san carlos in April tips/advice

[jawdoc]

Taking my family to san carlos next month. Any advice on: who to charter with, who/where to rent gear, decent dive sites. My two teenagers are newly certified with only 6 open water dives in Curacao as experience. Am I making a mistake here?

 

[Capt. Pete]

San Carlos is a very worthwhile trip. We lead trips there several times a year and I believe that it is perfect for low hour divers. Do your best to get out to Seal Island, best visibility and the Sea lions are a blast. A good warm up dive is off of the shore in Lalo cove, not too deep and it is protected. April is a little early for the best temps and visibilty, although the southwest is having a very warm spring. You can check with Desert Divers out of Tucson Arizona, they run a boat(Ocean Spirit, the best boat in the area in my opinion) out of San Carlos and they can also rent you gear. We have a trip going with them the last weekend of April with a day of kayak diving @ Lalo and two days on their boat. Let me know if you have any other questions, I have been diving there for almost 20 years and run several trips a year there without any major problems. Pete

 

[billeelou]

I have gone with desert Divers/ most recently last July...very well run but it tended to be a bit crowded at the time with LOTS of first Timers and "getting Certified" divers....All Boats tend to be "step-off Dive-ins...
You can also try for a comparison shop

www.garysdiveshop.com

I have researched both and dove with Desert Divers, both come highly recommended with Gary's having 7 boats and Desert doing more Package type trips...can't say anything bad about either one!!!

Now I can say, April is not the best time to go, water is still a bit chilly and vis tends to be a bit green* with the algae in the water....

*and limited ....and the shallow Lalo dive is a "muck" Dive but will be the warmest time you've ever spent in the water...I would rather do 2 dives at Seal Island than waste my time ( IMHO) at Lalao..

I going for a week in July, so we'll update our records then....

 

[diversteve]

For a smaller more personal experience try Surface Time. They rent everything you need and are right next to Marina Terra. Gary's also rents everything but from their office in town(10min. drive) El Mar in town also has good rentals - we got our tanks there.

Ocean Spirit is a huge boat and so are most of Gary's boats. The DM on our Gary's trip stayed on board also.

 

[Dive-aholic]

I second Surface Time. We dove with them in October and had a great time. Personalized surface and fast boats. And all the shops down there charge about the same for their boat trips. So the only difference is the service you get.

Are you going through a shop or on your own? If you're going on your own, PM me and I'll give you some advice on where to stay and eat, etc.

We usually go down on our own and get a dive or 2 in at Lalo Cove the first day. It's a decent area to dive. I've seen some pretty good size green morays and lots of other marine life there. I've also had 30-40' of visibility in the cove, which is pretty much what you get with any of the sites along the mainland. Night dives are also pretty cool at Lalo. The island is definitely worth going to for at least a day trip. Lots of life out there.

Check out the photos on my San Carlos page - Southwest Scuba. Just go to the Mexico drop down menu under the Dive Sites drop down menu.