Sea of Cortez (La Paz) LOB Pic's

[Rickg]

If you are interested in seeing pictures from our OCT '06 dive vacation to the Sea of Cortez you view them at

http://s106.photobucket.com/albums/m242/rickgreatting/

and selecting either Sea of Cortez Topside or Sea of Cortez Scuba. Hopefully you won't have any problems getting to the pictures.

I shot all but about 10 of these with a Motor Marine I manual rangefinder camera with 2 YS-50 strobes (for the most part). The remaining few are courtesy of a fellow diver.

We dove on a LOB out of La Paz with an oufit called Club Cantamar. If you go to their website you can find their rates and a description of the most popular dive sites http://www.clubcantamar.com/.

We were supposed to have been on their LOB Fiesta http://www.clubcantamar.com/english/liveaboard/index.html but at the very last minute they switched us to another much smaller boat named the Liberacion http://www.clubcantamar.com/english/diving/_diveboats.html.

As you can imagine we were not pleased about the difference in boats but after some negotiation they did refund us $200 each for the boat swap. The boat crew (Captain, DM and cook/deckhand) were great and did everything they could to make it a good trip. In the end it was a good trip.

The trip was 6d/5n with 6 days of diving (4 dives a day except for day one we only got 3 dives).

Rickg

 

[slingshot]

What was the reason given for the change in vessel? It seems a rather significant change to go from a 90 foot to a 53 foot boat. Glad you got to see a whale shark though!

 

[Eduardo]

Thanks Rickg. Great pics and I'll bookmark Club Cantamar for a future visit to Baja. How were the accomodations for a land based stay? I probably would do a 3 or 4 day trip.

 

[Rickg]

What was the reason given for the change in vessel? It seems a rather significant change to go from a 90 foot to a 53 foot boat. Glad you got to see a whale shark though!

slingshot,

Also got to see a school of 30+ hammerheads on one dive also but wasn't able to get any pictures. I guess its about time I make the switch to digital

Well there was some mention of mechanical problems but no specifics. The Fiesta will accommodate ~24 guests and the Liberacion will accommodate 6 guests. There were only 5 of us for that trip.

Rickg

 

[Rickg]

Thanks Rickg. Great pics and I'll bookmark Club Cantamar for a future visit to Baja. How were the accomodations for a land based stay? I probably would do a 3 or 4 day trip.

Eduardo,

Club Cantamar is pretty much a dedicated dive resort located about a 20 minute drive from downtown La Paz. The accommodations aren't the Ritz-Carlton but were quite comfortable and nearly all of the guests were divers. It is not a large resort and no night life to speak of unless you bring your own They do have a bar and the bartender makes a wicked marguarita from scratch including squeezing the limes. After drinking those it is hard to drink the ones back here in San Diego.

You get to dive many of the same dive sites we did from the LOB but some of the boat rides can be pretty lengthy. Many of the land based divers were making 3 boat dives a day and night dives are available.

Rickg

 

[Eduardo]

The prices seem very reasonable for the 3 day/4 night stays. May try to get a trip in this spring. Always nice to get some 1st hand information. Gota luv the Scubaboard.


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