October 14, 2017
In March, I attended an SSI conference in North Carolina. I met a lot of great people. One of them was Tonia Foster of El Mar Dive Center in Mesa, AZ. She discussed owning El Mar Dive Center in San Carlo, Mexico. They take monthly trips there to dive the Sea of Cortez. Oh, look, a bucket list item!
After I returned home, I checked their calendar against mine and found out October would be the best time for me to go. I called the shop and booked a seat. The October trip was going to be a bus trip. They do bus or car caravan several times a year, and October was the bus trip. I booked a flight. I was ready to go.
I flew to Phoenix the night before and grabbed a hotel for the evening. Early the following day, I Ubered to the shop in Meza. There, I met Tonia. She was not going this month, but she had an outstanding crew of dive professionals leading the trip.
Once everyone was loaded up, we headed out. During the ride and the trip, I met some great people. We stopped just north of the border for a pit spot and to pick up lunch.
The crew from El Mar had this process down. They let everyone know what to expect when crossing the border, what to expect from Mexican customs, and how to act and behave to move through the checkpoint quickly and efficiently.
We arrived late in the afternoon and checked into the hotel. The views were amazing; the pool view was from my balcony. Moving around that part of San Carlo was easy. Almost everything we needed for the weekend was within a short walk.
On Friday morning, we headed for the boat. They have a Newton, which has become the standard for group diving. The boat crew was from their local shop, again seasoned professionals. The dive site was San Pedro Nolasco Island, off the coast of San Carlo. The island is a protected resource and home to lots of sea birds. No worries. We were there to dive.
The sea was calm and flat all weekend, and the dive conditions were excellent. I dove in a 3 mm suit; when I go back, I think I will take a 5 mm. The water temperatures were just on the edge of needing a thicker suit.
The island is the reef. All manner of sea life is attached to the exposed base below—respectable sizes of small and medium schools of fish swimming around. I had not seen many sea urchins before; sections of the base were covered with them.
On the first day, we did two dives on the south side of the island; the second day, we did two dives locally, just outside of the cove where the marina was; the third day, on our way out to the island we saw a whale, well we got a glimpse of a whale as it surfaced for a breath, still very cool. We did three dives that day. What made the day spectacular was the sea lions, they also live on the island, a few of them decided to swim with us. It was such a blast. They are fast. They will swim by and tap you on the head with a fin. They will keep out of reach and put on a show of movement and speed; they darted in and out of our group as we dove. It was such a fun dive.
Sunday night, we had a group meal at Charly's Rock, across the street from the hotel. We had a great time, and the People were good.
The next day, we made our way north back across the border. That was a bit crazy. We had to stop at customs, take out all of our bags, go into the building, and run our bags through airport-style scanners. That was after they were checked by dogs. The bus had to go off to be inspected separately. Then we loaded up again. Ten miles up the road, at another checkpoint, armed border agents, looking more like military, walked through the bus.
By evening, we had arrived back in Mesa. I had a great time on this weekend trip. Now, I have to see if I can get a group of my dive buddies to join me for a return trip.