Hi All, not sure if this is the right place for this post, but it probably doesn't belong anywhere else.

My wife, two kids and I are on day 18 of a 30 day stay in San Carlos, Sonora, Mexico. If you never heard of it, it's a very nice dive and fishing destination and a retirement area for a lot of Canadian and US citizens on the mainland side of the Sea of Cortez. Its very small and mostly quiet. For more information you can visit:
SanCarlosMexico

Anyway, my wife gets a 30 day sabbatical once every five years from work. After visiting and diving here in March, she knew that this is where she wanted to take her time off. Personally, I have to work most of the time, but did take a couple of days off so we could dive with friends.

The diving over all is very good here, I would say. It's no Bonaire, but what is? The best diving is had at an island about 1.5 hours from the marina give or take depending on the boat that takes you there and the sea conditions. Local dive sites are also good and closer by boat with a few shore diving sites scattered about. The visibility is generally better at San Pedro.

Here is a link to a few of our pictures. I'm not the best photographer, but some came out pretty good:
http://picasaweb.google.com/bkwagner0/SanCarlosUnderwater?authkey=a1FI4hNr7ls

We've seen and played with the sea lions at San Pedro island. For some brief videos I shot with my digital point and shoot, check this link:
http://picasaweb.google.com/bkwagner0/SanCarlosVideos?authkey=992jktAvfFE

It makes me want to get a better video set up after shooting those.

I just wanted to share this with some of my fellow divers and Bonaire lovers.

-Brad

Brad, thanks! We have heard a lot about San Carlos, and have been researching and looking at taking a short trip there. I know that a lot of the dive shops take their OW students there for their check out dives!

Great pics, and I love the videos!

(Message edited by cyndelee on July 30, 2007)

Brad, that's a great report! Thank you for sharing. I think it's wonderful to hear about other vacation destinations

I want to go there..... I love the videos!!! Thank you for sharing!!!

Thanks all...

Kini yes, there are lots of dive shops that come here for OW, AOW and just for general trips, especially from AZ. Our first weekend we dove with our local shop doing our PPB and deep specialties. We have also managed to get on boats with two other AZ shops.

My pleasure, PegiSue. I wish I could have posted the longer videos, they a little better. Those sea lions are fast little guys and gals!

Another thing I want to add: the restaurants in town are really good too (again, no Bonaire, but what is?). We especially like Tequila's, Charly's Rock (great views and coconut shrimp) and the Marinaterra Restaurant. Also, we've enjoyed Rosa's for breakfast and lunch.

Another tip...we haven't done this yet, but apparently there is a large gathering of hammerhead sharks in the fall that is a popular dive experience. We may try to come down for that this fall.

Oh oh another thing...there have been two sightings of whale sharks during our stay! Not by us unfortunately, but once by someone on our dive boat last Saturday at the Window Rock dive site. We did get to see the picture they took. The divers were unsure as to what it was...everyone on the boat was quick to tell them! The dive boat cruised around for a few minutes before moving to the second site to look, but again, no dice for us.

-Brad

Thanks for posting your report Brad! I loved the Sea Lion videos. They look so beautiful and entertaining. Feel free to share with us anytime you want. We love trip reports and pictures!

Brad, we were even looking at property there one time! Glad to know you like it. Where did you stay? This is the place we have been looking at, it's a time share. We have an RCI time share that we were looking to space bank.

Can you recommend any particular dive shop?

http://www.tripadvisor.com/Hotel_Review-g151933-d282214-Reviews-Marinaterra_Resort_Beach_Club-San_Carlos_Northern_Mexico.html

Lisa, you're welcome!

Kini, We are still here actually. We are staying in a privately owned 3-bedroom condo that is part of the Marinaterra complex. Our condo is nice in general and we seem to be sleeping on a brand new pillow top mattress but needs some TLC. The owner, whom we've run into around the restaurants twice, is aware of some of the needs. I think she has recently bought the place. The property management company is called Seaside. They have been very accomodating and responsive to any requests.

As for the Marinaterra itself, the grounds are nice and so are the three pools. We've notice some what appear to be differences on the way some of the renters or guests behave themselves though. For example, on weekends parties seem to continue in the pool and not one bit of trash gets thrown away...there will be cans and cups scattered and pitched everywhere but the trash cans. Like there is an expectation that the hotel should clean up after them. We're diving a ton on the weekends anyway so it's pretty easy to avoid the area. Then during the week, the place is so quiet we seem to be one of the only groups here.

I'm not sure how your timeshare would work, if it would be in the hotel section or if there's another timeshare section between the hotel and the privately owned section. But one review I heard from someone on the dive boats was that he's been staying at the Marinaterra for 10 years and he's pretty sure he's been sleeping in the same rock-hard bed for all 10 of them.

Don't let any of this discourage you...we still love it here!

As for dive shops, we now have experience with three different ones:

Surface Time is great overall. Great people and boat crews and a fantastic instruction staff, Erica is the owner and is a PADI Course Director. But their boats are a little on the slow side, especially for a trip to the island.

Ocean Sports runs the Ocean Spirit, in our experience the fastest dive boat in the marina. Again, great staff...the boat crew watches our 5 and 9 year old kids while we dive. They give them snacks and take them swimming off the platform. (Of course they are handsomely rewarded for such outstanding, over the top service.)

We have used Gary's once. They seem good and the boat crew was very nice, but they would be my backup choice. You can link to each of their websites from the San Carlos link in my first post.

-Brad

Brad, thanks! I'm sending this link to the Husband I may be picking your brain a bit more real soon!

Kini, the "door" is open. Ask away...if there's anything I can try and check into for you, time permitting, let me know.

Thanks Brad!