Located on the eastern side of Baja California, La Paz is a great getaway dive trip for some wonderful diving. Jacques Cousteau called the Sea of Cortez “the aquarium of the world.” Club Cantamar is the place to stay! Pedro Aguilar and his family started the diving service in 1983 and this has now turned into Club Cantamar Beach Resort & Marina. The accommodations are quite nice and include standard rooms, suites, and small condos with an onsite restaurant. The marina is just a short walk away. There are spacious outdoor dive lockers to store your equipment at night or during non-diving days. Club Cantamar has five-day boats – three large dive boats and two pangas. In addition, there are three liveaboards that have the capacity for 18 divers in private cabins. Check out Club Cantamar Beach Resort & Marina’s full website for more detailed information.
There is no direct flight from the U.S. to La Paz. The easiest way to get there is to take a direct flight to Cabo San Lucas. Club Cantamar offers a private shuttle for about $100.00 to make the drive to La Paz. This is about a three-hour drive through some very remarkable mountain passes, river crossings, and beach scenes. However, I would not want to do this drive at night, as it is rather curvy in several places.
The best time to dive La Paz and experience the Sea of Cortez is between August through November when the water is warmer and clearer. Diving in the Sea of Cortez offers incredible biomass with great numbers of king angelfish, fish balls, jawfish, eels, and yellow surgeons that are seen on most dives. One of my favorite dive sites is diving with a huge sea lion colony just north of Isla Partida at a site called Los Islotes. The pups love to play and are very curious, but be careful of the big bulls – they are very territorial, especially during mating season. They like to guard their harems. If you like wreck diving, the Salvatierra and Fang Ming are both interesting and are home to an abundance of marine life
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