San Carlos Off Season

[boulderjohn]

Last spring my wife and I joined another couple at an Autism Society benefit, and we placed the minimum bid on a week at San Carlos in a silent auction. We won. I knew absolutely nothing about San Carlos when we placed the bid, and I was fortunate enough to get some good advice from others on Scuba Board. Still, there is a lot I wish I had known prior to going. Now that I have returned, I have decided to make a trip report so that others doing a search of this forum can get some helpful advice. I am going to make this report in several installments, with each one devoted to a separate topic. It will take me a while to send them all, so don't look at any one post as a complete report.

The week we spent spanned the last few days of September and the beginning of October. We were told we were still in the off season, which was approaching its end. (I guess that is why the condo owner offered that time for the autism benefit.) I have talked to others who also told me that they were there in the off season, although they were there at entirely different times. I therefore have no idea when the on season really comes to San Carlos. (Perhaps someone can offer that information.)

There is apparently a huge difference between what one sees and does between the seasons, so I am therefore intentionally limiting my responses to what I saw and did when I was there. Perhaps someone else can write about what it is like at other times of the year.

Apparently in the months of August and September, the air temperatures are much too hot for pleasurable activities, and the water temperatures are hot as well. When we were there, the average high was about 95 degrees F, but it was a wet heat. It was really tough to do anything in full sunlight for very long. The water temperatures were in the high 80's in general, unless you got below the thermocline, where it could jump instantly to the mid 70's. You would be feeling too warm, see the familiar wrinkly water ahead of you, and one body length later you would be too cold. That did not happen often, though. A local person told me that in her opinion, the water was undiveably warm a few weeks before.

I am told that the average water temperature drops rapidly in October. A friend who was there in March used his dry suit in 65 degree water.

 

[boulderjohn]

The area is visually stunning. Rugged red mountains, the remnants of ancient volcanoes, come right down to the sea. The shoreline is comprised of a series of coves and inlets, with those red rock cliffs and formations always nearby. Each evening we enjoyed a drink next by our beach while watching a spectacular sunset behind the signature rock formations jutting up into the sky.

Despite the rugged coastline so close to the sea, there are sill some very fine beaches. The condos in which we stayed were a few miles outside of the town itself, and we had very nice sandy beaches with almost lake-like water conditions. We spent a very enjoyable afternoon on an excellent sandy beach on the other side of town, enjoying some drinks and food at a tiny, remote beach restaurant and bar called the Soggy Peso. We did not find that until the last day, and the husband of the couple with who we stayed said that if we had gone there earlier in the week, we might have had to peel him away the rest of the days.

In the early mornings dolphins would cruise by our beach, searching for the small fish in the area no doubt. I was usually gone by then (diving), but one morning I joined the rest of our group as 6 dolphins milled about perhaps 50 feet off shore in search of their breakfasts.

The town has a lot of restaurants, but in the off season they are almost unused, and we wondered how they stayed in business. We did not repeat a single restaurant all week, and there was only one (Blackies) that had anyting like a reasonable number of people in it. On three nights, we were the only people in the place, and on two nights there was only one other table in use. One night the first three restaurants we chose were closed for the night. The restaurant/bar in our condo was closed for the entire off season. The food was uniformly very good to excellent. On the night when our fourth (and desparate) choice was open, I was not happy with the meal, but the rest of the group thought theirs was good. The menus were not just your typical fare, and on several nights I enjoyed preparations I had never even heard of before.

 

[boulderjohn]

I thought I had learned my lesson in other trips to other areas that have signficant off seasons in the past, but I had forgotten this important lesson: just because there are dive sites available and you brought all your equipment, it does not mean that you will find an operator willing to take you diving. Withut a minimum number of divers, the boats stay home. I have on more than one vacation had to leave my dive gear in my room while I went off in search of another source of amusement, and this trip certainly had that potential.

In preparation for the trip, I emailed every operator I could find on the web, and I got exactly one reply. That was from an operator who was not mentioned by anyone on SB when I had sought information earlier, and diving was only barely mentioned as something they also do on their web site. I emailed the one that had been most mentioned on SB (Ocean Sports) twice over a number of days without success. With time drawing near, I called an operator who had been highly recommended on SB (Gary's), and they set me up with a full day, 3 tank dive to San Pedro Island (also called Seal Island) on Sunday, our first full day there.

The boat was a pretty large one, but it showed signs of wear. There was rust visible in a number of places, and paint was clearly covering rust in others. The marine head's plumbing was rusted and coming apart. You had to hold the pipes together while flushing, which required some real coordination. (I will talk about the diving itself in another post)

At the end of the dive, there was no mention of future trips, so I went to the dive shop to see about the future. They had another trip to San Pedro scheduled for Wednesday, but it was only going to go if enough people signed up. My wife and friends signed up to go as snorkelers, but that was still not enough to guarantee a trip. I was at that time the only one interested in diving on Monday, so they said I could only go if at least three more people signed up, and it was now one hour from closing that Sunday afternoon. The same thing would be true for diving every other day that week--if enough other people showed up and wanted to join me, I could go, but at the moment no one else was in the queue for any of the days. I figured my only hope was to find something going out of the other shops, and I left hurriedly to make the rounds.

A man who had worked as a DM on our dive that day was in the shop with me, and he ran out after me. He was a contract DM rather than a store employee, and he was interested in diving with me on our own the next day. So we met at the store the next morning, and I rented two tanks. We met with my wife and friends at a cove (Lalo Cove) just outside of town. My wife and friends snorkeled while he and I had two very long (averaged 90+ minutes each) shore dives. That afternoon my wife and I visited some of the other operators in search of othe activities (like Kayaking) for the group, and I saw that my efforts in looking for a dive the previous afternoon would have been fruitless. None of the ones we went to had any plans to take a dive boat out anywhere.

I skipped diving on Tuesday and went with my wife and friends to a place that advertised kayaking and snorkeling. When we went in there, they were surprised to see us. They said they are normally only open for kayaking on the weekend, when the tourists were in town, but they would be happy to take our money that day. We had a very nice, long Kayak ride out to a site called the aquarium, where we snorkeled. It was OK snorkeling, but if you have been to any of the great snorkeling sites of the world, you would be disappointed.

On Tuesday afternoon I finally got an email from the owner of Ocean Sports, and he told me that he would be in town on Thursday, so their boat would be going out in search of Hammerheads. I wrote back and told him I would be there.

On Wednesday we learned that Gary's trip to San Pedro was indeed going, and because a small dive group from Arizona had shown up unexpectedly, I would not be the only diver on the trip. With such a small number of total people, Gary's evidentally decided to save money on DM's, for there was none on board. (I know the DM from the other day was available, because when we parted on Monday he said he would see me on Wednesday if enough people showed up for him to be called.) There was no briefing when we left the dock, and there was no briefing at any of the three sites we dived at San Pedro. There was no one on board with dive equipment or DM training in case of emergency. I don't know what kind of first aid training the two people on board (skipper and crew) had in case of emergency.

On Thursday I went with Ocean Sports, on a pretty new and well equipped Newton. The marine head worked just fine, with a push button flush control that did not have to be pumped while you held everything together. We had about a dozen people altogether, about 2/3 divers and the rest snorkelers. It was back out to San Pedro for my third time that week. The dive details will be in another post.

I would not have dived on Friday in any case, but I do not believe any operator went out that day anyway. I could be wrong.

Lesson: If you want to dive in San Carlos, make sure that in the season you are there, it is actually possible to find people to dive with.

 

[boulderjohn]

Once again, remember that the water temperature changes, and different dive conditions and (especially) different critters can be found at different times. This describes what the diving was like when I was there only.

San Pedro Island is essentially an old volcanic plug. If you have every been to the Galapagos Islands, it looks like a smaller version of Darwin Island, with steep gray walls covered with white stains from the visits of neighboring birds. The edges are slightly scalloped, so you have a series of small, only-slightly-indented coves. Each of the days I was there, the different sites we visited were really only a few feet apart.

Knowing little about the site before I went, I asked Gary (of Gary's dive shop) about the advisability of using Nitrox. He told me my profile was up to me an my buddy, and we could easily go to the limits of EAN 32 on every dive if we wanted. Based on that conversation, I signed up for three tanks of Nitrox at nearly $14 a pop extra for the first day.

On that day, I met two insta-buddies who were prety decent divers. We did a fairly deep dive the first time, but the other two dives were about 40 feet. Since they were not using nitrox, they were the determiners of the profile, but there really was no reason to go any deeper anyway. I did 9 dives total on San Pedro Island, and on only 2 did I descend to a depth that made Nitrox a reasonable choice. Most of the good diving occurs at 40 feet an above. I did not waste money on nitrox after that.

The chief attraction is sea lions. They are at just about every site, and they like to play. If you get a cooperative one messing with you, it will imitate you if you spin, flip, etc. They are mostly shallow. My wife and friends had a great time snorkeling with them on Wednesday.

The bottom is rocky and full of shells. Go into your dives with a microdive plan. Search for the tiny hidden animals. You will also see damsel fish that are quite agressive in guarding their homes (I was bitten once for being too nosey) and sergeant majors guarding their eggs. A saw quite a few scorpion fish. There are occasional moray eels. Shells abound, including oysters.

On Thursday we were supposed to be looking for Hammerheads on a 2-tank dive. We went to the potential site on the south end right away, but the current was too strong. We did a dive nearby, then checked the current again. Still too strong, so we did another dive nearby. The operator then said we would try again, and they had enough tanks on board for it. Since this was a deeper dive (about 100-120 feet), and since we had already done 2 shallow dives, we had to wait for some off gassing. Even with that, I was pretty sure my Suunto Cobra would not be happy with me at that planned depth.

We finally dropped down the anchor line into a pretty stiff current and not so good visibility. We were led down the line by the DM, and the first ones down (including me) descended very rapidly with him. We were apparently two rapid for the rest of the group, and they ended up forming a separate grouo with the shop's owner leading them. We tooled around at about 100 feet for a while without seeing anything. The DM said later that he had indeed seen a hammerhead, but we didn't, and he never pointed anything out to us. The other group all said they had seen one. As expected, my computer was not happy with me, but I did not go into deco until we were starting our ascent, so it was no big deal. Where was that nitrox when I needed it? (The shop did not offer it then, as their equipment was not working.)

My only other diving was shore diving at Lalo Cove. You should get a sense of the overall depth of the first dive by the fact that we did 102 minutes on slightly underfilled AL 80's. That dive was mostly searching rock formations for critters. We found some, including some small lobster. The second dive crossed sand and went much deeper (about 40 feet), so we could only get about 80 minutes in. More rocks and critters.

There are some wrecks there, but the dive shops clearly did not want to take us to them. I suspect that they are not all that much to see, and they figured we would be happier playing with sea lions.

 

[boulderjohn]

On my first trip on Sunday, I was asked by fellow divers if I wre planning to be a part of the world record dive on Saturday, October 4. I had no idea what he was talking about. He said that divers from around the world would converge on San Carlos that Saturday so that they could set a world record by putting 1,000 divers in the water at the same time. I said I had never heard of it, and I was surprised because I figured it would have been mentioned on SB.

Throughout the week people kept bringing it up. Apparently everyone diving there knew about it but me, but not one of them was planning to be a part of it. No one from the two dive dive shops I used mentioned it a single time. It was not on any of their web sites that I noticed. I went into other shops and didn't see any kind of signage for it there, either.

We left Saturday morning. We ate a farewell breakfast at the marina. I saw that the Ocean Sports Boat had left already. All of Gary's boats were still there, and only one semed to be preparing for any kind of activity. It had some tanks on board, but it only looked like a couple of customers were making any preparations to go with them. I did not see anything that looked like any other dive activity going on, and there were plenty of parking spaces in the marina.

If anyone knows anything more about this, I would be interested. It would seem to me that it is hard to break a record of this kind if you keep it a secret.

 

[Pearldiver07]

An interesting set of posts - thanks!

As I read these, I am at the Hermosillo airport pending my return flight from a business trip. It seems the company I just joined will have me flying down on a regular basis. That said, it looks like I may have to start lugging my gear on some of these trips.

Is the Sonora Sports Center still in town? When I used to dive there (10 years ago or so), they were the best bet for small boat diving (a 6-pack super panga and a catamaran). It is/was run by Vince, his wife Inez, and Fernando. I had little luck with trying to book with Gary's as a diver and buddy only.

I have to agree that diving San Carlos without enough divers can be very difficult, especially if SSC isn't in business. They'd go out with 2 divers all of the time. And because the panga was smaller we'd tuck into other smaller coves on the back side of the island. On one trip I led the group ran out of air in less than 20 minutes at only 20-30 feet from playing with the sea lions. You're so right about them being inquisitive and playful. Only once did a bull get out with us and warn us off.

Another option is to coordinate your trip with one of the several shops in Tucson/Phoenix and link up with them. But in off season I don't expect to do any diving. I guess by spring I'll be more than ready to lug gear, rent a car, and drive the hour from Hermosillo to San Carlos.

I remember the town as having the feel of being off of the beaten path, hotels are nothing special, the boats are more of a transportation service than most divers expect. What I call "primitive diving."

Keep up the details, any help will gladly be accepted.

Thanks!

 

[boulderjohn]

Is the Sonora Sports Center still in town? When I used to dive there (10 years ago or so), they were the best bet for small boat diving (a 6-pack super panga and a catamaran). It is/was run by Vince, his wife Inez, and Fernando. I had little luck with trying to book with Gary's as a diver and buddy only.

You cannot imagine how painful it is for me to read this message.

Do you remember how I said that only one operator returned my email, but it was an outfit that no one else had recommended here and its website indicated that diving was an afterthought for them so I didn't use them?

Well....

 

[Dive-aholic]

Great posts, John! I've never done anything other than dive in San Carlos, but you pretty much described it. However, knowing that San Carlos is like this, I've always made sure I had enough divers heading down with me to make the boats go out. Most of the restaurants are closed on Mondays (must be the night you found 3 closed). I also limited my trips down to no more than 3 nights. But I can understand why you stayed longer.

 

[Hoomi]

We heard about the World Record attempt in San Carlos from a billboard on our way down to Himalaya Bay (a short ways north of San Carlos) last weekend. From what we read afterwards, they fell far short of the record, though considering how little publicity we heard about it, it's no wonder.

Conditions at Himalaya were wonderful on Friday and Saturday, though I suspect those accustomed to the conditions in the finer dive sites of the world would have not been as thrilled as we were. Water temps at in the south bay were in the mid 80s, though the deepest we went was between 30' and 35' (a group of new divers getting certified). We'd like to make it down to San Carlos some time, and we're definitely planning on getting back down to Himalaya next spring.

Nice report. Thanks for writing it!

 

[billeelou]

good report- that's San Carlos alright, for those of us in the Desert its a welcome close destination......