The Eastern Pacific

Photo: Simon Rogerson Photo: Simon Rogerson Photo: Simon Rogerson Photo: Simon Rogerson Photo: Simon Rogerson

Strong currents, stacks of large marine life and sharks, sharks, and more sharks. The diving in the Eastern Pacific is some of the most exciting in the world. DIVE readers tell of their experiences. Report by Simon Rogerson


Travel tips - Simon Rogerson

Where to go

The tropical Eastern Pacific mostly consists of offshore island groups which are noted for attracting large pelagics. The exception is Baja California in Mexico, a peninsula which stretches down across the Sea of Cortez. It is possible to dive the Galápagos from land, but it’s a severely limiting option which cuts out 80 per cent of the best diving. Eastern Pacific diving is defined by powerful currents, fluctuations in water temperature and remoteness. Get at least 100 dives in before you visit this part of the world. Cocos, the Galápagos and Baja California are the most popular destinations in this region, but there are others...

The alternatives

Isla Malpelo The top of an undersea volcano 350 miles off Colombia, this barren rock has some of the most exciting diving in the world but there’s no real shelter and liveaboards from Costa Rica generally only visit from February to May. Expect to see a lot of sharks. Liveaboard only. Guadalupe Island, Mexico A new destination for cage diving with great white sharks. The water is clearer than South Africa and initial reports are encouraging. Liveaboard only. Revillagigedo Islands, Mexico Further south than Guadalupe and 180 miles offshore, this archipelago is one of the best places in the world to see manta rays. Liveaboard only.

When to go

All are year-round diving destinations, but Cocos usually has more pelagics from June to September and the Galápagos is generally held to be at its best from November to July. The best time to dive the Sea of Cortez is from August to October but be aware that visibility can be anything between 10m and 30m: often, it’s simply down to luck.

What to wear

In all cases, it’s year-round T-shirts and shorts. Heavy rainfall is a real possibility in both Galápagos and Cocos, so bring a light waterproof if you expect to be roaming around. The liveaboards typically have powerful American-style air conditioning, so a light fleece or jumper may also be handy. Bring good trainers for scrambling over volcanic rock on Galápagos land tours. A good 5mm suit is the universal choice, but bring hood and gloves to take the edge off the chill. A 7mm semi-dry suit is recommended for the southern Galápagos, while the northern islands can be dived in a 3mm shortie. Diving at Cocos and Malpelo often involves grabbing the jagged volcanic rock, so bring strong leather-padded gloves.

What to look out for

Hammerheads are the universal attraction, but turtles, white-tip reef sharks, manta rays and mobula rays are also common to all these destinations. At Cocos, ask if the silvertip cleaning station is in business (sometimes, the cleaner fish are eaten by jacks) and dive the best site, Alcyone, as often as possible. At Galápagos, the southern islands have low visibility but lots of small unusual animals, so photographers are recommended to use macro lenses unless they want to concentrate on the sea lions. Jackfish are everywhere, as are creolefish – but never forget to stop scanning the blue, because these are magical places where anything can happen.

Air and water temperatures

Galápagos Water temperature 24–28ºC, but down to 15–20ºC in some areas. Beware of sites with names such as ‘the Freezer’. Cocos Water temperature 24–28ºC, generally cooler at the thermocline, ideal 5mm wetsuit territory. Sea of Cortez Water temperature 27–30ºC from August to September, or 18–21ºC in January and February. Air temperatures tend to hover around 26–30ºC.

Challenging conditions - Arthur Davidson

Arthur Davidson, 40, is a research scientist based in Edinburgh. A BSAC dive leader, he travels abroad two or three times a year as well as diving around Scotland. He used the Internet to book onto the Peter Hughes liveaboard, Sky Dancer, to explore the Galápagos.

I’ll make no bones about it, the Galápagos gave me the best seven days’ diving I’ve ever had, but I wish I’d travelled in July rather than November. I saw Galápagos sharks, hammerheads, sea lions, dolphins, white-tip reef sharks and some amazing little creatures. But while I was on board, I learned that a visit in June or July practically guarantees a whale shark. I’ve never seen one, and I wished I’d done my homework before deciding on the date of my holiday.

Most of my tropical diving has been around the Red Sea or the Maldives, so the Galápagos was something completely different. It had more in common with Scottish diving than the tropical places I have been to. In the southern and central islands, the water is cold and visibility varies between five and 15m. There are times when you can get 30m visibility in the south, but don’t count on it.

I wore a 7mm suit and was fine, but I noticed that some of the guides wore drysuits. One American guy showed up with a 3mm shortie and refused to be told that the water was cold even if we were virtually on the equator. His first dive lasted about five minutes before he returned to the surface, shivering. Unfortunately, he was my buddy and I had to wait while he borrowed a spare wetsuit, hood and gloves.

The liveaboard was very nice and the crew work incredibly hard, getting people and kit on and off the RIBs in some pretty hairy conditions. I was expecting it all to be very American, but the boat is run by Ecuadorians, who did a splendid job. The cabins were very comfortable and meals were pleasant if a little bland. There’s an intercom system, so whenever a dive or a land excursion was going to be made, someone would give you a reminder in case you were dozing. It was a little ‘hi de hi’, but I came to appreciate it.

A typical dive in the southern Galápagos will take you along a gradual slope of volcanic rock with pretty ledges where black coral grows in thick clumps. This is the main environment, and I saw lots of little hawkfish, blennies and seahorses here. There were some macro photographers on board and they were raving about their dives, saying they didn’t know which lens to take. Out in the blue, there were schools of spotted eagle rays and golden rays, which I had never seen before. Wherever we went, we were pestered by the sea lions, which zoomed along over the black coral.

There were a lot of green turtles, perhaps because my trip coincided with their mating season. They seemed a bit wary of divers, but I think they must be shortsighted, because they kept swimming deliberately towards me, only to veer off at 3m when it became clear that I wasn’t another turtle interested in mating! Several times, I saw the turtles being bombarded by silver pompano fish, which were trying to knock parasites off their bodies.

Of course, Galápagos is famous for its land animals, which are famously unafraid of people. We did a few walks, which took us close to nesting blue-footed boobies, marine iguanas and basking sea lions.

The northern islands, Wolf and Darwin, are 100 miles away from the rest of the archipelago, and lie in a completely different current. Here, we had blue water, 30–40m visibility, lots of schooling fish, and I could swap my 8mm suit for a 1mm skin. There were even more turtles around Wolf, where the best diving took place around a current-blasted pinnacle.

Apparently it changes with every trip, but we got the best action up at Darwin, the most northerly of the islands. We saw scattered schools of between 40 and 60 hammerheads and we had some great encounters with the resident pod of bottlenose dolphins, which made close passes in the blue water. There were also eagle rays and yellowfin tuna. The reef at Darwin is pretty enough, but its population of fish has to be seen to be believed. The most common fish here is the Pacific creolefish, which forms the basis of a lot of diets for the jacks and sharks.

It’s all very different from the southern islands, and makes you feel like you’ve been on two differetn diving trips. It’s the best ‘creature-led’ diving I’ve ever done, but new divers may feel disappointed because the vistas aren’t as colourful as more obvious destinations such as the Red Sea. That, coupled with the challenging aspect of the diving, makes this a rewarding trip for the experienced diver, one to build up to.

Lions in the mian - Alan Evans

Lions in the main

Alan Evans, 47, is a taxi driver living in Chingford, Essex. A prolific dive traveller, he is gradually making his way through the world’s best scuba destinations. He visited Mexico’s Sea of Cortez on a trip arranged by tour operator Divequest.

I went to Mexico in search of sharks – hammerhead sharks. The Pacific coast is quite different to the Caribbean, a wilder place where big pelagics and California sea lions rule the roost. Our dive centre was run by an English guy, and he really looked after us. They run six boats, but the fastest is a big RIB which can get you to the prime hammerhead site in about 50 minutes, while the hardboats take twice the time.

The downside of taking the RIB was that there was no cover from the sun, so you had to cover up and whack on the suntan cream. Still, I preferred the RIB to the hardboats, which were desperately slow. Either way, when you head out for a day’s diving, you’re literally gone for the day – out at 9am and back at 4pm. They take packed lunches, so you can enjoy a baguette sandwich on a desert island between dives. My visit was during October and the visibility was good, but I’m told it’s very changeable.

The reefs are quite pretty and have all the usual suspects – parrotfish, triggerfish, damsels, nudibranchs, turtles and octopus all get a mention in my logbook. But, of course, my mind was on bigger things. The famous site was El Bajo, also known as Hammerhead City. It’s a sea mount which attracts sharks in schools, and I saw up to 60 at a time here. However, it’s very difficult to get near the hammerheads. Once they’ve clocked you, they keep away, and most of my sightings were really of silhouettes in the distance.

The Sea of Cortez is very rich, and we saw spinner dolphins and pilot whales on our way to and from Los Ilotes, a rocky reef which is a favourite with divers. Here, I had the time of my life with the colony of California sea lions, which are very friendly towards divers and love to play. We also saw manta rays at this site, so it was a pretty good day. But it got better.

On the way back, we heard over the radio that someone had spotted a whale shark from a microlight. By the time we got there, there were six or seven boats in the water, but the sharks were still hanging around. There were two of them – a female and a juvenile. It was a great day, but the problem with ‘pelagic’ destinations is that you can get lucky or you can spend a day doing difficult dives and see little. It’s a good thing the sea lions are usually around.

The Baja Peninsula is a fantastic place. It’s a vast, unspoiled finger of land jutting down into the Pacific. I got there by flying to Los Angeles, followed by a shorter flight on a Mexican airline called Aero California.

The resort centre at La Paz is a great place to stay. Our hotel was nice, but I always headed off to town in the evening, because the food and cerveza was much cheaper. It’s a pleasant place, with tree-lined boulevards and bars serving tequila cocktails. In all, it makes for a superb trip. I’ve been to some great places, and the Sea of Cortez holds its own with the best. p

As good as it gets - Sara McDonald

As good as it gets

Sara Donald, 31, is a BSAC dive leader and PADI Instructor living in West London. She visited Cocos Island on the Sea Hunter liveaboard, booked through Scuba Tours Worldwide.

The thing to bear in mind about Cocos is that it’s an extremely isolated, offshore destination. When I told my diving friends I wanted to go there, they said they didn’t want to come because the journey from the mainland to Cocos takes around 30 hours, and getting to the country itself is a fair trek. They all wanted to go somewhere easier, but I’d seen a video shot at Cocos and I was convinced it was going to be a diving trip I would remember forever.

It is quite a journey. I booked with Scuba Tours Worldwide, who sent me to Costa Rica via Miami. I spent a night at a nice hotel in the hills near the capital, San José, then I was picked up the next morning for a two-hour coach journey to the Pacific coast and the port of Puntarenas.

You can feel quite insecure when you’re a solo traveller, but as soon as I saw the liveaboard, I knew I’d scored. I was on the Sea Hunter, the largest of two boats which specialise in Cocos trips. It’s huge, with a massive dive deck and loads of home comforts inside. The guests were mostly Americans, which was fine as they were generally friendly and open to strangers.

The crossing was a bit rough. I chose to travel in July, when I was told there would be more pelagics, but big seas. They weren’t kidding. But I awoke to calm on the second day, and went outside to see that we had arrived and moored up in a sheltered bay. The island itself looks unlike anywhere else on the planet. It’s a large mountain covered in jungle, with flocks of boobies and shearwaters all over the place.

Of course, everyone comes to Cocos for sharks. On absolutely every dive, you see lots of little white-tip reef sharks, but I was there for the hammerheads. You can run into one or two anywhere around Cocos, but there are offshore sea mounts where you are guaranteed to see them in big schools. During my stay, the best hammerhead shark sites were at Alcyone and Dirty Rock. It seemed to me that during our dives the stronger the current, the more hammerheads there were.

It’s not a place for the inexperienced. You have to find a sheltered position in the rock and hang on while the sharks stream above you. They hate scuba bubbles - if you want to get close, you’ve got to hold your breath when they are near and stay away from other divers . It’s hardly textbook stuff, but that’s how it is if you want to see sharks. We also got a few manta ray sightings and, at a site called Dos Amigos, a group of ten mobula rays, which are like mini-mantas.

You can’t spend a whole holiday gawping at blue water in the hope of seeing a shark. Cocos is a great place to go if you like big schools of fish. I’ve never seen so many jacks and snappers in my life, and the schools are on every site. But the thing that really surprised me was the massed groups of spiny lobsters. They are everywhere and some don’t seem remotely scared of divers. My mouth was watering, but we weren’t allowed to take any.

It was a classic trip, but by the end of seven days I was ready for a rest. The diving at Cocos is high-energy stuff, and you pick up a fair few cuts and bruises over the course of a week. Sure, I could have gone to the Red Sea or the Caribbean and I could have had a great time in easy conditions with less time travelling. But I’ve been on those holidays, and you spend a week chasing shark encounters that you get on every dive at Cocos. For me, Cocos is as good as it gets.