La Reina (Ceralvo Isl.)

[DivenSail]

Has anyone been to La Reina, it's at the north tip of Ceralvo Island near La Paz.
I will be in the area the end of Oct.

Jerry

 

[cowjazz]

Just got back from a trip to La Paz last week. Our first attempt at La Reina was aborted due to the current being too strong. On day five we returned to La Reina for our first two dives.

Dive one was great. The bait ball was there, as well as a large school of barracuda. You could not go ten feet without seeing a moray (green, zebra, spotted, snowflake). The sea lions were there, and they paid us a visit during the dive.

The second dive hard a very strong current. My group found relief in a small canyon between what remains of the light house on the exposed rock, and the submerged sea mount. Still had lots of eels, scorpion fish, morish idols, king angels, and invertebrates in the canyon. It turned out to be a nice dive. One diver in another group got a moray bite, and had to be stiched up by one of our group. He stuck his hand in a hole to grab an octopus, and found a moray.

If you are hoping to see mantas at La Reina, forget about it. Our DM said no mantas have been seen there for about two years.

 

[DivenSail]

Thanks for the info. Can you describe the dive site? Is it deep? Shallow? Large area?
Is it better suited for scuba?

I will be freediving and taking pictures and video.
How long is the boat ride?

Thanks

Jerry

 

[cowjazz]

Thanks for the info. Can you describe the dive site? Is it deep? Shallow? Large area?
Is it better suited for scuba?

I will be free diving and taking pictures and video.
How long is the boat ride?

Thanks

Jerry

The boat ride from Club Cantamar was 2hrs 30 minutes. I was on a slow boat, so you could get there quicker. It you are leaving from downtown La Paz, add at least 40 minutes to your boat trip.

The dive site is not a particularly large area, but it is big enough that it would take several dives to see everything. Basically, the site has a small pinnacle above the water with the remains of a tiny lighthouse, and a submerged pinnacle about 100 feet away. The lighthouse is leaning over, and points to a shallow reef that is between the two pinnacles.


The pinnacle that is above the water is home to a sea lion colony. I dived the side the collapsed lighthouse is pointing away from. It slopes off to a sand/rubble bottom at 80-90ft. All along to slope you'll find moray eels, puffers, hawk fish, and scorpion fish. Plenty of critters to keep your interest. Here is where the huge school of bait fish and barracuda hang out. My computer shows a dive profile of 86ft max for 43 minutes. I went in at 11:13AM, and there was no current to speak of. Water temp was 82 degrees. I would think you could free dive this site, current permitting. There was some surge, and the rocks in the shallow area at the surface did not look friendly.

The second dive started at 1:12PM, and the current was ripping. I took shelter in the canyons in the small reef between the two pinnacles. No large schools of fish, but plenty critters that were not camera shy. There is a lot of rubble in the bottom of the canyons. Dig around in the rubble, and you'll find juvenile morays, crabs, shrimp and octopus. The dive profile here was 45ft max for 47 minutes, water temperature was 81 degrees. Again, It could be done free diving, but not with the current we had.

Regarding the submerged pinnacle, I can just provide you the information I got from our dive briefing. It caps off around 15ft, and slopes off to 90ft. The typical critters for the site can be found there. There is also a small shipwreck off of the submerged pinnacle.

It seems the current kicks up after 12PM. We tried to dive the site in the afternoon on our first day, and the captain wold not let us dive due to the current. So, for the second week of October, it seemed the current kicked up in the afternoon. I have no idea if this is normal for the site.

Here is a link to a brief description about the site from Club Cantamar:
http://www.clubcantamar.com/english/diving/__lareina.html

I hope this answers your questions. If not, feel free to ask more, and I'll answer what I can.