip report), this time with my wife (cuter traveling buddy).
Nov 4
We flew AA & got in at 8PM. The airport car rental booths are abandoned that late. We had reserved a car via National and the rental van promptly picked us up. We originally reserved a mid-size and they gave us a VW station wagon perfect for two divers and gear. The 6 days were $305, insurance included. Note to newbies: most rental car companies will null your insurance if you travel on unpaved roads. Choose your words wisely.
We first headed to San Jose to the Aramburo supermarket to stock up on supplies and grabbed a few tamales from the vendor in front of the market. We then headed north on for the two-hour drive to Cabo Pulmo. For most of the way to Cabo Pulmo the roads are paved, two-lane with little median. The last 6 miles were ungraded washboard dirt (slow down or you just might break a motor mount). Watch out for cows on or near the road. Oncoming cars will flash typically flash their lights if there are cows ahead.
We pulled into Cabo Pulmo Beach Resort about 11:30 and picked up our directions on the door of the front office. I had prearranged our stay, diving and the fact that we would be late. Our bungalow was a very nice deluxe suite that ran $80/night. Think of a spacious kitchen/living area with a good-sized bathroom, all topped with a palapa. There were also hammocks outside.
Nov 5
Mornings are beautiful in Cabo Pulmo. We had breakfast and headed to the main building which houses the reservations office & dive shop. The dive shop for the resort is Cabo Pulmo Dive Center. I am a divemaster myself and I cant say enough good things about the personnel at this shop. They can hold their own with any place that Ive been. Theyre professional, streamlined and know the difference between a regular diver and an occasional diver.
Routine you put on your wetsuit and your boots at the dive shop, which is a short walk to the beach. You also set up your equipment there and the DMs load it on to a pickup truck. The pickup transports your gear to the beach, the DMs put your gear on the boat, and the pickup then pushes the boat into the water. Easy enough?
Cabo Pulmo is touted as one of the few coral reefs on the Pacific side of the U.S. It is really hard coral growing on rocks. Its still beautiful, especially in the light of a strobe, but dont get visions of Palancar in your head. If youve only dove the Caribbean like us, you probably wont see any recognizable fish except for burrfish, porcupinefish, balloonfish and little puffers and lots of them. Most everything else seems different, so its a totally new experience. There are big schools of fish on just about every dive.
Our morning dives were Los Morros & El Bajo. Los Morros is a lot of rock patches (it reminded me of Paradise Reef in Coz) with lots of fish life. There are schools of puffers and numerous eels. Our Australian divemaster, Jackie, pointed out a tiny fish in the sand with a unicorn-appendige - a peacock razorfish. I found these on several other dives.
El Bajo is continual larger rocks & my favorite CP dive as there is abundant fish life and tons of big & little groupers. Especially noteworthy was a glimpse of a sea lion out fishing. The current was light, so we only did a part of this reef. When the current is strong, you can do this reef and part of Los Morros on one dive.
Lunch was shrimp tacos at Loretas beach palapa (rating 5/10 - their fish tacos are awesome but they had none available). We then hung out with Jackie, her boyfriend Gabriel, who also works at the shop, and Cilla, a friend of Jackies. The couple has a side business making jewelry and we purchased some of the great necklaces that they make.
We went out with Carmel on our afternoon dives to the sea lion colony and then for a dusk/night dive at El Islotes. The sea lion colony was great. You pull up and there are 8-10 sea lions lazing around on the rock. I learned later that the boat captain was doing something to get them in the water. We had about 5 of them in the water and next to their rock is an enormous sardine colony. If youve never seen a sea lion scratch behind his ear, its hilarious.
We then dove El Islotes, a small island. It was supposed to be a night dive but we got in the water a bit early, so maybe half of the dive was a night dive. No worries it was still a good dive. Carmel pointed out several tiny crabs, I found a nudibranch, and there were numerous freaky sea cucumbers out hunting.
For dinner that night we ate at Nancys. Our entrees were lobster enchiladas and a lobster stuffed relleno, around $20 each. My rating 5/10. The food was good but I dont care for torn-up American cheese slices on my nachos. We then had a wonderful long walk on the beach under tons of stars and a sliver moon.
Nov 6
We packed for our trip to Cabo San Lucas and left our stuff in the room, since no one had reserved the bungalow. Breakfast was from the weekly grocery supply truck, which had warm chicken tamales with a whole unseeded green olive in them.
That morning, we dove with Gabriel at Los Morros & El Bajo. At Los Morros, I was taking a picture of a big green moray in my viewfinder, and the moray just took off. I watched it swim, looked back to its original spot and theres another big green moray with sand on his head. An underwater turf battle!
We had lunch and then 2 afternoon dives with Jackie before we headed out. We dove El Bajo and El Cantil. At El Cantil and saw numerous schools of fish and a sea lion rounding up a school of jacks.
At about 5PM, bid our farewells to everyone, wishing we could stay longer. We survived another nighttime drive (much more traffic on the road, which is good) and made it to Cabo San Lucas to the Siesta Suites Motel. I dont think that you can find as nice of a hotel with as great of a price and location in CSL as Siesta Suites. I think we paid $50 per night.
We had dinner at Panchos. Rating 9/10 the best meal we had on our trip. Our entrees were the mahi mahi w/ Mango sauce and a combination platter of a cheese enchilada, a tamale & carne asada. They have very good margaritas too. In fact, I dont think we had a bad margarita on our trip. Cabo could teach Cozumel something.
Nov 4
We flew AA & got in at 8PM. The airport car rental booths are abandoned that late. We had reserved a car via National and the rental van promptly picked us up. We originally reserved a mid-size and they gave us a VW station wagon perfect for two divers and gear. The 6 days were $305, insurance included. Note to newbies: most rental car companies will null your insurance if you travel on unpaved roads. Choose your words wisely.
We first headed to San Jose to the Aramburo supermarket to stock up on supplies and grabbed a few tamales from the vendor in front of the market. We then headed north on for the two-hour drive to Cabo Pulmo. For most of the way to Cabo Pulmo the roads are paved, two-lane with little median. The last 6 miles were ungraded washboard dirt (slow down or you just might break a motor mount). Watch out for cows on or near the road. Oncoming cars will flash typically flash their lights if there are cows ahead.
We pulled into Cabo Pulmo Beach Resort about 11:30 and picked up our directions on the door of the front office. I had prearranged our stay, diving and the fact that we would be late. Our bungalow was a very nice deluxe suite that ran $80/night. Think of a spacious kitchen/living area with a good-sized bathroom, all topped with a palapa. There were also hammocks outside.
Nov 5
Mornings are beautiful in Cabo Pulmo. We had breakfast and headed to the main building which houses the reservations office & dive shop. The dive shop for the resort is Cabo Pulmo Dive Center. I am a divemaster myself and I cant say enough good things about the personnel at this shop. They can hold their own with any place that Ive been. Theyre professional, streamlined and know the difference between a regular diver and an occasional diver.
Routine you put on your wetsuit and your boots at the dive shop, which is a short walk to the beach. You also set up your equipment there and the DMs load it on to a pickup truck. The pickup transports your gear to the beach, the DMs put your gear on the boat, and the pickup then pushes the boat into the water. Easy enough?
Cabo Pulmo is touted as one of the few coral reefs on the Pacific side of the U.S. It is really hard coral growing on rocks. Its still beautiful, especially in the light of a strobe, but dont get visions of Palancar in your head. If youve only dove the Caribbean like us, you probably wont see any recognizable fish except for burrfish, porcupinefish, balloonfish and little puffers and lots of them. Most everything else seems different, so its a totally new experience. There are big schools of fish on just about every dive.
Our morning dives were Los Morros & El Bajo. Los Morros is a lot of rock patches (it reminded me of Paradise Reef in Coz) with lots of fish life. There are schools of puffers and numerous eels. Our Australian divemaster, Jackie, pointed out a tiny fish in the sand with a unicorn-appendige - a peacock razorfish. I found these on several other dives.
El Bajo is continual larger rocks & my favorite CP dive as there is abundant fish life and tons of big & little groupers. Especially noteworthy was a glimpse of a sea lion out fishing. The current was light, so we only did a part of this reef. When the current is strong, you can do this reef and part of Los Morros on one dive.
Lunch was shrimp tacos at Loretas beach palapa (rating 5/10 - their fish tacos are awesome but they had none available). We then hung out with Jackie, her boyfriend Gabriel, who also works at the shop, and Cilla, a friend of Jackies. The couple has a side business making jewelry and we purchased some of the great necklaces that they make.
We went out with Carmel on our afternoon dives to the sea lion colony and then for a dusk/night dive at El Islotes. The sea lion colony was great. You pull up and there are 8-10 sea lions lazing around on the rock. I learned later that the boat captain was doing something to get them in the water. We had about 5 of them in the water and next to their rock is an enormous sardine colony. If youve never seen a sea lion scratch behind his ear, its hilarious.
We then dove El Islotes, a small island. It was supposed to be a night dive but we got in the water a bit early, so maybe half of the dive was a night dive. No worries it was still a good dive. Carmel pointed out several tiny crabs, I found a nudibranch, and there were numerous freaky sea cucumbers out hunting.
For dinner that night we ate at Nancys. Our entrees were lobster enchiladas and a lobster stuffed relleno, around $20 each. My rating 5/10. The food was good but I dont care for torn-up American cheese slices on my nachos. We then had a wonderful long walk on the beach under tons of stars and a sliver moon.
Nov 6
We packed for our trip to Cabo San Lucas and left our stuff in the room, since no one had reserved the bungalow. Breakfast was from the weekly grocery supply truck, which had warm chicken tamales with a whole unseeded green olive in them.
That morning, we dove with Gabriel at Los Morros & El Bajo. At Los Morros, I was taking a picture of a big green moray in my viewfinder, and the moray just took off. I watched it swim, looked back to its original spot and theres another big green moray with sand on his head. An underwater turf battle!
We had lunch and then 2 afternoon dives with Jackie before we headed out. We dove El Bajo and El Cantil. At El Cantil and saw numerous schools of fish and a sea lion rounding up a school of jacks.
At about 5PM, bid our farewells to everyone, wishing we could stay longer. We survived another nighttime drive (much more traffic on the road, which is good) and made it to Cabo San Lucas to the Siesta Suites Motel. I dont think that you can find as nice of a hotel with as great of a price and location in CSL as Siesta Suites. I think we paid $50 per night.
We had dinner at Panchos. Rating 9/10 the best meal we had on our trip. Our entrees were the mahi mahi w/ Mango sauce and a combination platter of a cheese enchilada, a tamale & carne asada. They have very good margaritas too. In fact, I dont think we had a bad margarita on our trip. Cabo could teach Cozumel something.
