Sea of Cortez

Sea Lions, manta rays, dolphins, whales, sailfish. Hey, this is pretty heady stuff. And it is all stuff that we have encountered in the Sea of Cortez. It is fascinating diving in a location where anything can happen. On the first day of one of our trips, our group encountered a group of sperm whales sunbathing on the surface. Everyone hopped in the water and snorkeled and photographed about 12 sperm whales. (Remember, Moby Dick was a sperm whale.) Awesome!! Somebody asked me how the rest of the week was. My comment was "Who cares." But I can tell you the rest of the week was great. One of the dives we do there is a dive with the sea lions. This is one of the ten best dives you will ever do. They are a blast. The pups will let you pet them, the juveniles will play tug of war over a glove, and the adult females will come close enough to let you know that they are keeping an eye on things. Meanwhile, the bulls are swimming around barking at you, hoping you will go away. But you don't, you are having too much fun. I just love diving with them. It is at a natural sea lion rookery, so they are always there. The first time I went, I thought, "I hope we see some sea lions." Well, we saw 50, as we have everytime we have been there since.

Recently our dive operators have discovered a new spot where about a half dozen manta rays hang out. On out last trip we dove this site twice. Both times we had mantas hanging around -- and close. Great for photos. I love the mantas. They seem like such intelligent animals. They will swim up close and look you right in the eye. You can't help but wondering what they are thinking.

We often encounter large schools of dolphins on the way to the dive sites. We have seen schools of over 100 dolphins on some of our trips. It is wonderful to watch them ride the bow wave or jump the wake of the boat. Gets your heart pounding. If that's not enough for you we have also seen big hammerheads, fish and starfish spawning, octopus and more. One day we were sitting in shallow water watching the sea lions cavort when we looked up and there were three finback whales swimming by. It doesn't get much better than that. We have even seen sailfish sounding in the distance. Great stuff!!

This year we are staying at Los Arcos in La Paz, Mexico. Nice place, good food, right in town. Breakfast and lunch are on board on the way to the dive site. We will do five days of diving and then have a day off to do some shopping before returning home. This is a great trip and definately should be on your must do list. Let us know now if you are interested.