Posted by Ken Kurtis on October 21, 2000 at 15:45:36:
Every year we (Reef Seekers Dive Co.) run a trip to dive the Sea of Cortez aboard the Don Jose out of La Paz. For those interested, this year's trip report (which will appear in our November newsletter) follows.
Ken Kurtis
NAUI Instr. #5936
Co-owner, Reef Seekers Dive Co.
Beverly Hills, Ca.
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SEA OF CORTEZ TRIP REPORT
This year marked our (lucky??) 13th group trip to the Sea of
Cortez. The fact that we also had 13 divers in the group and would
be diving on Friday the 13th did nothing to dispel our enthusiasm.
The group this year consisted of Josh & Staci Kaye-Carr, Jim &
Julie Nise, Vick Thomas & Elisabeth Sykes, Ken Kurtis & Betsy
Suttle, Tom Binkley, Leon Slavin, Marilyn Lawrence, Margot
Siegel, and Kevin Brooks. Our vessel was (as always) the Don Jose
through Baja Expeditions.
This has been an interesting year weather-wise in the Sea of Cortez.
No one’s sure if it’s the lingering effects from El Ñino or what, but
the general weather patterns this year have been different from in
years past. Because of this, the water was a lot slower to warm up
(although we enjoyed 84º temps pretty much at every site), and the
visibility has not been as good as you would normally get, running
40-60’ on average with a greenish hue, rather than the bluish
60-100’+ that is the norm.
Although it didn’t affect our trip, the wind has been different too. It started blowing out of the west and north towards the end of our
trip, a full month earlier than they normally get a shift in direction. So we start from the aspect of knowing that in 2000, things might be a bit different than in the past years.
Thankfully, none of this seems to have affected the sea lions at Los
Islotes, our first stop. If you enjoy diving with sea lions, you
MUST, at some time in your life, spend a day at Los Islotes as it is
home to probably the friendliest, most raucous, most inquisitive,
and most engaging sea lions in the world and will provide you with
dive memories that will last a lifetime.
Although we didn’t have an encounter to rival our first dive last
year (where an adult female basically became the fifth diver in our
group for almost an hour), we had good encounters this year. And
even sitting on the boat and listening to them barking at each other,
it really makes you wish you could “speak” sea lion and understand
just what the heck it is they’re all talking about to each other.
Two pleasant surprises at Islotes this year were a proliferation of
the giant Fine-Spotted Jawfish (but we didn’t see any of the smaller
blue-spotted jawfish this year) and a seahorse!!!
The jawfish, which have a head roughly the size of your closed fist
and a body the length of your arm, were found spread out in the
sand around 60’ deep. these animals dig a deep vertical burrow, and
then hang in it with just their head and maybe an inch or two of
their body sticking out. As you approach, like garden eels, they
slowly sink down, although you can generally get pretty close. And
jawfish are a species where the male will tend to eggs by incubating
them in his mouth, so one thing to look for (and we saw this a
couple of times) is a mass of eggs inside the mouth of the animal.
The seahorse was a special treat, located by Kevin White, DM for
the Don Jose. He (?) was in about 20’ of water and just cruised
around the rocks. This was a Pacific Seahorse, perhaps 6-8 inches
long (so much easier to see than the Pygmy Seahorses of Indonesia)
and he didn’t seem too perturbed by cameras being stuck in his face
and flashes going off. Seahorses started being spotted at Islotes last
year and it was nice to see that they’re still around.
Next we headed up to Las Animas, where we normally experience
really great diving conditions but this year had to settle for
less-than-spectacular. (Still lots of cool stuff to see, but just had to work a bit harder to find it.) Visibility was running 50-60’, with a definite greenish cast to the water. But we were still able to dive the usual spots (the Pinnacles - one of the best dives in the world under any conditions IMHO, Seal Rock, the safe cave on the northern end of the island, the southern wall, and others) and had many sightings of jacks, Creole fish, sardines, wahoo, mackerel, barberfish, lobsters, turtles, and many, many more.
But because the conditions at Animas were less than ideal, we
decided to experiment a bit. There’s another seamount perhaps 25
miles north of Animas that we’ve talked about visiting for years but
haven’t been able to do so, but decided that this year, we’d give it a
shot.
The mount is referred to by the Don Jose’s captain as “Catalan”
and lies a miles or two off the island of Catalina. (The joke on the
boat was that I didn’t want to hear anyone complaining, “I didn’t
come all the way to the Sea of Cortez just to dive Catalina!!”) It’s
top is roughly 60’ and then there are rolling cuts and canyons that
take you into deeper water. The mount is covered with medium- to
low-profile sea fans, tons of fish, eels in the cracks and crevices,
some lobsters, and, since it gets very few diving visitors (maybe 5
or 6 days a year a dive boat pulls up) it’s really in pristine condition. There’s also an incredible profusion of yellow-polyp black coral all over the place. Even though the vis here was not spectacular, Catalan offered us some very interesting diving and is something we might keep on the itinerary for next year. We left Catalan for the long run (almost 80 miles) south to El Bajo.
Thursday morning, Bajo beckoned. This site, an off-shore triple
seamount (top of the center mount is 60’) has always been a
spectacular dive and this year was no exception. Visibility was
around 100’, the water was blue, and the fish were everywhere.
Tom Binkley was our only diver to spot hammerheads (a school of
perhaps 10-12 in 80-100’ of water), but most of our divers, many
of whom had been here before, chose to stay on the mount and
explore and enjoy the scene rather than venture off into the blue
water for a (sometimes futile) shark search.
As always at Bajo, the central mount is just teeming with activity.
There are always Moray Condos to visit, a series of cracks and
crevices where there are more Panamic Moray eels, many times
three to five to a single hole, than you ever thought you’d see in
one place. It’s always an amazing sight. There was also a lot of
nesting behavior going on and we observed a number of triggerfish
defending (frequently unsuccessfully) their nests against marauding
wrasses.
Because of the depths, we only spend the morning at Bajo and
completed the day with another visit (and a night dive) at Los
Islotes, once again frolicking with sea lions and jawfish, and getting
lost in a school of sardines so thick that they literally blocked out of the sun when the schools passed overhead.
On Friday, we headed a bit further south to La Reyna (also spelled
La Reina, and sometimes called Reinita). This is where last year we
had our manta ray encounter and we hoped to duplicate it this year.
The conditions were right but, unfortunately, no mantas were
spotted.
But that doesn’t take away from the charm of La Reyna. There’s an
enormous school of scads there (or, as my notes say, “. . . scads of
scads . . .”) and other schooling fish including goatfish, creoles,
blue-and-gold snappers, leopard groupers (with a few golden
groupers thrown in the mix), and more. And the terrain is really
nice to explore because you go through these wide canyons that
have a gentle slope to a sandy bottom providing a home, at all
depths both on and off the reef, for all sorts of animals.
We finished up the day with a pair of dives at Carpentero Rock, off
the west side of Cerralvo, where we encountered more garden eels
than I’ve ever seen in one place as well as a group of small mantis
shrimps that had an affinity for seaweed and would come out of
their hole to (gently, believe it or not) take it from our hands when
we snatched a piece and offered it to them.
Our final dives Saturday morning were on the Salvatierra, a ferry
wreck in the La Paz Harbor channel, and which is a magnet for fish.
The big treat this year was that a Clarion Angelfish (of whom Leon
got some really good shots), normally found much further south in
Baja, has taken up residence in the wheelhouse of the wreck. The
assumption is that the fish came north during the El Ñino and has
stayed. But for those of us who are critter-watchers, it was
certainly a treat to see this animal.
We cannot say enough good things about the crew of the Don Jose.
They always take extremely good care of us, from going to the best
sites available, to knowing where everyone is in the water, to
hauling gear in and out of the pangas. Jose, Luis, Felix, and Hernan,
as well as DM Kevin, were always friendly, helpful, and fun to be
around.
And we must make special mention of Roberto and Enrique, the
chef and assistant respectively, on the boat. We’ve always raved
about the food and each year I figure there’s no way they can top
the previous year but they always do. From the home-made soups
that start every lunch to the sometimes extravagant dinners, it’s
simply amazing at what they can do in such a relatively small galley.
We marveled at a couple of varieties of fish (including one served in
flaming foil), a shrimp shish-kabob (also served flaming), chicken
dishes, traditional Mexican fare, and a crab lunch that was nothing
short of amazing. The only complaint about the food on this trip
was that it’s so good and plentiful that there’s simply no way you
can hope to lose any weight during the week.
Even though conditions were not as good as we’ve experienced in
the past, this was still a fabulous trip. We may not have been
bombarded with hammerheads, whale sharks, manta rays, or
dolphins this year, but there was still lots of stuff to see, a great
vessel and crew to see it with, and a good time was had by all.
Would we go back again??? Well . . . okay!!! The trip next year will
be October 7-14. Due to increases from the boat and the airlines,
the cost will go up (first time in about 5 years) to $1950, but that
includes airfare, diving, drinks, hotel, and crew tip. It’s never too
early to get signed up for 2001. A $500 deposit will hold your spot.
The Sea of Cortez is truly a magical place that has provided us with
many memorable diving experiences over the years. And even
though, like everything else on this planet, it’s undergoing evolution
and change, it’s still full of surprises as well as old friends. Whether it’s with us or on your own, put this on your “must dive” list.