Chile???

[esheldon]

Hello SB,
I am studying abroad in Santiago Chile and I am looking for dive sites as well as buddies. I will be here for the entire academic year and am very comfortable diving in Cold Water. Whats up with diving in Chile? Antofagasta, Easter Island is all I have been able to come up with. I love cold water diving and hope to find some buddies willing to check it here in Chile. Any info or contacts would be greatly appreciated.
sheldonethan@gmail.com

 

[emoreira]

You can contact these people :
https://www.facebook.com/WWW.AQUASPORT.CL?fref=ts
There are several diving places near Valparaiso (Zapallar, Quintay). Valparaiso is near Santiago. In fact Valparaiso is the beach of Santiago.

 

[randini]

Valparaiso is about an hour and a half from Santiago.
There you have valposub: VALPOSUB CENTRO DE INVESTIGACION Y DESARROLLO DEL PATRIMONIO SUBMARINO
I've never dove Valpo, but never wanted to either. Most of it is a big port and the videos I've seen haven't made me want to go there since it seems kind of murky and barren.

Quintay is just south of Valparaiso and also takes about an hour and a half to get to from Santiago. Much more interesting since it used to be a whaling "port". There are a couple of wrecks there and plenty of marine life.
Off the top of my head, Quintay has several operators:
Buceo quintay a Buceo Quintay
Austral divers: Austral Divers
Bucea Mar: BuceaMar

Then just a bit further south is Algarrobo (and still about 1.5 hours from Santiago) and there you have Narval: ::: Narval :::
Also a great place to dive and I can recommend Narval as I've dove with them quite a bit (I did my DM with the owner Pablo).

Going north from Valparaiso there are a few ops, but most will be more of a drive (about 3 hours). For example there's one in Papudo, at least a couple in Pichidangui and then a couple more in Los Molles. Of these the diving in Los Molles looks fantastic (even if the town is kind of a ghost town most of the year), but I haven't dove there yet.

Good luck!

 

[Nami]

In addition to Randini's info:

Buceo Pichidangui - www.buceopichidangui.cl - 200K north of Santiago. They are nearby Los Molles, which has stunning sites. However Los Molles operators are not open regularly anymore

Closer to Santiago is also Zapallar with operator Tiempo de Fondo www.tiempodefondo.cl

Agree on Narval (Algarrobo), Buceamar and Austral Divers (Quintay). Not sure if Buceo Quintay is still open.
Enjoy the dives!