We dove there in 2000 and enjoyed it but a hurricane a couple of weeks before we got there really messed up the visibility. It looks a lot like diving in a quarry, it's very rocky but that's not a bad thing. We saw lots of different starfish, I couldn't believe how many different kinds there were my favorite is the chocolate chip starfish which is green with black trim and has black dots in the center. There were a few different kinds of morays also, we sometimes saw two morays sharing a hole which was cool.
The diving is all boat diving and you are generally gone for 8 hours so be prepared with your seasick procedures if you are prone to that. We had calm water the whole time even though we did see a water spout one day, that was cool especially since we were relatively close to it.
My buddy and I were the only ones to see a Manta underwater, it was at a cleaning station and we watched it for 3 or 4 minutes before it moved on. We didn't see any other big critters except for Manta's flipping into the air in the distance as we rode along in the boat. Wish we could have seen one of those flip up close but it just wasn't meant to be.
Los Islotes has a bunch of sea lions and they are curious about the divers. Our DM had one that was chewing on his fin. They scare you half to death when they come zooming past you from behind
We dove an artificial reef wreck called the Fang Ming, it was a Chinese freighter. There wasn't a lot of life on it when we were there but it had only been down for a year. My buddy and I penetrated the wreck and swam down the center of it without any problems, there are a lot of large square openings cut in the side so the inside is fairly well lit. Keep in mind that penetrating wrecks involves additional training and equipment. They told us the depth was 70 feet but one of our divers made it to 77 feet so we started planning our dives 10 feet deeper than the depth the DM gave us.
Some of the sites even have black coral (it's neon green and bushy), you don't see that a lot at other locations.
Another wreck was the Salvatierra a ferry that wrecked on the reef in 1976. We had a really strong current that day so had to stay in the shadow of the wreck to keep from being swept away. That was probably the worst day on the surface also, we had 3-4 foot swells. We saw an octopus whose body was about the size of my hand, he liked my blue gloves and when I held my hand out he grabbed my finger and tried to pull me into his hole. He gave up after three tries, one of which was a two-tentacle attempt that was really neat. Actually we saw several small octopi, two were out on one dive at Swanne Reef and the next day we dove that site again and saw three on one dive. During the trip we only did day dives so I can't imagine how many you might find on a night dive.
There seemed to be a lot of Pufferfish at the dive sites and some of them are huge when not puffed (we don't harass the wildlife so I never saw a puffed one).
We had an occasion or two when the boat got blown off of the site so we couldn't find the anchor line but could see where it had gone dragging through the sand. Make sure your navigation skills are up to par, carry a safety sausage and/or other signaling device. Luckily we never needed to use anything but the navigation.
As far as surface stuff goes you should brush up on your spanish, it could come in very handy. The hotel is out in the middle of nowhere, it takes about 30 minutes to drive to town. There is a bus but a couple of people in our group tried to catch it one day and never saw it. That sounded like an adventure in itself, waiting at every spot where someone told you the bus stops then being told, "No, it stops over there and you just missed it." Hehehe! They had a heck of a day and really wished they spoke Spanish so they could get better directions from people.
We had a good time and I hope you do too
Ber :lilbunny:
