Diving in La Paz!

The first weekend in La Paz, we had Saturday and Sunday off and I was desperate to go diving as I hadn’t been in a few months.  I went out with a local dive shop to see the sea lion colony at Los Islotes, on the back side of Isla Espiritu Santo.  The diving was incredible!  The sea lion colony lives at the site and tourists are able to snorkel and dive with the sea lions who have been accustomed to visitors.  It takes about 45 minutes to get to the site from La Paz and there are baby sea lions and adults on the rocks and swimming in the warm waters of La Paz.  In October, the water was about 29 degrees.  In mid November, Robin (a new volunteer from Canada) and Maria (visiting from The Perfect World Foundation) arrived and we were able to venture out to dive with the sea lions again.  The water this time was about 27 degrees and the pups were still young and playful!  They have a tendency to swim circles around you and sometimes gently bite on your fins, hoses or cameras!  It’s an easy, shallow dive site (max of about 15m) on one side in the nursery area.  On the arch side, it’s a bit deeper (goes down to about 25m) but still an easy dive site with incredible rock formations and boulders.  We saw schools of barracuda, mobula rays and lots of tropical fish.  

I’ve also been out diving to La Reina and a wreck, La Salveteria.  The visibility wasn’t as great at these sites when I visited in October, but they were both still full of life.  At La Reina, I again saw sea lions and La Salveteria we encountered lots of porcupine fish.  The wreck is a ferryboat that sank after a collision with the reef in 1976.  It is at a depth of about 18m and is in a number of pieces, each of which have become a home for the fish.  

Before I leave, I’m hoping to do a bit more diving at El Bajo and a few of the other sites.  I’ll update you here with photos and information about those dives (cross your fingers for some hammerheads for me)!  Ashley is also hoping to get certified here so she can start diving in La Paz as well!

Go Diving!
Nicole