Cabo San Lucas

[PAShark]

My wife and I are going to Cabo in March. I realize this is not a premier dive location but would appreciate any suggestions as to quality dive operators and dive locations. We're going with friends who don't dive so we'll be fishing, diving and veging out. I should mention that my wife and I are experienced divers.

 

[Rascally Rabbit]

I've dove 2 trips to Cabo with Lands End Divers. Small boat and personalized service. On the last trip my wife also joined me and we had a great time.

 

[kmurray719]

I don't have a recommendation for a dive shop, but more of a "you might want to avoid"....Amigos Del Mar. Their reservations office was really helpful and good, the shop is nice, the boat was fine, but the DM we dove with left quite a bit to be desired. We were a group of relatively experienced, independent divers so it didn't really affect us much, but it wasn't a stellar experience. Our dive was to be limited by reaching 1000psi (to start EVERYONE's ascent) or about 35 minutes. At one point on our first dive, the DM thought we lost someone. There were 6 of us and he kept counting then looking around....he told us to "wait here" then swam off looking for a phantom diver...one of our group swam after him and showed him 6 fingers, then counted each diver. The DM then came over and "sternly" told me to stay close to my buddy, even though I had been right there about 4 feet from my buddy and the DM the whole time. We spent our SI whale watching,which was pretty cool. The briefing for our second dive went like this:
"We're going to dive here. There is some current and we will go with it. We hope to see some sea lions, but if not, that's too bad. Okay, jump in." Not very informative! No site name, no mention of depth, and no mention of the small ship wreck on the site!!

We used ADM for a "warm up" dive for a liveaboard trip, to dial in our weights and shake out any cobwebs we had, but I wouldn't recommend them for much more than that. The diving was actually pretty decent--we did see a few sea lions and the fish were plentiful. Have a great trip!

 

[renalea]

One more vote for avoiding Amigos Del Mar. We used them to dive just a little ways off shore around the arches. It is a popular area with lots of sight-seeing boats all around with tourists looking at the arch. We were told to circle around the pinnacle, enjoy the sea lions, and return to the boat. We did just that and surfaced at the exact spot that the boat had anchored in, but the boat was NOT there. My husband looked down, checking the landmarks he had noted when we started to assure himself that we were in the right spot. NO BOAT. Luckily, about 50 yards away was a smaller dive boat waiting for a group that was also in the water. We boarded his boat and, after his group came up, he took us to find our boat. It was on the other side of the pinnacle, picking up some of our group that, supposedly, had gotten into some sort of trouble, although we never found out what that "trouble" was. The dm and boat captain said that they planned to return to the starting point to pick us up if we would have just waited! (remember - lots of sight-seeing boats in the area - not a good place to be bobbing around, waiting for a ride!)

 

[bcsgal]

and another vote for avoiding Amigos Del Mar...I havent been diving with them but have seen how they operate on more than one occasion. I have done 14 dives with Manta Scuba in Cabo. They are truly great.. very professional and safety conscious. I dove with them again this Nov. with a friend, we did our Advanced Open water with them & all went really well. I just dove with them again last month as well. You can always check them out on the web and if you like also email or call them and ask for Melissa, Peter or Eran to get a better feel for their operation. PS - Cabo diving is really enjoyable!

 

[Gtoph]

And I'm sure you already read this post:
http://www.scubaboard.com/forums/mexico/347707-trip-report-detailed-cabo-san-lucas.html
regarding our experience with ADM and cabo in general.

 

[njneer630]

Me, my wife, and our two daughters are going to Cabo in June. I sent several dive shops emails, and the most accomodating seemed to be DeepBlue. I've read positives, and a few negatives about them on TA. I'd also looked on here and seen the recommendations to avoid ADM. I didn't even send them an email because of that. Oscar - the owner - has granted, via email anyway, every request I've made...including those related to me doing my Rescue scenarios with them.

If anyone else has a comment about DeepBlue or another shop there, I too would appreciate hearing them. Our daughters are fairly new divers, and I'd like to keep them safe. Some reviews I've read about other shops down there are a little scary. TA is a pretty good resource too. Just type in "cabo scuba" or "cabo dive" and it brings up area dive shops on one page, with reviews.