San Carlos, Mexico, May 2000
Author: Gary Sanders

My wife and I took a quick dive trip over Memorial Day weekend to San Carlos, Mexico. Since I haven't seen much written about the diving in San Carlos, I thought I would offer my impressions about this dive destination.

San Carlos and How to Get There

San Carlos is a small village on the Sea of Cortez, near the fishing town of Guaymas, Mexico, in the Sonoran desert. It is on the mainland of Mexico, across from the Baja, about 250 miles south of Nogales, Arizona. The little town is picturesque, surrounded by desert mountains with a rugged coastline. San Carlos is very relaxed, slow-paced, and uncrowded. Topside temperatures on this trip reached the high 90's during the day, cooling off to the low 70's at night.

AeroMexico and America West offer regular air service to Guaymas from Phoenix. The flight from Phoenix to Guaymas only takes about an hour and twenty minutes, and from Guaymas, it's just a 20-minute cab ride to San Carlos. For any of you "white knuckle flyers," the leg from Phoenix to Guaymas on America West is in a small 15-passenger prop plane.

If you live in the Arizona/New Mexico/West Texas area, it's a fairly easy drive. There's a 4-lane highway all the way from Nogales, Arizona to San Carlos and only takes about 5 hours from Nogales.

Accommodations; Dive Op

We stayed at the Sonora Bay Club Med. Not ever having been to a Club Med, I must say that I was pleasantly surprised at the cost. It ran about $225 per person for a three-day stay (land only package; double occupancy), including three meals a day (including complimentary beer and wine with lunch and dinner) and most of the topside activities (sailing, water skiing, horseback riding, tennis, etc.). Diving was extra at $50 for a two-tank boat dive (comparable to what the local dive ops charge). The rooms were comfortable and air conditioned, and the facilities were attractive and well maintained. They have a private beach with some spectacular sunset views. Meals were served buffet-style. The food (good, but not great) was plentiful with numerous choices for each meal.

Club Med's dive center was about what you would expect from a high-volume operation. They use large boats to accommodate large numbers of divers. They also enforce conservative dive profiles for everyone, regardless of your experience level. This can be a little frustrating when the profile for your second dive of the day requires you to surface after thirty minutes when you have 1800 psi in your tank and your dive computer tells you that you've got tons of bottom time left. But with large numbers of divers on the boats (many of them relatively inexperienced), I can understand their need to be conservative.

To their credit, Club Med ran a tight ship. They were very safety-conscious (triple checking to make sure everyone got back on the boat) and always had plenty of instructors and DM's in the water to supervise the beginners and resort divers. They were also good about pairing divers together who had about the same level of experience and then positioning you on the boat so that the more experienced buddy teams were the first in the water. That way, you could be out of the way when the resort-course and beginner divers hit the water for their instructor-led dives. The boats and equipment were top notch. The instructors and DM's were competent and personable. I was fortunate to be teamed with competent buddies on each of my four dives.

Diving

First, let me say that, if you go to San Carlos expecting unlimited visibility and lots of colorful coral reefs, you will be disappointed. It's not the Caribbean. There's little coral. No huge barrel or tube sponges. No breathtaking walls. And the visibility is limited, ranging on this trip from 20 to 60 feet. But, as long as you understand that going in, there are lots of fun and challenging dive sites with swim-throughs, underwater rock formations and pinnacles and varied marine life. There are even a couple of wreck dives in the area. This was my second trip to San Carlos and won't be my last.

Our first dive on Day 1 was at a site called "Tres Marias" which was about a 20-minute boat ride from the resort. We swam around and through various underwater rock formations, maxing out at about 50 feet, with visibility of about 20-25 feet and hardly any current. Water temperature on this and all of the dives was around 78 to 80 degrees Fahrenheit. The first thing I noticed after descending was that there were star fish everywhere, each about eight inches across with neon orange coloration. Very cool. We also spotted numerous bullseye stingrays flying across the sandy bottom. In one spot, they kinda had a stingray freeway, speeding in both directions through a channel between the rocks. Also very cool. The Cortez angelfish were abundant as were the parrotfish and sergeant majors. Purple fans were everywhere. All in all, it was a nice, albeit unremarkable, dive to start the trip. It gave me a chance to polish my skills after a 6-month absence from the water. Man, it was good to get wet again!

Our second dive site of the day was at "Isla de San Antonio." Isla de San Antonio is a sharp, craggy pinnacle jutting from the water. As my buddy and I started our way around the pinnacle, we were engulfed by a school of hundreds of jacks that parted to let us swim through. We spotted several more bullseye stingrays along the bottom, most about 10 to 12 inches in diameter. We also saw puffer fish, tiny wrasses, more angel fish, parrot fish, and other tropicals as we explored the rock formations surrounding the pinnacle. Visibility at this site was better, ranging from 30 to 40 feet. We bottomed out at about 45 feet but spent most of our time at 25 to 30 feet where the marine life was more plentiful. Overall, an enjoyable dive.

On Day 2, we headed to Isla de San Pedro, an uninhabited island about 12 miles offshore, for a 2-tank dive. It's about an hour and a half boat ride from Club Med. I was looking forward to this dive since San Pedro Island is home to a large population of friendly sea lions who frequently join the dive. As an added bonus, we came across a school of dolphins (dozens of them) on the ride out, and they put on an aerial display for us.

We anchored next to the island, geared up and beat the crowd into the water. Visibility was better at this site, averaging around 60 feet. After reaching the bottom and fine-tuning our buoyancy, we made our way toward the base of the island. Once there, we heard a "Splash!" from above, followed shortly by a muted "Aarf! Aarf!" We looked up to see a large sea lion, about eight feet in length, on her way down to check out the divers invading her turf. The adult sea lions would dive down, swim up within a couple of feet of you, look you square in the eyes for a couple of seconds, and then zoom away. They would even come up behind you and nip at your fins. The youngsters were also curious but not as brave, so they would just fly by at top speed without stopping to stare. Their agility and speed were impressive. They are as graceful and quick under water as they are clumsy and slow on the surface. We bottomed out at about 60 feet during the dive, but spent most of our time at around 20 to 30 feet where we were more likely to encounter the playful sea lions. The sea lions swam with us throughout the dive and seemed to have as much fun as we did. What a blast!

Even though the sea lions were the highlight of the dive, this site offered other treats as well. I spotted an octopus, its body probably a foot across, with its tentacles wrapped around a rock. We also saw a couple of green moray eels with their heads sticking out of crevasses in the rocks. We also saw lots of tropicals, including Cortez angel fish, parrot fish, and more fairy basslets.

Our second dive site at Isla de San Pedro was similar to the first. This site again starred the sea lions, but we also ventured down an underwater rock canyon for some fun swim-throughs. We saw most of the same marine life on this dive as the first dive of the day. Our 30-minute maximum bottom time was over much too quickly.

All in all, it was an enjoyable Memorial Day weekend with the highlight being the dives with the sea lions on San Pedro Island. In my opinion, it's a great alternative dive destination for those of us in the Southwest. It's less expensive and easier to get to than the Caribbean, and the diving can be challenging and fun. Just go with realistic expectations.

For more information about San Carlos, see the review by Rodale's Scuba Diving at and "San Carlos Online" at

Gary Sanders

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