We had the marvelous opportunity to spend a week in the vicinity of Loreto, Mexico, and I particularly wanted to write a trip report about it, because there is very little here on SB about Loreto. (I know, because I tried to research the area before we made our trip, and I found very little on line in general about the place!)
Land: Loreto is a small coastal town, about two-thirds of the way down the eastern side of Baja California. It sits between the Giganticas mountains and the Sea of Cortez, affording beautiful views in both directions. There is not a lot of development in Loreto or nearby, except for the Inn at Loreto Bay. The town itself seems rather sleepy, which is nice; although it clearly depends heavily on tourism, judging from the number of restaurants, there are only a few shops and almost no hawkers at all, which I enjoyed. There is a lovely promenade along the shore, which was under construction when we were there.
We ate at the Oasis Hotel for breakfast, where I had what were just plain the best huevos rancheros I've ever eaten. The restaurant includes a patio that ends right at the beach, and the views are fantastic.
The lunch we had in town was at Orlando's, a sidewalk cafe, and I had fish tacos which were also excellent. We had dinner and lunch at the restaurant associated with the Tripui Hotel. Again, the setting was lovely, but the food was more ordinary.
We drove down to the Villa del Palmar hotel one evening, to look at the place and take photos. This hotel is about 30 or 40 minutes south of Loreto proper, and it is a beautiful property. We spent some time taking pictures of the bay with the mountains behind it.
One of our non-diving days, we drove up to the Mission San Francisco Javier, which was the first mission established on the Baja peninsula, and is about 250 years old. It was an interesting drive, winding up into the arid hills, and made me wonder why on earth anyone ever established a mission precisely THERE.
We were actually staying with a personal friend, who lives in a trailer park . . . Well, not your average trailer park. The Tripui resort is a place that appears to have begun as a bunch of palapas built to shelter trailers and boats, but has turned into mostly a little housing development. It also has the hotel and restaurant I already mentioned, and a small convenience store just outside the fence. The views of the mountains in the morning are spectacular.
---------- Post Merged at 11:10 AM ---------- Previous Post was at 10:40 AM ----------
The diving: We were diving off a private boat, a 26 foot fishing boat that belongs to our host, Dennus Baum (who also happens to have been one of my OW instructors, lo these many years ago!) It was an inboard/outdrive with plenty of room for three people to load tanks and assorted dive gear. There was a nice swim step and a light ladder -- the order of go was to don and doff gear in the water on gear lines.
Except for the first day, all the diving we did was around Danzante Island. Danzante is part of the Loreto Marine Preserve, which includes five islands. Although sport fishing is permitted there, commercial fishing is not, and there is little shipping in the area, so the sites are pretty quiet. Danzante is a steep, arid island with not much of anything on it, and although the topography suggests that the cliffs should continue into sheer walls underwater, the sites actually turn out to be slopes covered with boulders, ranging from a couple of feet in diameter to twenty or more. Although I had been told of fantastic visibility by a friend who had been there earlier this year, we encountered more modest conditions. The first day, on Isla del Carmen, we had about ten to fifteen feet; subsequently, it improved. The last day, we had about 30 feet or so. It was a shame that it wasn't a bit clearer, because this area was some of the "fishiest" diving I've done anywhere. We saw schools of a wide variety of fish, and HUGE bumphead parrotfish and cabrillas. Wide angle shots of some of these "aquarium" sites would have been spectacular, but we just couldn't get them.
What we got instead was LOTS of macro. Although at first glance, the rocks are brown and appear rather uninteresting, closer inspection rewarded us with tons of interesting photo subjects. We found at least five species of nudibranch, several species of tubeworm, beautiful gorgonians, and fascinating shellfish.
We found cheeky blennies (and one of my huge insights from the trip was to be utterly awed at anybody who gets pictures of blennies, because they are ridiculously tiny and move like lightning!).
Luckily, all three of us like to move slowly and take lots of pictures:
This gives you an idea of what the dive sites looked like:
Some sites had tons of sea fans:
We saw morays, including my find of a zebra moray, of whom I unfortunately was unable to get a picture. We saw electric rays, diamond rays, and although not while diving, spotted eagle rays and jumping mobulis rays. We had dolphins ride our bow wave, and watched pelicans fishing.
Overall, this was some of the best diving I've done anywhere, especially if you like a large number and variety of fish.
We thoroughly enjoyed the trip, both the land and water portions of it, and I am sure we will go back.
---------- Post Merged at 11:38 AM ---------- Previous Post was at 10:40 AM ----------
Forgot to mention . . . Max depth on our dives was about 50 feet, and many of the sites seemed to bottom out in sand and rubble at that depth. Water temperature was a max of 75 and a low of 71, with a very distinct and visible thermocline at about 30 feet. Current was negligible, and only on the last day did we have any surge to speak of. We did attempt one offshore site, which had a LOT of surface, wind-driven current, but none at depth.
Land: Loreto is a small coastal town, about two-thirds of the way down the eastern side of Baja California. It sits between the Giganticas mountains and the Sea of Cortez, affording beautiful views in both directions. There is not a lot of development in Loreto or nearby, except for the Inn at Loreto Bay. The town itself seems rather sleepy, which is nice; although it clearly depends heavily on tourism, judging from the number of restaurants, there are only a few shops and almost no hawkers at all, which I enjoyed. There is a lovely promenade along the shore, which was under construction when we were there.
We ate at the Oasis Hotel for breakfast, where I had what were just plain the best huevos rancheros I've ever eaten. The restaurant includes a patio that ends right at the beach, and the views are fantastic.
The lunch we had in town was at Orlando's, a sidewalk cafe, and I had fish tacos which were also excellent. We had dinner and lunch at the restaurant associated with the Tripui Hotel. Again, the setting was lovely, but the food was more ordinary.
We drove down to the Villa del Palmar hotel one evening, to look at the place and take photos. This hotel is about 30 or 40 minutes south of Loreto proper, and it is a beautiful property. We spent some time taking pictures of the bay with the mountains behind it.
One of our non-diving days, we drove up to the Mission San Francisco Javier, which was the first mission established on the Baja peninsula, and is about 250 years old. It was an interesting drive, winding up into the arid hills, and made me wonder why on earth anyone ever established a mission precisely THERE.
We were actually staying with a personal friend, who lives in a trailer park . . . Well, not your average trailer park. The Tripui resort is a place that appears to have begun as a bunch of palapas built to shelter trailers and boats, but has turned into mostly a little housing development. It also has the hotel and restaurant I already mentioned, and a small convenience store just outside the fence. The views of the mountains in the morning are spectacular.
---------- Post Merged at 11:10 AM ---------- Previous Post was at 10:40 AM ----------
The diving: We were diving off a private boat, a 26 foot fishing boat that belongs to our host, Dennus Baum (who also happens to have been one of my OW instructors, lo these many years ago!) It was an inboard/outdrive with plenty of room for three people to load tanks and assorted dive gear. There was a nice swim step and a light ladder -- the order of go was to don and doff gear in the water on gear lines.
Except for the first day, all the diving we did was around Danzante Island. Danzante is part of the Loreto Marine Preserve, which includes five islands. Although sport fishing is permitted there, commercial fishing is not, and there is little shipping in the area, so the sites are pretty quiet. Danzante is a steep, arid island with not much of anything on it, and although the topography suggests that the cliffs should continue into sheer walls underwater, the sites actually turn out to be slopes covered with boulders, ranging from a couple of feet in diameter to twenty or more. Although I had been told of fantastic visibility by a friend who had been there earlier this year, we encountered more modest conditions. The first day, on Isla del Carmen, we had about ten to fifteen feet; subsequently, it improved. The last day, we had about 30 feet or so. It was a shame that it wasn't a bit clearer, because this area was some of the "fishiest" diving I've done anywhere. We saw schools of a wide variety of fish, and HUGE bumphead parrotfish and cabrillas. Wide angle shots of some of these "aquarium" sites would have been spectacular, but we just couldn't get them.
What we got instead was LOTS of macro. Although at first glance, the rocks are brown and appear rather uninteresting, closer inspection rewarded us with tons of interesting photo subjects. We found at least five species of nudibranch, several species of tubeworm, beautiful gorgonians, and fascinating shellfish.
We found cheeky blennies (and one of my huge insights from the trip was to be utterly awed at anybody who gets pictures of blennies, because they are ridiculously tiny and move like lightning!).
Luckily, all three of us like to move slowly and take lots of pictures:
This gives you an idea of what the dive sites looked like:
Some sites had tons of sea fans:
We saw morays, including my find of a zebra moray, of whom I unfortunately was unable to get a picture. We saw electric rays, diamond rays, and although not while diving, spotted eagle rays and jumping mobulis rays. We had dolphins ride our bow wave, and watched pelicans fishing.
Overall, this was some of the best diving I've done anywhere, especially if you like a large number and variety of fish.
We thoroughly enjoyed the trip, both the land and water portions of it, and I am sure we will go back.
---------- Post Merged at 11:38 AM ---------- Previous Post was at 10:40 AM ----------
Forgot to mention . . . Max depth on our dives was about 50 feet, and many of the sites seemed to bottom out in sand and rubble at that depth. Water temperature was a max of 75 and a low of 71, with a very distinct and visible thermocline at about 30 feet. Current was negligible, and only on the last day did we have any surge to speak of. We did attempt one offshore site, which had a LOT of surface, wind-driven current, but none at depth.
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