San Carlos, Sonora, Late June & Early July Trips

[AZTinman]

I just returned from San Carlos, Sonora. This was my second trip to San Carlos in three weeks. Overall, the diving was good.

Weather had things kinda stirred-up during my trip in late June. Crossing the channel to and from Isla San Pedro Nolasco was a rough ride. We opted for local dive sites after making the crossings on our first dive day. I had an eye-opening, mind blowing encounter at one of the local dive sites (you just never know what might decide to show-up).

The weather had settled a bit when we made our trip in early July. We were able to do our dives at the island without getting beat-up on the trip out and the trip back. We found seahorses on a dive site at the island during the early July trip. Unfortunately, I was down on the bottom trying to get photos of seahorses with a camera rigged with my 'big animal' lens when the largest sea turtle I've ever seen at the island decided to cruise by. Needless to say, the turtle was going somewhere and didn't want to stick around and wait for me to get organized to get off the bottom to take photos.

Viz was okay, but not as good as I've seen it get during the fall. Still, I was able to produce some decent work with my camera. If anyone is interested in looking at trip photos, we've got a website up and running now. You'll find us on the web at www.cortezbluephotography.com and photos from the trips are on the portfolio page in a folder entitled: Recent San Carlos, Sonora, Trips.

My computer recorded 84 degree water temps at 40'.

There are good dive operators in San Carlos. We used a different operator for these recent trips than we've used previously. Our experience was really positive.

-AZTinman

 

[Laurie S.]

That sounds like the same turtle I saw a couple weeks ago there--big and moving fast, away from me!

 

[AZTinman]

Could have been the same one. He was big. We were diving on the Lighthouse Site. Several divers saw one in the same area when we were there in late-June.

Colleen saw a smaller one just off the beach near our condo at Bahia Delfin. Maybe numbers will increase if they can avoid being netted by fishermen. Of course, the stuff I found in a Sea of Cortez shell shop not too long ago concerns me.



I don't know enough about sea turtles to know if these specimens were obtained locally or if the shells were imported from sources outside of Mexico. The shop was in the process of unpacking a large shipment of shark jaws from somewhere. I couldn't get a look at the shipping labels on the boxes.

I really wish people would stop decorating with stuff like this. It wold be nice to see the market dry-up due to lack of demand rather than reduction of numbers due to killing. I saw and photographed another very large turtle shell in an upscale, interior design shop which caters to condo owners. My wide-angle lens didn't even come close to showing the entire wall of the shop covered with shark jaws. Too bad I didn't have the fisheye.

-AZTinman

 

[Laurie S.]

We were at the Lighthouse, too. We wanted to do the north side, but the wind came up and it wasn't safe for my boat, or us.