A week and a half ago, I made my 5th diving trip to San Carlos, Mexico. Though I’ve been quite a few times now, all my previous trips were in the late summer and early fall. This time, I got to explore the murky, chilly, yet surprisingly bountiful world that exists underwater off the San Carlos coast in mid-April.
All of my previous trips to San Carlos were organized by a Tucson dive shop. This time, though, some friends and I decided to see how cheap we could make the trip, meaning we went on our own. To this end, we used a friend’s boat and did some shore diving, rather than use a chartered boat. I have all of my own gear, so the only dive-related expenses for me were tank and weight rentals (from El Mar Diving Center) and costs associated with docking and fueling the boat (we split those).
Day 1
Just like last time, I carpooled with two of my Tucson scuba friends, Erika and Cyndi. We left a little before 1pm, the earliest we could leave given my teaching schedule. The Mexican government has made huge progress with the construction along the route (there’s still a bit left to go though), and we made it to San Carlos by 7pm.
Here’s a map of the drive, because I’m a nerd and all good nerds love maps:
Tucson to San Carlos.
On arrival, we dropped Cyndi and Erika’s bags at their hotel and found the vacation rental two of our other friends, Maggie and Johno, had booked. It was a great find, at around $50 a night. True to form, I didn’t know where I was staying until the day before departure. In the end, I stayed in the spare room of Maggie and Johno’s rental house.
After settling into our accommodation, the five of us headed to Don Lalo’s taco stand, which, as I’ve said before in this blog, is cheap and awesome. At this point, it’s basically the only place I’ll go for dinner in San Carlos.
Day 2
Though they didn’t arrive in San Carlos early enough to have dinner with us the night before, two more friends joined our group on Saturday. These friends, Eric and Kathy, have been diving with Erika, Cyndi, and me in San Carlos before, which is nice because we all know what to expect from each other.
Eric spends a ton of time in San Carlos, and even has a boat there. On Saturday morning, we took advantage of this fact and used the boat to make two local dives, at sites called Shangri La and Aquarium. I’ve been to both sites before, but they’re completely different in the spring than they were in the summer/fall. This is largely due to the cooler water temperatures; on this trip both were about 70F, while in October they were around 78F.
We stayed under for 45 minutes at Shangri La. Here, I found arrow crabs everywhere I looked. There were also several flatworms, tons of small stingrays, a couple green moray eels, and a giant hawkfish. The visibility was only around 20 feet (as it was the duration of the trip), but it didn’t really matter – when you get close to the seafloor, you only need to see the 1-2 feet in front of you to find all the amazing creatures.
One of many Panamic arrow crabs.
Some sort of flatworm.
Eric had warned us that it would be “green” underwater but I didn’t know what he meant. On our first dive, I realized he was definitely right. Compared to my summer/fall diving in San Carlos, there was a TON of seaweed and algae. This contributed to the reduced visibility, but also gave the dives a cool and different vibe.
The view underwater. Not as stunning as many places, but don’t let that fool you! The dives were still full of amazing finds.
At Aquarium, I found a cute little nudibranch and also saw more stingrays, lots of angelfish, more arrow crabs, and some gorgeous sea stars. This dive was only 32 minutes long – I was getting too cold!
Bullseye stingray.
California chromodorid.
Chocolate chip sea star.
We planned to dive in the afternoon and evening as well, but unfortunately the winds picked up a bit and it wasn’t safe. Instead, we enjoyed a nice, relaxed lunch at JJ’s Tacos y Cosas. JJ’s has turned into our go-to lunch place in San Carlos, primarily because it offers a wider selection than Don Lalo’s and because Don Lalo’s is only open at night.
After a nap, some of us met up at Playa Piedras Pintas. This is the beach where we planned to shore dive the next day, so we wanted to be sure we actually knew how to get there. Also, it’s fairly secluded, which makes for great stargazing. We had brought some towels along, and we spend quite a while just chatting and looking at the stars. Not bad for a backup plan!
Afterward, we headed back to none other than Don Lalo’s for some tasty dinner tacos.
Day 3
On Sunday morning, we did two 45-minute shore dives at Playa Piedras Pintas before jumping in the car to get back to Tucson. The choice to shore dive definitely limits dive site options compared to boat diving, but that didn’t stop us from having two great dives!
The highlight of both dives were the dozens of Mexican Dancers (see video and photos below). I’ve never seen them before, but they were all over! Another animal we saw a lot of were sea hares. This was my first time seeing them too, and they were pretty fun to watch. They’re giant sea slugs, about a foot long, and April happens to be their mating season, which explains why we saw so many.
California sea hares mating.
Lobeskin puffer.
Mexican dancer.
A bigger, frillier Mexican dancer.
I’m not sure what this fish is, but I love its eyes in this photo!
Speckled flatworm.
Seaweed at the surface near Playa Piedras Pintas.
Flower urchin carrying shells, coral, and seaweed.
What’s next
Next up: I’m going to Honduras! I’ve signed up for the May PADI Instructor Development Course (IDC) at Utila Dive Center in Utila, Honduras. If all goes well, I’ll be a certified scuba instructor by the end of May!
Dives this trip: 4
Total dives: 105
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