Sea Sabres Scuba Diving club, Southern
California, Fullerton
Sea Sabres
Dive Spots
La Paz, Mexico
The Sea Sabres
Get Adopted In La Paz 1999
By Walter Marti
Our third, every second year, sojourn to La Paz has
come to a successful and satisfying end.
We went with expectations of great diving. What we didn’t expect was the incredible warm hospitality from
the Club Catamar Resort staff. We all
left with a feeling that we were adopted for the week.
This was quite a diverse group. We had the regulars, Mark Metildi, Ron
Koerner with his 13 year old son in tow, who was amazed to see a bunch of old
farts having such a great time, Linda Blanchard, Bo Martin, Peter Gallup,
Michael Tye and his daughter Stacie, Jeff Shipley and the legacy, Hans Eckert
and Marsha. Of course, myself and
Dagmar. The first timers were Bruce
Funk, David Morketter, Hans’ nephew Lucus Van Manen from Holland, Roberta
Sutemeyer from Connecticut, whom I met last year in Bonaire, with her friend
Paula Anthony, Irene Lewis, a member of the Orange County Underwater
Photographic Society, and Bill Maley, whom I had to coerce, with threat of
deaths, into coming along. At the end,
he did thank me for talking him into it.
My primary contact was the owner, Fernando
Aguilar. Through my email conversations
with him, he gave us an almost insane deal.
This deal resulted in a hoard of 20 descending upon his quiet little
resort. Fernando, definitely a busy
guy, always had the time to answer individual emails. Once there, he always found the time to talk to any of us. I came realize that his ‘mission statement’
(a definite yuppy term) has to be “No Problemo”.
His sister, Diana, her husband, Manuel, and their
son, own and run the restaurant. The
crazy divers we are, needed to start earlier than ‘the average bear’, “No
Problemo”. We were back from the dive
late, “No Problemo” for a late dinner.
Hans had his birthday, Marsha wanted cake, “No Problemo”, it was there
the next day. Linda wanted a dish not
on the menu, “No Problemo”, next day she had pasta. Those among us that were on the prior trips have come to realize
that going into town just to have a change, isn’t worth the effort. This is, as good as it gets. The only “Problemo” with the restaurant was
on our second day, when we spontaneously decided to make a night dive. We had a two hour lay over, with twenty
hungry people. We pushed their
limit. It was slow for the small
kitchen. For our next night dive, they
took our orders before we departed. Much better better timing. Manuel, the Maitre-De, adopted David. On our outgasing day, took David to Cabo San
Lucas, Manuel had some business to do there.
Michael left some items on the Realidad, Manuel will be coming up here
in a month or so, and will bring it to Micheal.
Fernando’s other sister, America, runs the pool
bar. When would you like it open? “No Problemo”. She was incredibly cordial and nice. On the first day we were
concocting drinks, and came up with the ‘Mango Sabre’. A mango daiquiri with fresh mangos and Myers
rum. “No Problemo” the next day Mango
Sabre’s were waiting for us. Her only
“Problemo” with us was that we were always diving. She mentioned that she never seen a group like us. All we wanted to do was dive. The only day we got in early, we opted for a
extra night dive. Not a lot of time was
spend at the bar, but she wanted to adopt our whole gang irregardless.
His mom, runs the gift shop. Most everyone had to buy a T-shirt! Bo and I were looking at her offerings, I
asked if she had any that said “Staff’ on them, just like the ones the staff
wears. It took her a while but, she did
say “No Problemo” and brought us each one.
His son, Fernando Jr., is another divemaster, that
we had little contact with. A group of
us went into town. We were waiting for
our ride back, when Fernando Jr. happens by.
We wave at the Baja Diving Service van.
He stops and asks what’s going on, we tell him we are waiting for our
ride. “No Problemo, let me drop off
these people and I’ll drive you back”.
We all wanted to adopt him at that time.
The head divemaster Lorenzo, needed a vacation when
we left. I warned Fernando that we
would run him ragged. On our sixth day,
he came in late, bleary eyed and told me.
“You did tell Fernando that you would run me into the ground, I thought
you were kidding”. Unlike us, his day didn’t start and end at the dock. Wherever
we wanted to go, however long we wanted to stay, “No Problemo”. The only time he ever put a restriction on
us was the dive prior to the last night dive.
It was getting late, he asked us to limit the shallow dive to only 60
minutes. Many of us were sipping our
tanks to well over an hour on the shallow dives. Lorenzo is planning on coming up here in the beginning of
October, for the wedding of a friend in Montclair. Upon hearing this, a few were willing to adopt him and pay his
fare on our October boat dive.
Hopefully, he calls. Then we can
show him how crazy we really can get, when we dive in our backyard during
lobster season.
The lead boat captain, Jorge, is a character in
himself. He doesn’t speak English,
although he understands more than he lets on. He feels that the more animated
and wordy he gets in Spanish, we’ll understand him irregardless. It seems to
work! When we showed up for the first
dive, he remembers many of us by name, from two years ago. On our outgasing day, he comes back from a
charter and gives me the fragile skeleton of a sea biscuit. I’m instructed to give it to Paula, he
wanted to adopt her.
The hotel mangers Benjamin and Carlos, were always
available and would get anything anyone wanted. Dagmar went out kayaking and a freak rain downpour came. Benjamin sent out a panga to check up on
her. As we were leaving he gave her one
of his drawings. He wanted to adopt
her, or be adopted by her. Paula’s luggage was lost somewhere between
Connecticut and Los Angeles, they kept tabs on it, and on the third day she was
diving once again with her gear.
As for the diving, on the first day we dove, El
Bajo twice. It is great to see the
huge schools of fish, the morey eel condo’s, the large groupers in the distance
and the occasional sighting of the pelagic fish. Our third dive brought us to the Old Sea Lion Colony. We didn’t see any old sea lions, let alone
any young ones. A nice dive with large
boulders and crevices.
Day two, the weather was not co-operating. A hurricane was brewing off of
Mazatlan. We dove El Bajito,
perhaps one of the best ‘third’ dives in the area. Lots of crevices to swim
through, great macro photography opportunities. We then made a short trip to Los Islotes, the sea lion
rookery. From the boat we watched a
mommy sea lion give birth, males fighting for territory and mom’s rearing their pups. Underwater we saw the males defining their
territory, when us divers got to close.
Bill was able to check the dental work, up close, on one extremely large
male. It was just his way of politely
asking Bill to swim back a bit. Great
video moment! We then went back to El
Bajito. The current picked up. When I got back to the boat, a few were just
hanging on to the drift line. It was
like they were in a river. Lucky, no
one got caught down current. We were
coming home early, the consensus of the group was, ‘Let make a night
dive!’ Our fourth dive of the day was
at Lobos Rock, a light house just out of Phichaliga Harbor (where
we were staying). Great night dive
spot. The incredibly strange synapted
sea cucumber were seen feeding on sand everywhere, octopii were out foraging
and parrot fish were sleeping.
Day three found us at Cerralvo Island. Our first dive was at La Reina, a
light house on a rock off the northern tip.
There were pieces of a wreck, lots of large fish and, again, a good
sized current. The second dive was at La
Reinita. Another of my favorite
sites. A small rock breaking the
surface with caves of various sizes and thick schools of bait fish being hit on
by green jacks. Once the jacks would
separate a few from the school the cornet fish would zoom in on the lost
fish. Peter, Bruce and I found a ledge,
sat down and just watched the mesmerizing show for 15 minutes. For the third dive we headed back and
stopped off at Swanne Rock. This rock
is covered in coral, another great dive.
Leading up to the rock, in the sand, are garden eels. They didn’t seem as spooky as at other
sites, they will actually let you get close to them.
Day four, we make the long trek to San
Fransicqito Reef. Another seamount
that tops out at 75 feet. Walls are
covered in orange cup corals, the base of the rock has fields of black coral, a
school of large amberjacks are spotted.
Coming up the anchor line we are treated to a parade of various jelly
fish and other strange free floating transparent organisms. Our third dive is a lot closer to home at Whale
Island. Not a great dive, it has
caves to make great silhouette shots. I
did make a hour and forty five minute dive here. I must have found some stuff to keep me intrigued.
For our final day we went once again to El Bajo. We anchored on the northen reef, the one the
hammerheads are proported to hang out on.
Linda and I did as Lorenzo instructed, swam to the edge of the reef and
swam a 330 degree course. The reef
ended at 80 feet, we hovered at the depth
and followed the current. Linda
spotted a leopard eel and took pictures and I took video. We were getting low on air and started to
surface. At the edge of the
thermocline, 60 and 40 feet, we were treated to huge schools of fish, skipjacks
so thick you couldn’t see thought. I had
300 psi of air left and started to finish my ascent, when I spied a manta ray
with two large remoras. This was a
pigmy manta, or ‘mobal’. It had a four foot wing span. It circled us once and left. Now, I was sucking aluminum and went to the
surface. The manta came back to check
us out once more. Linda spotted it and
swam to take a picture, I made a free dive, with tank in tow, to thirty feet to
get my best up close video shot. Great
way to cap off a great trip. We both
surfaced and found ourselves way down current of the boat. After kicking for about fifteen minutes,
with very little progress. A panga from
another boat came and picked us up. It
didn’t take me long to say yes. I
figured that at our rate would have made the end of the drift line in a little
over and hour. Hopefully, Jorge would
have came and got us sooner. I wanted to adopt the panga driver, as did as the
four other people he picked up. For the
second dive, Lorenzo, decides that we’ll all make a drift dive and Jorge would
pick us up. Unbeknowst to anyone, the
current made a complete 180 degree change.
This was everyone’s first ‘drift dive swimming into the current’. We would swim 330 degrees until we saw huge
schools of fish and then ‘drift’ in the current back to the boat, take a 330
degree compass heading and do it all over again. But, large tuna, hammer heads and mantas were seen on this
upcurrent drift dive. The third dive
was once again at everyone’s favorite spot, El Bajito. We were given a maximum bottom time of sixty
minutes and headed for home, dinner, change of batteries and to get ready for the
night dive. The night dive was as Swanne
Rock. Great at night, nudibranchs,
sleeping parrot fish, flat worms, coral polyps out, just beautiful.
Day six, the ‘Outgasing Day’. Smaller groups formed and did various things. Some went into town, some rented a van and toured the desert, some stayed at the pool, some kayaked and went snorkeling, some just outgassed. It was a great end to a great week of diving, comradery, bonding and fun.
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updated September 16, 2003
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