Lima, Sao Paulo, Buenos Aires, Santiago

[emoreira]

In Buenos Aires there is no place to dive. The nearest point is a pond in Tandil, an old granite mine to open sky, some 350 km away from Buenos Aires. Further away the nearest sea diving is in Las Grutas, where you can find some nice wreck diving. A few kilometers more, you will find Puerto Madryn with a lot of dive operators. Wreck diving and sea lions diving. Also in Bariloche and the nearby lakes you can dive those beautiful melted ice lakes. For the dates you mentioned, it's going to be the end of Autumn, so you will need a drysuit. Drysuits can be rented in Puerto Madryn, though you usually have to book with plenty of time to be sure a drysuit for your size is available.

For Tandil, please visit contact Hernan Rodriguez. He is running the operations in the Tandil pond.
For Las Grutas, please contact Cota Cero Buceo. The are the only operator in Las Grutas.
For Puerto Madryn, please contact Scuba Duba Buceo. I guess they are the best there.
For Bariloche, there are also many operators. Maybe Alfredo Ciunfrini is the one to contact.

Language could be a barrier. If you cannot speak spanish, It could be a little hard.

 

[Andrei Queiroz]

hi there

I´m from Sao Paulo so I can try to help you with some tips.

All the palces that I will talk about have already been mentioned.

Nearest place to dive is Santos (about 1 hour by car). There you have Laje de Santos, the "magic stone". A big rock in the middle of the ocean. Great marine life, with spotted eagle rays and turtles. In rare occasions you can see manta rays.There is a small wreck (no penetrations) and maximum depth about 25 meters. The bad thing is the rough sea and long navigation time (about 2 hours). Sometimes the trip is cancelled the night before or even on the morning because of rough sea.

Some cities on the north shore of Sao Paulo state (like Ubatuba or Ilhabela) offer some diving. In my opinion, if you are going north, you should go some extra miles and arrive in Paraty, Angra dos Reis or Ilha Grande (all around Ilha Grande Bay) in Rio de Janeiro State, about 8 hour drive. They are all in the same region and offer similar dive sites. There are a lot of diving centers in Sao Paulo that offer a weekend trip to these cities, (bus + hotel + diving). Usually 4 to 5 dives on one weekend. Lots of dive sites, usually about 6 - 15 meters depht and no current. There is a famous shipwreck named Pinguino, but it started to colapse, so no penetretion is allowed. Nice marine life across Ilha Grande Bay, with seahorses, turtles, rays.
There is also a liveaboard called Enterprise, that allow you to do 7 dives in one weekend. It´s nothing compared to the liveaboards in the Red Sea or Galapagos, but it is confortable for a weekend. Some hotels in Ilha Grande offer some shore dives, but the dives in Brazil are mainly boat dives.

Further north, about 12h driving distance from Sao Paulo, you find Buzios, Cabo Frio and Arraial do Cabo. Great diving there. You can take a plane to Rio de Janeiro city and your driving time will be shorter.

I´ve never been to the northeast to dive, but the wreck dives in Recife are famous (not for the beginner diver, since you can have some current). Fernando de Noronha is known to be amazing, but very expensive for Brazilian standards.

In my opinion, Arraial do Cabo and Laje de Santos are the best diving places to go from São Paulo.