Alpinesender
Registered
This is a copy of a post I made in UnderCurrent.
February 2015 was my second time vacationing in Mazatlán. In 2010 we did a family vacation with my two sons and their wives. While there, my sons and I did one dive in the small bay between Deer and Wolf Islands. We had a good time but were disappointed in the low visibility and dull reef.
This year my wife and I returned with another couple and I thought I would give the diving another try. It was absolutely identical, low visibility, drab featureless reef structure and well hidden marine life. Standing on the beach looking out at Wolf, Deer and Bird Island there are three main dive sites. Eagles Head on the south end of Wolf Island, the little bay between Wolf and Deer at the south end of Deer Island and one on the north end of Deer Island. Due to steady winds during our stay I only was able to dive the one day. The dive shop even took me out in the boat to assess the conditions before cancelling diving. The wind has the effect of turning poor visibility worse (meaning zero). I have to admit I was very impressed by the shops honesty in saying that diving would be a waste of time and money.
I dove with Aqua Sport Centre beside the El Cid hotel. Very nice shop, but as the name implies primarily focused on surface and above water sports. I brought my own gear, except a BCD and weights, which were included in the dive cost ($80USD). The water temperature was 80 at the surface and there was a definite thermocline at about 30 feet, where it drop to 70ish. My full 5mm wet suit was more than enough and I was quite comfortable throughout the dive. The BCD provided by the shop was new and functioned well, although the tanks and weight belts looked like they had been around for a while. The site was calm with no current or surge. The day we dove the surface was flat and the sun was shineing bright. All diving is done a 10:00am, before the wind picks up and blows out the vis.
The Aqua Sport Centre was a short walk down the beach from my hotel. A 1 tank dive was $80usd and a 2 tank was $120usd. The shop manager recommended that I go for 1 and if I decided to go for the second they would come back and pick up another tank. (One was enough). Cabo San Lucas has a number of recompression chambers but I could not find anything in Mazatlán. My Divemaster, Tiny, was excellent. He obviously knew the dive site extremely well and was very attentive during the dive. We were down for an hour and returned directly under the boat. During the pre-dive briefing I mentioned that I wanted to go slow and find as much marine life as I could, to photograph. Tiny was very good at finding critters, but handled things a little bit more than I was used to. Due to the low volume of dive traffic in the area this will probably not impact the sites very much, but some divers may be taken aback by it.
During the dive we saw Puffer Fish, Nudibranchs, Sting Rays, Star Fish, Urchins, Clams, Long Nose Skate, and different echinoids. Using a GoPro 3+ to take 1080p video with the low light setting on and a violet filter worked well and I videoed the whole dive (see edited You-Tube posting https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T2YtrfOrnFE ).
So, bottom line, if youre in Mazatlán and you have a free morning, go for a dive. Take your camera and poke around in the nooks and crannies for whatever you can find. Dont plan on doing more than one dive, because
in all likelihood they all will look the same. Dont expect Caribbean visibility or vistas. Next time I go I will probably rent all my equipment as Aqua Sports stuff was in good condition and having your own is not
mandatory.
February 2015 was my second time vacationing in Mazatlán. In 2010 we did a family vacation with my two sons and their wives. While there, my sons and I did one dive in the small bay between Deer and Wolf Islands. We had a good time but were disappointed in the low visibility and dull reef.
This year my wife and I returned with another couple and I thought I would give the diving another try. It was absolutely identical, low visibility, drab featureless reef structure and well hidden marine life. Standing on the beach looking out at Wolf, Deer and Bird Island there are three main dive sites. Eagles Head on the south end of Wolf Island, the little bay between Wolf and Deer at the south end of Deer Island and one on the north end of Deer Island. Due to steady winds during our stay I only was able to dive the one day. The dive shop even took me out in the boat to assess the conditions before cancelling diving. The wind has the effect of turning poor visibility worse (meaning zero). I have to admit I was very impressed by the shops honesty in saying that diving would be a waste of time and money.
I dove with Aqua Sport Centre beside the El Cid hotel. Very nice shop, but as the name implies primarily focused on surface and above water sports. I brought my own gear, except a BCD and weights, which were included in the dive cost ($80USD). The water temperature was 80 at the surface and there was a definite thermocline at about 30 feet, where it drop to 70ish. My full 5mm wet suit was more than enough and I was quite comfortable throughout the dive. The BCD provided by the shop was new and functioned well, although the tanks and weight belts looked like they had been around for a while. The site was calm with no current or surge. The day we dove the surface was flat and the sun was shineing bright. All diving is done a 10:00am, before the wind picks up and blows out the vis.
The Aqua Sport Centre was a short walk down the beach from my hotel. A 1 tank dive was $80usd and a 2 tank was $120usd. The shop manager recommended that I go for 1 and if I decided to go for the second they would come back and pick up another tank. (One was enough). Cabo San Lucas has a number of recompression chambers but I could not find anything in Mazatlán. My Divemaster, Tiny, was excellent. He obviously knew the dive site extremely well and was very attentive during the dive. We were down for an hour and returned directly under the boat. During the pre-dive briefing I mentioned that I wanted to go slow and find as much marine life as I could, to photograph. Tiny was very good at finding critters, but handled things a little bit more than I was used to. Due to the low volume of dive traffic in the area this will probably not impact the sites very much, but some divers may be taken aback by it.
During the dive we saw Puffer Fish, Nudibranchs, Sting Rays, Star Fish, Urchins, Clams, Long Nose Skate, and different echinoids. Using a GoPro 3+ to take 1080p video with the low light setting on and a violet filter worked well and I videoed the whole dive (see edited You-Tube posting https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T2YtrfOrnFE ).
So, bottom line, if youre in Mazatlán and you have a free morning, go for a dive. Take your camera and poke around in the nooks and crannies for whatever you can find. Dont plan on doing more than one dive, because
in all likelihood they all will look the same. Dont expect Caribbean visibility or vistas. Next time I go I will probably rent all my equipment as Aqua Sports stuff was in good condition and having your own is not
mandatory.
