San Carlos Adventure Drive

That's a picture you want on your iPhone, San Carlos, BCS. This is an international dive road trip put on by our friends with the dive shop in Phoenix, Arizona, El Mar Diving Center which just celebrated their 50th with SSI.

This is a unique operation that affords southwest divers a corral reef Baja adventure dive road trip experience as a thing to do on a weekend. Half of the divers were getting their certification this weekend, there's easy and advanced dives all within an hour boat ride from the bar, er, I mean harbor.

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Getting There

This whole thing is lead with precision by Tonia and Vicky, your adventure dive squad leaders.

I've seen groups of people go to Baja with hopes of winning an off-road race that had less logistic planning than our dive trip caravan.

Every driver is briefed and each vehicle gets a travel kit with maps and two-way radios receiving regular status checks with Flo-Rida playing in the background from the lead vehicle.

This is a worry-free road trip that takes you door-to-door from the dive shop to dive shop and to your hotel room. El Mar operates a 32" Norman and a sister store in San Carlos.

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San Carlos

When in Baja, things are relaxed and all that's left to do is eat tacos, have a drink, talk about tomorrow's diving and have some fun with the local culture.

Day one of the San Carlos road trip adventure drive ends at dinner with new friends by sunset.

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The Diving
Walking onto the Piesquita is different than one of the local harbor boats simply because you just road-tripped, had beers and ate tacos with the owner, and your dive host. By the time you step foot on the dock, there's already inside jokes and you know it's going to be a good dive day.

This is the whole group including your dive guides, Captain and blogger not shown.

The dive briefing was as professional as it gets, I actually asked if someone paid extra for all of the detail that went into briefing El Mar divers. After the general dive brief, Tonia took her students to the bow for an even more detailed dive plan.

Vicky is a search and rescue diver at her day job and Tonia was given a j-valve handle on her pacifier... we were in good hands, but after I saw the slung bottle, I knew we had no reason to fear and went diving with electrical tape holding the mouthpiece to my reg.

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In the Water

Underwater you get a variety of things at every depth. It's an interesting environment due to the mix of warm water and cold water sea life.

We had sea lions diving with us every minute, very playful creatures that interact with you.

Seeing large intelligent animals underwater offers a unique experience

Our depths ranged from 20' to 80', no current, 40' to 60' of visibility with a water temp in the mid 60's.

Aside from the sea lions, there were green and yellow spotted moray eels, pin cushion sea stars, scorpion fish, schools of reef fish, grouper as well as other starfish and anemone.

The  diving down here offers schooling hammer heads and other exotic seasonal interactions.

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Winding it Up

There's night diving, shore diving and an entire El Mar GPS collection to explore down here in San Carlos. Our weekend included 5 tanks, drinks and snacks on board and quick boat rides back to the taco stand, I mean harbor.

The entire operation is planned down to the final toast detail with an awesome Baja sunset photo op.

This takes place with your toes in the sand, live music and blended drinks at sunset.

This is how you can spend a weekend adventure diving the Sea of Cortez, make new friends, have your hair pulled by a sea lion and spend a couple nights off the grid.

Thanks to El Mar Dive Center and crew for the story.

Santa Barbara Boat Trip

Dive and Photo has regular dive trips, both local and on the other side of our planet. Today we're talking about a regular local California boat trip to Santa Barbara Island aboard the Magician.




The way the schedule works for this dive trip is an evening boarding from San Pedro harbor, the old "Fisherman's Warf", the night before.

One way to do this is to gather up some of your dive buddies and pile into one of the seafood restaurants just behind the boat dock and eat something you don't have everyday.
You can pick any spot, load your gear onto a tank, stuff your duffle under your seat and find yourself an open bunk for the 3AM departure.

The ride out to the island is a couple hours long, and if you're up, you can watch the sunrise over your first dive site.

There's breakfast, coffee, juice, hot chocolate, cereal bars and tea offered from sunrise to sunset... after your morning cup of your choice and a snack, it's time for the first dive of the day.

We were jumping into epic California diving conditions to explore the kelp forest and interact with sea lions. The diving is mixed to accommodate both beginners and students as well as advanced divers. Depths on this trip ranged from 35 to 110 feet and one of the sites had a cave to explore.



We splashed into some of California's best visibility and were surrounded by wildlife on every dive. The boat crew did a fantastic job of getting us into clear water and on quality sites.
Don't forget your camera on these dive trips. Ludek brought back macro shots of these Nudibranches as well as other reef life and playful sea lions.


At the bottom you find California sheephead, lobsters, calico bass, garibaldi, sea bass, halibut and a host of reef fish.


Topside you get the opportunity to exchange in dive talk and get the latest input from Ludek or Robert on what gear is being tested, new items on the shelf and Dive and Photo only deals - such as free Nitrox demos, dry suit demos and exotic vacation travel packages.




The shop has a travel group and an interest list to be notified of upcoming local dive trips, call the shop to get the inside scoop on beach diving in Laguna, island boat trips or some of the best warm-water vacation diving in the world.